The Quatermass Experiment

            On Saturday morning I finished memorizing “A la pêche des coeurs" (Fishing for Hearts) by Boris Vian. I’ll start looking for the chords tomorrow and I’ll bet someone has posted them. I think almost every Boris Vian song I’ve worked on has had chords posted online. Serge Gainsbourg’s are not always posted if it’s a song that he threw together for someone else and there are a lot of those. 

            I worked out the chords for the verses, the chorus and the instrumental bits for “Rock n Rose” by Serge Gainsbourg. All that’s left is the bridge and maybe some more instrumental parts. 

            Around midday I headed out to the supermarket but stopped at the Vina Pharmacy to renew my steroid cream prescription for psoriasis on my elbows and knees. They have to fax the request to my doctor, so it’ll probably take a few days. I asked the guy at the counter when the post office was moving in to the store and he said next week. 

            At No Frills I was behind a guy on my way to the personal needs aisle and “Jingle Bell Rock" came on the speakers. "Oh no!" he exclaimed, "Not Christmas music!" I bought three bags of red grapes, a wedge of old cheddar, mouthwash, "power fruit" skyr (why would cherries, blackberries and blueberries be any more powerful than any other fruit?), Breton crackers, salsa, and potato chips. They didn’t have the plain kettle chips and so I just got some thick cut potato chips. 

            I had Breton crackers with old cheddar for lunch and a chocolate chip waffle with skyr. I worked on typing the notes I’d made on Marie de France’s Bisclavret and Margaret Cavendish’s “The Hunting of the Hare”. It’s too much of a jumble so far to share, but both poets use various techniques to predict early on what will happen later in the poem. 

            Outside there was a guy walking up and down Queen Street and ranting: “Jesus is gonna destroy you because you’re a fuckin asshole. Yeah so go home and suck your fuckin cock!” “How dare you traffic on my father and mother! Fuckin n****r!” “How are you? Want a blowjob?” 

            I made tortillas with basil pesto, salsa and cheap old cheddar. I had them with a beer while watching the first thirty two minutes of the 1953 British TV series, “The Quatermass Experiment”. The pesto didn’t go well with the tortillas. 

            In the story a private rocket scientist named Quatermass has sent an unauthorized rocket into space with a crew of three men. Quatermass has a US accent but he’s played by a British actor. He’s similar to Elon Musk in many ways but not appearance and personality. The ship is gone for longer than it should be and finally crashes nose down in the English countryside near London. Quatermass arrives and takes charge to get the crew out, but only Victor Carroon emerges. His wife Judith is there to greet him but all he says is “Help me”. Inside the vessel the other two men are missing. Their suits are connected to life support but nothing is inside. In crevices of the ship a strange jelly is found and a doctor who analyzes it says it is either comes human or animal in origin. Meanwhile Carroon seems catatonic and his skin and bone structure has changed slightly. His fingerprints are taken but they don’t match those in his files. In fact they don’t look like human fingerprints at all. Film footage is found of what went on inside the rocket. Quatermass, other scientists and the authorities are watching it when I stop watching. I think the version I’m watching was made into a movie length feature whereas the original episodes were about thirty minutes each and filmed live.