Joy Ellison

            On Friday morning I had about half of “Mozart avec nous” (Mozart is with Us) and more than half of “Mélodie interdite" (Forbidden Melody) memorized. I should have the latter nailed down on Saturday morning and then I’ll start working out the chords. 

            In the late morning I did my laundry. After putting my stiff in the dryer I went home and my neighbour Benji was standing outside our building. He said that they say it is mostly people of South Asian descent like him that are getting Covid 19. He thinks that his people tend to have a diet heavy in starch and low in protein that weakens their immune systems. 

             On the way back I was standing on the corner across the street from my building and noticed that ours was the only place around that had pigeons lined up on the roof. I wonder what the appeal is. 

             I had kettle chips with salsa and yogourt for lunch. 

             In the afternoon I didn’t take a bike ride because I'd ridden my bike back and forth to the laundromat three times already.

             I got notice that I’d scored six out of six on my first Brit Lit 2 quiz. I was surprised because some of the other answer choices seemed like they could be true as well. I wonder if those would have also registered as correct. 

             I read “The Mark on the Wall" by Virginia Woolf. It seems to be written in stream of consciousness with a mark on the wall being the jumping off point and point of return. While trying to figure out what the mark is she thinks about many other things, such as how the world is run by men. Finally she learns that what she’d thought might be a nail was a snail.

             I read Woolf’s essay on “Modern Fiction”. She is full of praise for James Joyce, who had already written Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and had just published parts of Ulysses in a magazine. She says the most important thing for a novelist is honesty in the sense of writing what they feel rather than what they think is expected of them and she declares that Russian novelists have the characteristics of saints in that they care selflessly about others. 

             I read the first 55 pages of On Beauty by Zadie Smith. This is actually the last book on the syllabus for Brit Lit 2 and it’s a modern novel. 

             Kiki and Howard are a mixed race couple with three teenage children, two of whom were born in England. They live in a suburb of Boston. Howard is white and English and Kiki is from Florida and descended from slaves. Her ancestor inherited the old house they live in from someone she worked for and it’s been passed down to her. Howard had a brief affair but Kiki decided not to leave him. The oldest boy Jerome went through a Christian phase and now he does nothing but write poetry. The youngest is into the Hip Hop lifestyle and though born in New England he has acquired a Brooklyn accent. Not much has come up about the middle child Zora yet. 

             I had two small potatoes, two chicken drumsticks and gravy while watching Andy Griffith.

             In this story Mayberry’s own Scrooge: Ben Weaver wants to foreclose on Lester Scobey’s house because he missed one mortgage payment. The truth is he wants to use the property to build a warehouse. It’s Andy’s job to foreclose but he tries to stall as long as he can to save Lester, his wife Helen and their young daughter Mary from having to move out. Andy raises the rent money but Ben says that the law says that if one payment is missed the whole price of the property must be paid, Which is $750. Andy organizes a rummage sale to try to raise the money. At one moment a Mayberry citizen is asking about the price of an odd and unrecognizable item. Andy says $3. The man asks, “What is it?” Andy says, “If I knew that I’d have to charge you $5.” “Well that’s a bargain then! I always wanted one of these!” But the full amount has not been raised and the stalling time is over. Andy must foreclose at noon the next day. He decides the only solution is to be meaner than Ben. Andy tells Lester and Helen they have to leave everything behind and get out. Ben suddenly becomes the good guy and opposes Andy’s meanness, telling the Scobey’s they can stay after all. Ben even gives Lester a job at his department store. 

             The previous and first time Ben appeared was the Christmas episode and he was being mean to an entirely different family but they were all played by the exact same actor, actress and child actress. Mary Scobey was played by Joy Ellison, who continued to act in adulthood. She is now a highly successful dialect coach and has worked with Isabella Rosellini, Catherine Zeta Jones, Antonio Banderas, and Brad Pitt. 

             I hadn’t had dessert and coffee yet by the time this story ended so I watched another over yogourt and apple sauce with cinnamon. 

             In this story Barney is suspicious of a new farmer named Sam, who never talks with anybody. When Sam has ordered a large amount of medical supplies Barney thinks he’s got a criminal partner with a bullet wound holed up in his farmhouse. One night Andy gets a call from Sam and heads up to the farm. Barney thinks Andy is in danger and organizes a posse. Andy finds that Sam’s wife is about to give birth and the doctor is out of town. Andy says he’s delivered lots of babies and he sets to work to prepare for the delivery. When Barney bursts in with his gun he realizes his mistake but he also reminds Andy that he’s never delivered a baby before. Andy tells Barney not to tell Sam because he needs him to be calm. While Barney and Sam talk about their military service, Barney having worked in a military office on Staten Island during WWII and Sam having been to Korea, Andy delivers the baby. Sam names it Andy. The Country Boys with Andy Griffith and Clarence White appear at the end playing “She’ll Be Comin Round the Mountain” to celebrate the new arrival. 

            Speaking of dialect coaching, William Schallert played Sam and spoke a southern US accent that wasn’t the typical drawl that actors tend to put on. It sounded like it came from a specific area, although I don’t know which.