Meg Wyllie

            On Monday morning I finished working out the chords for “Chasseur d'ivoire” (Ivory Hunter) by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through the song in French and started singing it in English, making some adjustments in my translation. I'll have it finished tomorrow and upload it to Christian's Translations. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            I sent an email to Sarah Howden telling her that we needed to talk about the extremely unfair essay mark she gave me. She got back to me fifteen minutes later saying that I should address specific questions or issues that I have about all the notes and feedback on the essay and review all of the notes and comments. Then indicate the specific areas I've been unfairly evaluated. Then “we could then meet over zoom to discuss in reference to a grading rubric.” It looks like I've got some work to do and some arguing to prepare for. I hope this isn't going to eat too much into the study time from my new course. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I put on an extra layer of shirt, pants and socks before taking a bike ride. I rode to Bloor and Dovercourt. When I got home and peeled off my layers I saw that I'd absent-mindedly put on sweat pants over my sweat pants under my pants before going out. No wonder my legs felt so tight. I weighed 87 kilos when I got home. 

            In the video I'm making for my song “Instructions For Electroshock Therapy” I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio at the point where I sing “shock therapy” one more time before the instrumental. But I extend the last syllable of “therapy” much longer in the studio, so I'll probably cut out the part where my mouth closes and just move to the part where Brian and I are shown to be playing. I'll deal with that in April.

            I reviewed all of Sarah's comments and feedback on my essay. Her overall comment does not offer a clear explanation as to why I would get such a low mark. I could show her similar comments for A- essays. There is also nothing in your feedback to indicate where I lost marks or how many, so there is no way to cite specific points of feedback. Other than circling “He the baggage” which was clearly a bad error on my part when I'd meant to write “He carries the baggage,” and perhaps pointing out the one-sentence paragraph that I wrote, there is nothing in her feedback that could not have been written by someone else to indicate why another essay might have earned an A– rather than an A. In my experience of writing essays at U of T since 2008, another marker, such as most professors, would have looked at my paper in a more objective way and given me a much higher mark. I sent her an email telling her that. 

            I read another ten pages of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The narrator is taking his riverboat up the jungle river towards Kurtz's camp. He has to travel extremely slowly and carefully to avoid tearing the bottom of the boat . Suddenly they are attacked from the shores with arrows and spears but after he blows the boat whistle the attack stops.

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork while watching two episodes of The Addams Family. In the first story Gomez is insulted that he only has to pay $85 in taxes on his house. He goes to complain to the mayor but the mayor wants to charge him even less. Morticia gets the idea that Gomez should run for mayor and so a campaign is begun. A reporter comes to interview Gomez and introduces himself saying, “I'm Brown, from the Sun.” Gomez says, “You look it!” Gomez gains a lot of support because people think that the absurd things Gomez says are meant to parody the status quo. The mayor is about to concede when he finds out that the required 5000 names that Fester and Mama gathered for Gomez were taken from gravestones. This renders Gomez's campaign invalid. 

            In the second story Itt comes back from a trip and the Addamses give him a sheepdog as a welcome back present. Suddenly Itt starts losing his hair and wants to kill himself. Fester uses his chemistry set to develop a hair growing formula. He grows a full head of hair on a banana and a beard on a family portrait. Then he gets hair himself and finally a bouffant on top of Itt's already hairy head. Morticia and Gomez have some money to give to charity and they invite Mrs Dragwater from the welfare society to come to receive the donation. When she's there Fester comes with his new hair and confidence and begins to flirt with her. She is charmed but when she sees Itt she runs away. Later it is found that Fester's formula is only temporary and everything including Fester loses the extra hair. Itt finds out he wasn't going bald but rather his dog was shedding. Fester has lost confidence but Mrs. Dragwater calls to to say she has to resist him and she's gone back to her bald husband. 

            Mrs Dragwater was played by Meg Wyllie, who appeared on almost every TV series of the 50s and 60s. She played Mrs Kissel on “The Travels of Jamie McPheeter.” She was also the first Star Trek villain, the Talosian Keeper in “The Cage” pilot episode, but someone else did the voice. She was in the Batman episode “The Black Widow Strikes Again.” She played three characters on “General Hospital” and five different characters on “The Golden Girls” throughout its history.