George Petrie

            On Wednesday morning it was the beginning of the ninth day of this tiresome cold. It didn't feel any worse than yesterday but two days ago it felt like I was coming out of it and so now it feels like the virus isn't playing fair. 

            I memorized the chorus of “Jet Society” by Serge Gainsbourg and made some adjustments to my translation. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            I read some more of Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih. A much older friend of the narrator has with the blessing of the father of the widow of Mustafa, married her against her will. The result is that when he tries to consummate the marriage she kills him and then herself. The narrator returns to the village from Khartoum and enters the room in Mustafa's house that Mustafa told him holds the secret and for which Mustafa gave him the only key. 

            Rather than settle for the incomplete copy of “Modernism and the Primitive” by David Richards I did a search for it on the U of T library website. I found the essay is a chapter from The Cambridge History of Modernism. I found a download of that book from Library Genesis and started reading the full essay. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos before lunch. I had Ritz crackers and five-year-old cheddar with a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I bundled up and took a bike ride to Bloor and Ossington. The only precarious place was still getting around those two cars parked in the snow between College and Dundas on Ossington. It seems that the street is lower there than the concrete that holds the streetcar tracks. Further along there is no problem getting up onto that concrete part because it's almost level with the street. So once again I got off my bike and walked around the cars.

            I weighed 84.9 kilos at 17:00. 

            I got caught up on my journal at 18:30. 

            I finished reading Season of Migration to the North. Mustafa, after having driven several European women to suicide, became slavishly in love with one European woman who he married. But she treated him cruelly because her one desire was for him to kill her, which he finally did, with a knife in an extremely erotic manner. 

            I finished reading “Modernism and the Primitive.” The primitive was the main inspiration for Modernists. The Surrealists also sought the primitive. Apparently, Freud thought the Surrealists were fools. 

            I found and downloaded a pdf of Simon Gikandi's “Picasso, Modernism and the Schemata of Difference.” 

             There was a confrontation outside my window. I guess a motorist turning from O'Hara onto Queen had beeped at a cyclist and the cyclist was confronting the driver through the closed window demanding to know what the problem was. Then he mocked him by saying, “You can be aggressive but can't handle it when someone is aggressive back!” Then the cyclist moved his bike directly in front of the car and blocked it from getting onto Queen while the frustrated driver just kept honking his horn and the cyclist said mockingly, “I'm confused! I don't know what to do so I'll just sit right here!” When the driver tried to steer away he blocked him again. Finally, the cyclist started driving away but shouted, “Learn how to drive you fucking moron!” 

            I made pizza on a slice of Bavarian sandwich bread with sweet basil marinara sauce, a cut-up burger, and extra old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching an episode of The Addams Family. 

            In this story, Gomez decides to design and build a better old folks home with lots of athletic facilities and grounds, including a skateboard ramp. Meanwhile, they want to send Morticia's mother for two weeks to a beauty spa as a birthday present. But when Granny Frump comes to visit she gets Gomez's plans for the old folks home mixed up with the plan for her spa visit and thinks they are planning to put her away. She goes about trying to prove how much energy she has by doing everything around the house. But when she starts dressing and playing like a little girl they decide that maybe she needs retirement more than beauty treatment and plan to send her to an asylum. But then Granny Frump learns that she'd made a mistake and now when the director of the asylum Dr. Jonley comes for her she goes willingly because she thinks she's going to a spa. 

            Dr Jonley was played by George Petrie, who starred in the radio dramas, “The Amazing Mr. Malone,” “Charlie Wild Private Detective”, “The Adventures of the Falcon”, “Call The Police”, and “Philo Vance.” He appeared on 19 episodes of CBS Radio Mystery Theater and made 14 appearances on The Honeymooners. He played Eddie Haskell's father on Leave It To Beaver. He played the attorney Harv Smithfield on Dallas.