Tara Rosling

            On Saturday morning there was snow on the streets, which meant that I probably wouldn’t be going downtown to drop off my Washburn and pick up my Oscar Schmidt because it would be too messy to ride a bike with a guitar and risk wiping out. 

            I also wasn’t going to stand in the cold, wet snow to line up at the food bank, but then I was considering not going again at all until the spring. I’ve only got another nine days before school starts and so why make myself uncomfortable during my holiday? 

            I finished posting my translation of “Enregistrement" by Serge Gainsbourg and memorized the first two verses of his “Ex-Fan des Sixties.” Actually there is only one verse left and two of them are lists. The first one name drops several famous bands that broke up and the last one lists rock stars that died. I should have no problem nailing this down on Sunday morning and starting to work on the chords. 

            In the late morning I went out to No Frills where the grapes were again too soft but it looks like cherries are in season in Chile. I got five bags of cherries, a pint of strawberries, a half pint of raspberries, a pack of chicken legs, mouthwash and shaving gel. Even when cherries are the same price as grapes they are cheaper because they are so much lighter. 

            When I got home there was still time before lunch to take all the spices from the shelves above the sink and to put them on the new top spice shelf. I transferred some of the spices to already marked but empty containers. I must have most of the spices that exist in the world on my shelves. 

            I looked through my notes on “Le temps des yo-yo” and my translation “The Time of Yeah Yeah Yeah” from this summer’s recording project and it doesn’t seem that there is any version of these songs I can upload. I was weak on the Gm7 chord most of the time. Since then I've been working on pressing harder and I think in the next set of recordings there will be some good renditions. 

            I watched the recordings of my performances of “Villaines filles, mauvais garcons” and settled on the one from July 4 to render and upload. 

            I grilled three burgers from the ground beef I bought at Metro and had the biggest one on a Montreal bagel topped by barbecue sauce, mustard, relish and salsa. I had it with a beer while watching Star Trek Discovery. 

            Spoiler alert! 

            Frankly, although this story had a couple of interesting elements, it was generally pretty lame. After being demoted Michael is not sure if she wants to stay with the Federation. She’s tempted to take off with Book and travel together. She checks in with Tilly about the data from the black box of some ships that were lost in The Burn. They learn that the explosions were not simultaneous. She brings this information to the admiral and he informs her that there is another collection of data about The Burn called SB-19 that is in possession of the Ni’varians. He tells her that Ni'var is what used to be called Vulcan and that it changed to Ni’var centuries after the Romulans settled there and formed a joint society with their former enemies. It was Michael’s brother Spock who brought the two peoples together. The admiral decides that if anyone can get the SB-19 data from the Ni’varians it is Spock’s sister. Meanwhile Saru asks Tilly to be his new Number One. She goes to ask Stamets about it and he says it would be weird taking orders from her. When Discovery enters orbit of Ni’var they are greeted by president T'Rina who is honoured to meet Michael because of her relationship with Spock. But she denies the Federation access to the SB-19 data. The Ni’varians are convinced that they caused the Burn but that the Federation pushed them to do so by demanding they continue certain warp drive alternative research which they felt was too dangerous. Michael invokes an ancient Vulcan debating challenge that the president is bound not to refuse. Michael is to argue her point before a quorum and she is assigned an advocate from a Romulan sisterhood that looks after lost causes. This sisterhood appeared recently in Star Trek Picard. Michael's advocate turns out to be her mother Gabrielle Burnham. Michael debates with the quorum and then her mother seems to go against her, saying she is not being honest. Michael becomes honest and more emotion, confessing her own doubts but I guess she convinced the president of her sincerity. Frankly this was way too easy and I didn’t find her argument that the Federation can be trusted with the SB-19 data very convincing so it’s hard to believe a bunch of Vulcans and Romulans would. Michael is given the SB-19 data. The crew encourages Tilly to say yes to Saru’s offer. 

            T’rina was played by Canadian actor Tara Rosling, who graduated from the York University theatre school and has worked in film, television and theatre in southern Ontario for quite a while.

    There sure are a lot of Canadians working on Star Trek Discovery.