Emperor Georgiou

            On Monday morning I finished tracking down chords for “Ex-Fan des Sixties" by Serge Gainsbourg. I found three sets that were all in the same key, but the first set that I found yesterday seems to fit best. I established the chords for the chorus that opens the song and next I have to work out the transition to the first verse. 

            I knew that my Oscar Schmidt had probably been fixed and ready to pick up on Friday or Saturday but the streets had been to messy to ride my bike downtown. I called Remenyi at 11:00 to make sure and then got ready to leave with my Washburn to drop that off and pick up the old guitar. When I got there Harold once again reminded me that I shouldn’t string my guitar with a full length string because it creates extra tension and could have been what damaged the E string machine in the first place. I can find very few players in forums that say it creates a tension problem. Most people clip their strings for aesthetic reasons so they look neat when they are wound around the peg, but otherwise it doesn’t matter. Apparently B.B. King wound the whole string around his tuning peg. 

            I dropped off my Washburn and took the Oscar Schmidt home. I tuned it but the B string kept going flat like the Washburn. I’ll see how it works in a full song practice in the morning. 

            I had time to do the dishes before lunch. I had chips with salsa and yogourt. 

            In the afternoon I listened to and watched all my recordings of “Bad Girls and Naughty Boys” and settled on the one from July 3 to upload to YouTube. I edited it a bit by trimming the beginning but I’ll cut off end properly tomorrow with a fade-out. 

            I translated a few lines from “Les enfants du paradis” by Jacques Prevert and from “Les remparts du sud” by Boris Vian. 

            I had a potato, my last steak and some gravy while watching “Star Trek Discovery.” 

            Spoiler alert! 

            Hugh continues to try to find a solution to Philipa’s condition. Kovich tells him that she is suffering from a combination of being a time traveller and from being from an alternate universe. He suggests that the best solution is putting her to sleep forever. Hugh asks for a solution given all of his data and that of Kovich. The computer accesses information from the Sphere data and says there is one possible solution. It rests on a planet on the edge of the Gamma Quadrant. Saru says they can’t go there because they are needed against the Emerald Chain. But the admiral says that if he lets a crewmember drown his crew will not look at him the same way again. Michael and Philipa beam down on a desolate icy planet. They walk until they see the odd scene of a stout man dressed in a 20th Century suit, with a bowler hat, smoking a cigar and sitting in a Muskoka chair while reading a newspaper with the headline of Georgiou’s death. Near him is a large door. He says his name is Carl and he makes a few very bad puns about doors. He tells Philipa that her only chance is through the door but she might die anyway. Michael doesn’t want her to go but she steps through. On the other side she is fully dressed in the regal armour of the empress of the Terran Empire. All of the dark mirror versions of the crew of Discovery are there to greet her. This can’t just be a portal to Philipa’s home universe because she wouldn’t suddenly have different clothing. She has arrived also in the past before she killed the Michael Burnham of her universe. She arrives with her memories intact of everything she has experienced since leaving her universe and so she knows what is going to happen. She has also changed and she feels a compulsion to change her world to a less self-destructive existence. She knows that Michael and Lorca are plotting a mutiny but she now wants to try to save Michael rather than kill her. When Michael sentences Saru to be eaten Philipa intervenes and makes him her personal slave. She knows things about Kelpians that no Terran should know. She tells him to from now on be her eyes and ears. The assassination plot moves forward but Philipa knows what will happen and kills Stamets before he can stab her. She exposes Michael as a traitor but rather than killing her has her taken into custody. I wonder if all of this is just in Philipa’s head. 

            Carl seems like a figure similar in power to Q. The Muskoka chair suggests that, like Santa Clause, these mystical figures always have a connection to Canada.