Margaret Hamilton

            On Saturday morning I worked out the chords for the second verse and part of the chorus of “Chasseur d'ivoire” (Ivory Hunter) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday, I went down to No Frills where I got three bags of red grapes, two bags of cherries, three half-pints of blueberries, a half pint of raspberries, underarm deodorant, an oven mitt, and a large container of skyr. 

            The checkout cashier was new and extremely slow. By contrast the guy behind me was packing his groceries like lightning even before he'd paid for them. I was thinking that he should be working there. Outside it turned out that he'd locked his bike on the other side of the stand I'd used. He commented as he was freeing his velo, “Same cashier, same bike rack!”

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before lunch. I had Breton crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of raspberry lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Dovercourt. On O'Hara just north of my place I found some books in a box. I took Something Happened by Joseph Heller, although I might have it already, La Vie Devant Soi by Romain Gary, La Cantatrice Chauve by Eugene Ionesco, Les Cent Plus Beaux Poemes de la Langue Francaise, The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, and A New Anthology of Verse. On my way up Brock Avenue, I saw my upstairs neighbour Caesar walking south under the railroad bridge. I waved at him and he raises his cane in response. It was supposed to be warmer than yesterday but it seemed just as frigid on the way home. I weighed 85.9 kilos when I got back. 

            I looked for more aftermath footage of shock therapy to add to the video I'm making for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy” but the same old stuff is posted so I just edited the video of catatonic schizophrenia patients from the 1940s or 1950s. I cut it down to nine seconds of one particular patient but to correspond with the line “best of all it doesn't leave any scars” I'll probably use a similar clip to the one I used earlier in the video. 

            I went through file folder six of my writing in the top drawer of my filing cabinet and threw out several pages of handwritten text that I knew I'd already digitized. That takes care of the top drawer but I found out the second drawer is also stuffed with my writing. I'll put that drawer on hold until April. 

            I read a few more pages of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The sailor tells the story of his long journey into Africa to captain a riverboat only to find that it has sunk. 

            I had a poached egg, a hot Italian sausage and toast with a beer while watching the first two episodes of the second season of “The Addams Family.” 

            In the first story Wednesday's birthday is approaching and Gomez has written a play for the family to do to entertain her. It's basically Romeo and Juliet with the names changed. Morticia will play the lead female role Itt has been cast as the lead male. There is competition however as both Fester and Lurch want the part. Morticia and Gomez discover that Fester has locked Itt in a trunk and Lurch has put Fester in the iron maiden. With Itt back in the lead Gomez decides to hire a big director. Morticia asks him where he'll find one and he answers, “In the directory.” The director, Eric Von Bissell, who hasn't worked in thirty years, arrives with his agent. He doesn't want to direct the play until Gomez offers him $50,000 with a $10,000 tip. But the director finds Itt's voice incomprehensible and so Morticia works to help slow it down. She has him put marbles in his mouth and after he eats the first bunch she gets him to hold them in his mouth and he begins to speak like a Shakespearean actor. But Itt's voice change also causes him to become arrogant. Gomez calls in a big producer but the director leaves before he arrives because he used to work for him and his current situation is embarrassing. Morticia wants Itt to speak like his normal self but he can't until the producer arrives and immediately wants Itt to star in a monster movie and the suddenly insulted Itt returns to his normal fast and played backward voice. Lurch throws the producer out. 

            Bissell was played by Sig Ruman, who fought for Germany during WWI. He later moved to the States and became a favourite co-star of the Marx Brothers in several of their films. He was also featured in several WWII thrillers, such as “Stalag 13.” Ernst Lubitsch used him in many of his films, including “Ninotchka.”

            In the second story it's Morticia and Gomez's 13th anniversary. Morticia tells the children how she and Gomez met. Mama Addams and Morticia's mother Hester Frump wanted Gomez to marry Morticia's sister Ophelia Frump. Ophelia and Morticia are both played by Carolyn Jones but Ophelia is blond, exuberant, loves flowers and is an expert in judo. Gomez is asthmatic and has bronchitis and he doesn't want to marry Ophelia. But then when he meets Morticia it's love at first sight for both of them. She likes all the same things that Gomez likes and suddenly his sinuses clear up. We learn a bit more about the family dynamics of the show. Thing is Gomez's childhood friend and the family helper. Itt is Gomez's cousin while Fester Frump is Morticia's uncle. Fester's relationship is different than that presented in the 1991 movie. In that film Fester is Gomez's brother and therefore an Addams. Since Morticia and Gomez can't marry they each decide to shoot themselves together. But at the last minute Thing snatches the guns away. The kids ask what happened to Ophelia and Morticia says that's a story for another day. 

            Hester Frump was played by Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. She loved children and her first job was as a kindergarten teacher but after she became famous for her role in The Wizard of Oz children kept asking her why she was so mean. She started appearing on Mr Rogers to explain that the witch was only a character. She co-starred with Mae West and WC Fields in “My Little Chickadee.” She played Aunt Eva/Effie on the radio series “Ethel and Albert.” She starred on Broadway on several occasions. She was a regular in the 1960s on “The Secret Storm” and “As The World Turns.”