Chris Robinson

            On Thursday after midnight, I checked for bedbugs and found none. So it's been three days since I dug one unhealthy-looking small one out of a little hole in the wall. 

            I finished translating the final two verses of "Arthur, où t'as mis le corps" (Arthur, Where'd You Put The Corpse?) by Boris Vian, which ends with a seance: “Arthur, are you there? / I'm here guys! / Arthur where'd you put your corpse? / I've a new body guys! / Arthur, have you a heart? / I've got the king and queen of hearts, all the winning cards // We finally realized / that bastard Arthur had wound up in paradise / Holy shit Arthur!” 

            I finished working out the chords for “Cuti–réaction” (Skin Prick Reaction) by Serge Gainsbourg and uploaded it to Christian's Translations. 

            I had time to eat two apples and drink most of my coffee before leaving for tutorial. I left about five minutes later than last time but I was still the first one there. I moved the tables into a skewed position so I could move my table forward and leave room for people to get by behind me. But when people arrived they didn't really like the arrangement and each student straightened their own table out.

            Sarah went to a radon spa in the Czech Republic. Everybody got naked in the water including one of her former professors but not her. 

            Radon is the greatest cause of lung cancer after smoking but the spas are considered to present a low exposure because of time limits. The staff at the spas are exposed longer and have to be frequently tested. Most official health organizations are cautious about approving radon therapy. It's covered by health insurance in some European countries. 

            Our attendance question was, “What was your worst job?” My worst job was in Toronto in a textile dyeing place. It was minimum wage, hot and the smell of the chemicals was overwhelming. I had to climb down into the dyeing vats after they'd been drained to clean them out. Another bad job was when I had to work one day in a Winnipeg fur place. In the area where I was working I could smell ammonia in the air and I asked to be moved to another room. I refused to go back. 

            Hawthorne on the true woman. Harriet Jacobs's text is similar to Frederick Douglas but she uses different genres in combination: autobiography, sentimental fiction, Gothic fiction, domestic fiction, and romance. Consent was erased in slavery. Literal and figurative spaces of freedom.

            I mentioned the pinprick eye hole that gave her freedom while confined in the attic. Figurative freedom came when she was trapped in a sexual relationship with her master Dr. Flint. She created figurative freedom by getting pregnant by a chosen lover.

            Bartleby and preference. Bartleby the Scrivener presents weird intimacies. The employment relationship used to be master and apprentice in a family environment. Is it cold now? Resistance is clear for Jacobs but Bartleby's resistance is a puzzle. 

            Melancholy versus not unpleasant sadness. Freud wrote in 1918 on mourning and melancholy. Mourning is conscious while melancholy is unconscious. 

            I said, "Bartleby the Scrivener" is Dickensian. 

            At the end of “Bartleby the Scrivener” when it is suggested that Bartleby once worked in a dead letter office does it function as an answer? 

            I say, first of all it's presented as a rumour that he worked in a dead letter office and so it makes it less sure. Especially since it is considered by the lawyer who constantly got Bartleby wrong. It seems to me that when he says “ah Bartleby, ah humanity” it's more of a clue than dead letters. But there is that frequent reference to death and staring at a dead wall. Something is dead. 

            There is an unreliable narrator. Nothing makes it clear. Bartleby as a dead letter. Letter undeliverable and unreturnable. One can't return him. Bartleby makes the lawyer look at himself and respond. 

            Does Bartleby have agency or is he passive?” 

            I say his two phrases, “I would prefer not to” and “I'm not particular” cancel each other out. His choices are only to refuse while claiming he does not care what choices he makes. 

            In the end Bartleby's strike is not just a hunger striking but he is striking from all action.

            Nobody liked Moby Dick at first. That's ironic now. 

            Comparing US renaissance authors alongside Karl Marx. They wrote at the same time. Emerson and Thoreau weren't reading Marx. Bartleby questions the social condition. Bartleby is suffering from exploitation. 

            Relating to the end of Jakobs's text, Google “a man was lynched yesterday.”

            I rode up Queen's Park Crescent and as I passed Victoria College I was thinking of Albert Moritz. Just then I saw him for the first time in more than two years. His voice was low and hoarse and I asked if he has laryngitis. He said he had a throat operation related to his stroke. I thanked him again for his help with my manuscript and for helping me submit it to Exile. I said I hadn't heard from them yet but he said the process can be lengthy. He added that if it doesn't work out we can try other options. He left me because he didn't want the coffee he'd bought on Bloor to get cold before he got to his office.

            I rode to Yonge and Bloor and then back towards home. I stopped at Freshco on the way where I bought five bags of black grapes, two half pints of blueberries, a half pint of raspberries, a bag of potatoes because they were $2, a bag of kettle chips, five year old cheese, limeaid, skyr, spoon sized shredded wheat, french fries, canned peaches, a bag of naan, extra old cheddar for cooking, 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner and petroleum jelly. 

            I weighed 87.6 kilos before lunch. 

            I finished posting my blogs and then typing my tutorial notes at around 18:30.

            I cut up a whole chicken and coated the pieces with olive oil, salt, and paprika before putting them in the oven. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos at 19:00. 

            I read “Chickamauga” by Ambrose Bierce. A little boy has wandered away from his plantation and gotten lost. When he wakes he discovers an army of wounded men crawling to the water. He thinks it's fun because he does not understand. He marches ahead of them in the direction they are going and finds a burning house which he slowly recognizes as his own and finds his mother brutally murdered. 

            I read “Circumstance” by Harriet Spofford. A woman walking home at night is grabbed by cougar and taken up into a tree. To distract it from killing her she begins to sing, starting with dance songs but descending as she feels closer to being killed into deeply religious songs. She manages to engage the cat until morning when her husband finds her and shoots it. They walk home to find their cabin has been burned down by Indigenous people. So her being grabbed by the cat probably saved her husband and baby's life. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching the penultimate episode of the fourth season of Gomer Pyle. 

            In this story, Gomer is babysitting for private Riley and his wife who have to fly to San Francisco because Riley's mother is sick. They plan on returning before Gomer has to be back at the base in the morning but the planes are down because of fog and they have to drive, but then the car breaks down. Gomer calls Sergeant Carter to ask if he can be late but Carter insists he be there or be AWOL. So Gomer brings the baby. Colonel Grey is coming in a few hours for an inspection but Carter reluctantly allows Gomer to keep the baby in the duty hut until Riley returns. Gomer needs warm milk and strained potatoes for the baby and so Carter goes to ask Sergeant Hacker for those types of food. Hacker assumes that Carter has an ulcer but when he finds out otherwise he decides to sabotage Carter's hiding the baby from Grey. Hacker sneaks to the back of the duty hut and through the window takes the bottle away from the baby. When Grey hears the baby crying Gomer explains the situation. Grey says it's irregular but lets it slide and praises Gomer for helping out another marine. Carter decides to get into the colonel's good graces by also admitting to have helped with the baby but the colonel says that behaviour is excusable for a private but not a sergeant. Carter is in trouble and so his Hacker when Grey sees the baby bottle in his hand. 

            Private Riley was played by Chris Robinson, who wrote, directed and co-starred in “Catch the Black Sunshine” and “The Intruder”, and starred in “Ace of Hearts.” He co-starred in the series “Twelve O'clock High”. He played Rick Webber on General Hospital from 1978 to 1986. He was in the Vicks cough syrup commercials where he said, “I'm not a doctor but I do play one on TV.” Then he was convicted of income tax evasion but was allowed to act on “General Hospital” under a prison work release provision.