On Wednesday morning I finished looking for the chords for “Mozart avec nous" (Mozart Is With Us) by Boris Vian. There was only one version posted, so I'll try them to hear if they fit.
I finished posting my translation of “Dépressive” by Serge Gainsbourg and started trying to memorize his “Velours des vierges” (Velvety Virgins), which is written in the style of a traditional folk song. But the version by Jane Birkin, for whose album he wrote the song, has this annoying delayed echo effect and so as soon as I’m trying to figure out a line, her echo is repeating it halfway through and it throws me off. Those kinds of effects were very much a 1970s obsession. I found a non reverberating rendition of the song however by Élodie Frégé and she’s also a much better singer than Birkin. I will use her video to learn it.
I took a siesta at noon.
I had sliced tomato with salt and pepper on toast for lunch.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride. It was messy and puddly but not slippery after yesterday’s storm. I was surprised that Maple Grove was clear when that little side street is usually clogged up in the middle for a few days after a snowfall. On Brock there was a guy walking in shorts, but he had gloves on. I went to Ossington and Bloor.
When I got home I took my layers off and then realized that I’d forgotten to get beer at the liquor store. I put a few layers on again and went back out. I was suddenly limping because my ankle felt sore although it hadn’t been hurting before my bike ride.
I re-read the first 65 pages of On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Some things are making more sense the second time around. I also accessed an online version of E. M. Forster’s Howard's End and found that with a change of character's familial connections and a change of era, the Smith book really does follow a deliberate but loose parallel with the Forster novel.
I had beans and toast for dinner with a beer while watching Andy Griffith.
In this story Andy and Barney both go to Raleigh to ask for extra funding for equipment for the sheriff’s office. There is no mention of the fact that they’ve left not even a deputy in charge of law enforcement in Mayberry for two days and Barney serves no practical purpose on this trip whatsoever. Andy is told that they can’t have more money because there are so few arrests. Andy suggests that they seem to be saying they should stop preventing crime and start letting it catch up with them. Meanwhile at the hotel Barney’s imagination is running away with him and he sees criminals where there are none. A woman takes a box of very expensive jewels out of her safety deposit box and then he sees a man in black follow her. Barney doesn’t realize that the man is actually Bardoli the hotel detective. Barney sees a man talk with Bardoli and it turns out that he’s a crook named Hasler being given a warning by the detective but Barney doesn’t hear this part. He approaches Hasler and warns him about Bardoli trying to steal the jewels of a woman on the fourth floor. Hasler tells Barney he’s a newspaperman and that he’ll help Barney catch the thief. Meanwhile Andy takes a tour of police headquarters and while being casually shown their catalogue of mug shots he recognizes having seen Hasler at the hotel. Barney and Hasler go to the woman’s room. Hasler tells Barney to check for wall safes behind pictures and then he goes in the woman’s bedroom and steals the jewels. When Bardoli enters the room Barney locks him in the closet, thinking he’s caught the thief. As Barney and Hasler are leaving the hotel for Hasler’s “newspaper” Andy stops them and catches Hasler with the jewels. He lets Barney take the credit because he’s happy he’s going to get his funding after all.
The woman with the jewels was played by Ottola Nesmith, who from the silent era in 1915 until her death in 1969 appeared in more than a hundred films and television shows. In the late fifties she hosted a horror show on a Los Angeles TV station.
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