The Western Gaze

            On Monday morning I worked out the chords to the verses and some of the chorus of “Le Vide au Coeur” (The Empty Heart) by Serge Gainsbourg. I have my exam on Tuesday morning so I might be able to finish the chords for this song on Wednesday. 

            From 9:30 on, except for taking time to eat lunch and take ninety minute siesta I spent about nine hours consolidating my Canadian Literature lecture notes with the lecture slides. Man was there ever a lot of bullshit about things like “the western gaze" in this course! 

            I got up to halfway through the October 20th lecture before it was time to eat dinner. 

            I had a potato, a pork chop and a glob of gravy and decided to take a break from studying. While eating I watched Andy Griffith. 

            This was probably the best story so far because it was weird like the Twilight Zone only funny. A stranger gets off the bus in Mayberry who no one has ever seen before but he proceeds top greet everybody by name and even asks them about certain problems that only a neighbour would know they had. He even knows which of a mother’s identical twin babies is which. He’s creeping everybody out and Barney thinks he's a foreign spy. Andy finds Ed Sawyer peculiar but that isn’t against the law. Ed has been trying to buy the gas station that’s for sale but the owner he's too weird. Ed has been persistently ringing Lucy Matthews’ doorbell to no avail and finally comes to Andy for help. He declares that he loves her even though he's never met her. Lucy bursts in to file a complaint against Ed. Finally Ed tells Andy that he was in the service with a man from Mayberry and the stories that he heard made him fall in love with the town. Ed had no family when he was discharged and in his New York room he subscribed to the Mayberry newspaper and learned everything about everyone. When he saw in it that the gas station was for sale he thought it was his opportunity. When Ed leaves Andy he is swarmed by angry people telling him to get out of town. Andy comes forward and explains the situation, chastising the citizens for not being proud to welcome someone that loves their town so much. Finally Lucy tells Ed she'd be happy if he called on her and everyone else comes around as well. It was resolved a bit quickly but it wasn’t a bad story. 

           Lucy was played by Marlene Willis, who was in “Attack of the Puppet People" for which she also sang the theme song and "Rockabilly Baby". I studied until about 0:30 and went to bed.