Ayesha Mansur Gonsalves

            On Thursday morning I finished posting my translation of “Poupée Poupée” by Serge Gainsbourg. I memorized the first verse “Chasseur d'ivoire” (Ivory Hunter) which seems to be about someone who dreams for a safe life of hunting lions and other beasts rather than dealing with ferocious women. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday, I spent about half an hour washing more containers from my kitchen shelves. I still have a few more to go before I take all the food down from the middle shelf and start cleaning that.

            While working I was listening to a documentary about Johnny Cash's prison songs and concerts and I learned something interesting. “Folsom Prison Blues” is musically a rip-off of an older song by Gordon Jenkins called Crescent City Blues and except for the references to being in prison for committing murder the lyrics are also very similar: 

“I hear the train a-comin it's rolling 'round the bend

And I ain't been kissed lord since I don't know when 

The boys in Crescent City don't seem to know I'm here

That lonesome whistle seems to tell me Sue, disappear 

When I was just a baby my mama told me, Sue

When you're grown up I want that you should go and see and do

But I'm stuck in Crescent City just watching life mosey by

When I hear that whistle blowin' I hang my head and cry 

I see the rich folks eatin' in that fancy dining car

They're probably having pheasant breast and eastern caviar

Now I ain't crying envy and I ain't crying me

It's just that they get to see things that I've never seen

If I owned that lonesome whistle, if that railroad train was mine

I bet I'd find a man a little farther down the line

Far from Crescent City is where I'd like to stay

And I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away.” 

            Jenkins sued Cash in the 70s but only got a $75,000 settlement on a song that's made millions. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon my internet connection went down. Shankar's network was there but I couldn't access it. I knocked on his door and he said he'd look into it. A few minutes later it was back on. 

            In the evening I took a bike ride. My knee was bothering me a bit and so I only rode as far as Ossington. On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I bought two bags of grapefruits, a half-pint of raspberries, two bags of kettle chips, a boneless pork loin half, two cans of fruit cocktail, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, baking soda toothpaste, shaving gel, and a box of baking soda. I weighed 87 kilos when I got home. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            In my Movie Maker project of making a video for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy” I inserted a clip from the 360 Club concert video of Brian Haddon singing the phrase “shock therapy” and synchronized it with the studio audio. I only have two closeups of Brian singing that line and so to avoid having them look the same every time, I tried different special effects on this one and settled for “edge detection.” That made Brian look almost like a cartoon and it was also very washed out, which I felt like it fit with the line just before it referring to fluorescent lights making the flesh look cold. I'll have fun using a different effect each time I put one of those two clips of Brian into the video. 

            I worked on my poem series “My Blood In A Bug.” 

            I worked on altering the unreadable graffiti in my photo “Anti Gravity's Rainbow” so that it spells something that makes more sense. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a piece of chicken while watching episode three of the fourth season of Star Trek Discovery. 

            The story begins on the USS Credence as the crew is about to ship a supply of dilithium. What looks like ninjas suddenly appear to steal it, but they are warriors of the Qowat Milat Sisterhood. One of the warriors says, “Choose to live” but the Starfleet officers choose to fight and one of them is killed. The Federation learns from Ni'var that the leader of this group of renegade warrior nuns is J'vini and this is the fourth shipment she's stolen. There was a tracker in the last stolen shipment so they know where J'vini has gone. Michael is given the mission on the Starfleet side and her mother Gabrielle, who is also a warrior nun is sent to represent the Qowat Milat. Saru recommends that Tilly come along to expand her horizons as she's been saying she wants to do. Gabrielle insists that Michael and Tilly carry swords instead of phasers. As they approach the source of the signal they are attacked by warrior nuns and one of the nuns is killed. The source of the signal is a moon but the signal is detected in a cave below the surface. They discover that the moon is actually a ship and that there is a population of a species of sentient beings in stasis. J'vini has chosen these people to be her lost cause as is the tradition of the nuns. J'vini appears and fights with Gabrielle but overwhelms her and holds a sword to her throat. Michael tells her that they can fix the ship and if the people are awakened from stasis her cause will be fulfilled. They are successful and J'vini surrenders to custody. Michael doesn't like the end result that J'vini is given over entirely to Ni'varian custody and is not being held accountable for the killing of a Starfleet officer. 

            Meanwhile Stametz and Book go to Ni'var to brainstorm with Ni'varian scientists. They reject his theory that the anomaly is a primordial wormhole because there is no evidence of tachyons. President T'rina offers a way to be sure since Book was a witness to the approach of the anomaly on Kweijan and if she sees it through his eyes she can recognize the presence of tachyons. He agrees to a mind meld and it is a good experience for him because he remembers a certain look that shows him his nephew loved him. But T'rina says there is no indication of tachyons. 

            Meanwhile Gray is about to be transferred to his new android body. The Trill guardian arrives and makes the transfer but nothing happens. Adira can no longer feel Gray's presence. They wait beside the body as a guide for his life to find its way there. At the end of the story their efforts pay off and Gray wakes up in his new body. J'vini was played by Canadian actor Ayesha Mansur Gonsalves, who went to Earl Haig Secondary, an art-focused high school in Toronto where she studied dance. I know the place because I used to model for art classes there. She studied at the Alvin Ailey Academy and later got a degree in film production in New York. After ten years in New York, she returned home to Toronto to work as an actor.