Jean Hagen

            On Thursday morning I finished memorizing “L’aquoiboniste" (The Whatsthepointist) by Serge Gainsbourg and started looking for the chords. I found a couple of versions but I’ll look some more on Friday before I start checking to hear whether or not they fit. 

            A couple of crows stopped for a rest on the wire across the street. The ones that I see in Parkdale always travel in pairs and these two sat about three metres apart. The one on the right did all the talking and constantly cawed while they were sitting there. The one on the right also took off first. The other one waited a stubborn minute and then followed. It’s interesting that they fly fairly far apart as well and only in the same general south-westerly direction. The quiet one meandered a little more. I wonder if it’s the same couple that I’ve seen stop there every few months for years. I’ve never seen them flying east so I’m curious if they are the same couple and if they take a different route coming back. 

            Around midday I went to Freshco. There were cherries and so I got seven bags. Most of the grapes were soft but I found a couple of bags that were fairly firm. I bought a pint of blueberries, Bavarian sandwich bread, kettle chips, five year old cheddar, three bags of milk, two cans of peaches, two containers of Greek yogourt and a jar of hot salsa. 

            I had chips, salsa and yogourt for lunch.

            I didn’t take a bike ride in the afternoon because I’d already ridden to the supermarket, but besides that the streets were still too messy after the storm of two days ago anyway. 

            My TA had yet to post our assignment and since I’d done all the required reading for Brit Lit 2 there was nothing to do but start over. 

            I began re-reading Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen but this time out loud. I read up to chapter 8 and then my beard started annoying me so I took a break and shaved.

            I have rarely in my life shaved without showering afterwards and hardly ever used a razor in the late afternoon and so it seemed weird doing so but I felt better. 

            I was over a quarter through the novel before dinnertime. Reading it again didn’t make me like the book much better but I did appreciate some subtleties that I hadn’t noticed before. If I were stranded on a desert island however with nothing to read but the complete works of Jane Austen I would use the pages to start fires. But if it was the complete works of Virginia Woolf I would look for dry leaves to burn instead. 

            I had a potato, a chicken leg and gravy for dinner while watching Andy Griffith. 

            In this story, Andy, Floyd, Barney and Opie are just packing their stuff in the sheriff’s car after a day of fishing when a new convertible comes speeding past. Andy gets everybody in the car, turns on the siren and pursues the vehicle, clocking her at 120 kph in a 64 kph zone. Andy stops a woman who is dripping with both charm and privilege. She is clearly used to getting her way and is surprised when Andy wants to giver her a ticket. She demands to see the justice of the peace and so Andy takes her back to the courthouse and introduces himself as the justice of the peace. He tells her the fine is $10 but she accuses him of setting up a speed trap in order to bilk drivers and so he charges her with contempt of court and adds on another $10. She continues to argue all the way up to $60 but Andy generously lowers the fee to $25. Miss Crowley however is indignant and wants a real trial. Andy says she’ll have to wait one day in jail for the Mayer’s Court and she agrees. The law states that a female prisoner requires a matron and so Andy appoints Aunt Bee. Miss Crowley proceeds to charm everyone, especially the witnesses. She tells Barney he looks like Frank Sinatra, she gets Floyd to comb her hair and tells him he’s an artist and even gives Opie a baseball autographed by the New York Yankees. In court no one can now remember if Miss Crowley had been speeding or not. The mayor dismisses the case. Andy congratulates her for having cheated justice and turned his own deputy against him. She feels bad and so after being released she deliberately takes off at an illegal speed, causing Andy and Barney to go after her. When they stop her she pays the $10 fine on the spot, apologizes for the trouble she’d caused and pays an extra $25, even though she is not legally required to do so. 

            I never thought of it before but Don Knots really did look like a young Frank Sinatra, in a weird way. They were both very skinny. 

            Miss Crowley was played by Jean Hagen, who made her first film, debuting as a femme fatale in Adam’s Rib. She co-starred in The Asphalt Jungle, was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in Singin in the Rain. She played Danny Thomas’s wife in the first three seasons of his sitcom and was nominated for three Emmys but got bored with the part. From then on she made mostly guest appearances on shows. 

            I read more of Northanger Abbey and go up to a third of the way in.