I finished the first draft of my translation of “Le régiment des mal-aimés” (The Regiment of Broken Hearts) by Boris Vian. But I need to rework at least the first verse because I hadn’t grasped the meaning right when I started. It seems to be telling the lovers of soldiers who have died in war to move on.
I tracked down the lyrics for “L’ethylique” (Ethanolaholic) by Serge Gainsbourg, but since the Gainsbourg.net site doesn’t allow highlighting and copying, I had to transcribe the whole song. That took me almost an hour and then I managed to translate most of the first verse. The song was written for Jacques Dutronc to sing but it’s about Gainsbourg and his drinking in the third person.
I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast.
I listened to Bon Jovi’s first album as I’ve started going through their discography. So far, the only thing outstanding is the guitar work of Richie Sambora. Everyone else in the band is pretty conventional and Jon Bon Jovi himself doesn’t really have a unique voice. The lyrics are pretty lame and fall into three categories: “Baby come back”, “Baby I’m leaving”, and “Baby stay with me.”
Around midday, I went down to No Frills for the first time without a mask in two years. I was one of less than a handful of people without one. I think one employee in the produce section didn’t have his face covered.
I bought seven bags of grapes, three bags of oranges, two packs of grape tomatoes, several vine-ripened tomatoes, a pack of mini cucumbers, three bunches of scallions, three lemons, more than 25 avocados, and a jug of orange juice. Mostly because of the avocados and grapes, my bill was $128.10. Hopefully all that stuff will last me to the end of my fast next Friday.
I got back to my building just after David unlocked the door. He offered to carry one of my bags up the stairs, so I gave it to him. That was nice, especially since it was a very heavy bag.
I weighed 86.7 kilos before lunch. I had avocados, grape tomatoes, a green onion, and lemon juice with a glass of Garden Cocktail.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor, and on the way back stopped to pee at The Horseshoe Tavern.
I weighed 86.5 kilos at 17:30.
I worked a fair amount on my essay.
For dinner, I made a salad of avocado, tomato, cucumber, scallion, grape tomato, and lemon juice with a glass of Garden Cocktail. I ate while watching an episode of Astro Boy.
This story begins with a big robot arriving on the street before Astro Boy and Mr. Pompus and demanding that Astro Boy come with him. When he tries to grab him Astro Boy gives him a judo flip and he lands some distance away. Astro Boy and Pompus go to tell Dr. Elefun, who pulls out a big book listing types of robots. The matching type is the XYZ145 which was built 100 years ago to serve as a weapon of war against an invasion from space and each one had a bomb inside. They were built in a factory at the bottom of the sea but after the war their creator Dr. Bushy Tenbetinker was ordered to destroy them. Dr. Elefun decides that Astro Boy should go with the robot to find out if there are more XYZ45s.
The robot returns for Astro Boy and explains he is from the Kingdom of the Sea. Astro Boy agrees to go and then the robot calls in three robots with bow ties and top hats to sing the robot welcome song. I couldn’t make it out so it might have been in Japanese. Then the robot says he just received new orders that Elefun and Pompus are to come as well. The robots shoot transparent and flexible but impenetrable coverings that look like plastic around each of them to hold them prisoner.
They travel in a ship to a super modern city at the bottom of the sea, entirely populated by XYZ145 robots. They are released from the coverings and taken to see King Tobor Nan, who is also an XYZ145 robot but speaks with a non-North American accent. They are taken on a tour of the city and then Astro Boy is separated from his human friends.
Elefun and Pompus are placed in a room where everything they ask for is automatically provided. But when they try to leave they hit a transparent wall. Then they see on the other side of the wall various animals. When they look up they see thousands of robot spectators and then they realize they are being kept like animals in a zoo.
Meanwhile the first robot asks Astro Boy to join them in overthrowing the humans and taking over the Earth’s surface. Then the same three robots with bow ties sing the robot battle song, which is exactly like the robot welcome song. Astro Boy offers an alternative to war. He says he will challenge their most powerful robot to a contest and if Astro Boy loses, the humans will surrender but if he wins the robots will have to try to be friends with the humans.
In a big stadium the battle takes place. It starts with a math contest, which Astro Boy wins. Then they each have to invent something from a pile of junk. Astro Boy builds a spaceship while the robot builds a weird-looking pile of junk that collapses. Then the robot angrily attacks Astro Boy. Astro Boy pulls the antenna from the robot’s head, which is like the pin of a hand grenade for the robot bomb. They have thirty seconds before he explodes and Astro Boy warns that he won’t put the pin back in unless the robot promises to be friends with humans. At the last second the robot he agrees.
Then the king appears and reveals that he is really Dr Bushy Tenbetinker, the human inventor of the robots. He says he couldn’t destroy the robots a hundred years ago when ordered because they were all his friends and so he disguised himself as a robot and created a kingdom. So now there is peace.
But for several episodes, we’ve been told this is the year 2000. If the robots were created 100 years ago it would have been 1900. Something must be off in just how far in the future this show is supposed to be.
After dinner, I felt sleepy and so I went to bed for an hour before getting up and writing my review.
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