Kristen Wiig

            On Saturday morning I published both “A la pêche des coeurs" (To the Fishing Hole for Hearts) by Boris Vian and “Le Vide au Coeur” (The Empty Heart) by Serge Gainsbourg on Christian’s Translations. The next Gainsbourg song I learn will be “Enregistrement” and I sang along with it a couple of times to get a feel for it before starting to memorize it. It has a lot of words that end with “ique" such as "magnetique" and “electronique.” 

            During song practice my B string broke and I had a hell of a time changing it because when Remenyi recently changed it they somehow put the peg in the hole so deeply that I couldn’t get a grip on it with pliers like I’ve always been able to. I tried to pry it out and finally did so with a paring knife but ended up slicing the tip of my index finger. The bleeding stopped before I finally got the new string on. I shortened all the songs in my set so I could make up for the delay and finish before 8:30. 

            I didn’t bother going to the food bank this morning because I really didn't want to stand around for an hour in the cold, the damp and the snow. 

            In the late morning I removed everything from the top spice shelf above my stove and washed the wall from the ceiling down. I also washed the shelf and put it back. I still have to clean all the spice bottles and containers before putting them back and then moving on the lower shelf. 

            At midday I went out to the supermarket. Grapes must be out of season even in Chile now so I bought a bag of grapefruit. I also got a strawberry-rhubarb pie, a pork sirloin half, mouthwash, olive oil and vanilla bean ice cream. 

            For lunch I had Triscuits and cheddar. I put the rest of my bacon and one of the cartons of liquid egg I’d frozen last year in a baking pan and made a bacon and egg casserole to have later, maybe for dinner. 

            I did my exercises while listening to episode three, season two of The Goon Show. The sound for this one was again not very clear and they talk very fast, but I found the script on The Goon Show Site. The episode was called The Crazy People and it’s from February 5, 1952. It begins with a North American character named Hern played by Peter Sellers talking to Captain Pureheart played by Bentine. Hern wants to know if the Crystal Palace will make money. Pureheart asks, "Money? What's that?” “Oh, just an old American word.” “I hope the Crystal Palace will help do away with our poverty.” “Poverty? What’s that?” “Oh, just an old English word.” After the Crystal Palace is completed Pureheart tells a workman that they'll have to move the whole thing a few centimetres to the right. “Why?" "Because it's on my foot!" A man and woman are caught wandering around the palace and Pureheart tells them their behaviour is very un-British. The woman says, “We are not amused! Come Albert!" The Stargazers sing "My Liberty Belle.” Later someone sings the aria, “Ridi Pagliaccio”. Later there's a story featuring Sellers as Major Bloodnok. Bloodnok says he’s going to die with his boots on. "Why?" “Because I have holes in my socks." A messenger arrives with a letter and upon reading it Bloodnok cries, "Quick, shut all the lights off!” "Why? What is it?" "An electricity bill!” Bloodnok says, “You see these medals?" "What did you get them for?" "Ten bob the lot." Ray Ellington and his quartet sings Al Jolson's "Sonny Boy.” In a later story a movie is planned. Harry Chalkham played by Sellers says, "The female star has got to be Gladys Laverne." "But she's terrible!" "I know, but my wife says it’s got to be Gladys Laverne." “Who’s your wife?" "Gladys Laverne." "What is this drivel, this rubbish, this utter nonsense?" "This is the BBC Home Service." 

            I went through my notes on my performances of “le serpent qui danse” from my recording project of this last summer and re-listened to the ones that I’d said were not bad. Other than background noise they were all pretty good but I think the one from July 2 is the one I’ll edit and publish. I started a new project in Movie Maker and imported the video and the sound recording. I’ll start synchronizing them on Sunday. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood in a Bug”. 

            I created an album on Facebook from the photos that I scanned that were taken of my daughter and I at the Don Valley Art Club in the early 1990s. 

            I gathered a bunch of random black and white negatives from my files to start scanning in the near future. 

            I heated some of my bacon and eggs, plus a little stuffing and had it with a beer while watching “Wonder Woman 1984”. Actually the best action segment didn’t involve Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman but it was at the beginning when Diana was a little girl competing in the Amazon Games. 

            So in 1984 Diana works for the Smithsonian as a historian. There she meets another researcher named Barbara Minerva who has so little confidence that no one notices her. Barbara is investigating an artefact that is supposed to grant wishes but she doesn’t believe it. She wishes to become like Diana without thinking it will be granted. Diana wishes she had Steve back who died helping her save the world in 1918. The only person actively seeking the stone is Max Lord. Barbara begins to gain confidence, balance and super strength. Steve wakes up in the body of someone else and finds Diana. Max seduces Barbara and steals the stone from her. His first wish is to become the stone and at that moment the stone turns to dust. The stone is like the monkey’s paw that grants wishes but always takes something of equal value. Max begins to grant wishes and to take more and more power in return until finally even the president is obeying him. When Diana and Steve realize what Max is doing they try to stop him but Diana is getting weaker. She is losing her powers. Barbara has lost her humanity and wishes even further to become like a human cheetah. Barbara stands between Diana and stopping Max. Steve convinces Diana that she has to renounce her wish in order to save the world. Max gains access to technology that allows him to access every TV set in the world. He tells everyone to make a wish and they do but the wishes begin to conflict with one another. Ronald Reagan wished for more nukes and it caused Russia to launch its missiles. The world is on the verge of destruction and Max realizes that he could lose his son. Diana uses her truth lasso to attach to Max and via him to encourage everyone to renounce their wishes. All the bad stuff starts to disappear. Max renounces his own wish to reunite with his son. Barbara doesn’t seem to renounce her wish, probably because the producers probably wanted to keep the window open for her to return. 

            There is mention of a great Amazon warrior who held off the evil forces centuries before while Amazons escaped to Paradise Island. In the end a woman is walking through a crowd and a large, heavy pole is falling on some children. The woman reaches up one hand and stops it to save the kids. When the mother comes to thank her we see that the hero is Linda Carter, the TV Wonder Woman from the late 1970s.

            A couple of Wonder Woman things from the comics that were sort of brought out in this film are her ability to fly, or really, somehow ride the air currents. The other is that she has an invisible plane but in this story she just has the ability to make a plane invisible, which is not the power she’s supposed to have. 

            What they didn’t explain was how Wonder Woman can fly in 1984 but didn’t fly in the present with the Justice League. 

            This sequel was entertaining but not as engaging as the original. The premise of a wishing stone being the foundation of the entire story seems lazy. 

            This was the first time I’d seen Kristin Wiig outside of Saturday Night Live and I thought she handled her more dramatic character quite well.