Joanna Moore Again

            On Thursday morning I finished working out the chords for “Le velours des vierges" (The Velvet Virgins) by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through it in French and English and then uploaded it to Christian’s Translations to start editing it for blog publication. 

            In the late morning I took a bike ride to Ossington and Bloor and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. The red grapes were very cheap at $2.19 a kilo but they were all too soft. The red globe grapes were sitting in the refrigerated fruit section with the red grape sign under them at the above price. I pointed it out to the guy stocking the fruit and vegetables and he told me it was a mistake and he took the sign down but since I’d seen that price they would have to honour it for me. He told me to tell the cashier that Jake told said it was okay. I grabbed seven bags of the globes, two pints of strawberries, two cans of peaches, dentil floss and Sunlight dishwashing liquid. When I got to the express checkout the manager came over and told Catarina to honour the seedless red grape price for the red globes. Catarina commented as she has before that I really like red grapes. She told me again that she prefers the sour green ones. I said she must like white wine too but she said she doesn’t. 

            Before going home I went past my place to the Lucky Supermarket to buy plantain chips. There was a sign hanging from the ceiling just inside the store saying to leave bags and carts at the counter, but when I put my bag in front of her the woman at the counter told me I could take it inside. I got two large bags of the hot and spicy plantain chips. The place seems to have been under new ownership for the last year or so. The previous people in charge were friendly enough but this woman is exceptionally nice to everyone. At least one of the main male employees is Sikh so I wondered if it’s a Sikh owned business. 

            I had a can of British style baked beans with salsa and plantain chips for lunch. 

            I did a third reading of “The Natural History of German Life” by George Elliot. These observations of peasant life as being more communal compared to the individuality of the upper classes are still from outside. They smack of a “they all think alike” mentality. It’s not entirely untrue that there’s more group think among rural people who are deeply rooted in cultural traditions but it’s also true that some extremely independent thinkers, like for instance myself, come out of those kinds of cultures. 

            I had three potatoes with gravy for dinner while watching Andy Griffith. 

            In this story Andy has a new girlfriend named Peg and things are going great until Andy finds out Peg is rich. Barney tells him that he should dump her because the rich and poor are like oil and water. He suggests that when rich people come to a small town it’s because they’re bored and it’s like a kind of Roman holiday for them. Andy doesn’t listen but when he decides to take Peggy into Raleigh and treat her to a French restaurant, he feels out of place while she seems in her element. The thing is though that it was Andy’s idea to take her there and she would have been just as happy skipping stones by the lake. But after that date Andy begins avoiding Peg. She tries to call him but he doesn’t call her back. Finally she comes and reminds him that they have a date scheduled but he asks if they can postpone it. She angrily tells him not to put himself out. Andy feels bad and he goes out to the lake that night to think and skip stones. He finds Peg there and she confronts him. She tells him he’s a snob for not wanting to date her because she’s rich. She says that the night they spent together by the lake was better than any time she spent in Paris. Andy realizes he made a mistake to push Peg away and they come back together. 

            Peggy was played for four episodes by Joanna Moore. She had a rough childhood starting from the age of seven when her parents and sister died as a result of a car accident. She was under the care of her feeble grandmother for a while but then put up for adoption and was adopted by a wealthy family. She got married and divorced at sixteen, won a beauty contest in Georgia and then went to Hollywood. She got work on television and acted in film noirs and westerns. Her first co-starring role in an A picture was The Last Angry Man. She went deaf in the early sixties but an operation restored her hearing in one ear and she started working a lot in television. She married Ryan O’Neal in 1963 and gave birth to their daughter Tatum the same year. Joanna fell into alcohol and drug addiction after her divorce from O’Neal and Tatum, who was now financially successful, supported her.