To be Useful is to be Invisible

            On Friday morning I finished posting my translation of “Ballade comestible” (Edible Ballad) by Serge Gainsbourg. Next, I need to try to track down the lyrics to his song “L’ethylique” (Ethanolaholic).

            I weighed myself three times before breakfast. The first time the digital scale said I weighed 87.2 kilos and the second and third time it said 85.8 kilos. 

            I worked on my essay. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. As I was riding up Brock Avenue and stopping at the College light, another cyclist passed me on the left and called out, “On your right please!” On the way home I stopped to pee at The Horseshoe Tavern. I didn’t have to go that bad, but I thought it was better to be safe than sorry. As I was locking my bike the urge increased to a more ur-gent degree. There seems to be a pattern for me with keys and locks and needing to pee. I don’t know where it comes from since I barely ever saw a key or a lock until I left home in my teens. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos at 17:45. 

            I worked on my essay, looking for evidence in the novel Untouchable that the protagonist Bakha does not exist to others while performing his assigned function. When useful he is invisible and when not he comes into being. He is further made visible by wearing clothing that does not fit his function.

            For dinner I had a salad of avocados, tomatoes, cucumber, a scallion, a black jalapeno, and lemon juice with a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching an episode of Astro Boy. 

            This story begins with Inspector Gumshoe and Officer McLaw on patrol when they see a man collapse on the street. He is in a coma and McLaw says it’s the fourth case like this in four days. Astro Boy arrives and asks if he can help but Gumshoe doesn’t trust robots and thinks it might not be a coincidence that Astro Boy is at the scene of the crime. 

            Later Astro Boy overhears an old man talking to himself and saying, “Neither man nor robot caused this.” When Astro Boy approaches him, he throws his cane at him and tells him to forget he saw him, and walks away. The man forgets his cane, which has the name Dr Cool on it. Astro Boy recognizes the name of the director of the Blackburn Observatory and decides to return it to him. Then the police get a tip that Astro Boy is behind the mysterious collapses and that he is on his way to the observatory. 

            When Astro Boy arrives at the observatory, Dr Cool welcomes him and invites him in. But unknown to both of them a tiny robot fly on the floor says, “Astro Boy is walking into my trap.” As Astro Boy is talking with Dr. Cool the old man collapses and a fly flies away. Just then the police arrive and arrest Astro Boy, but as an officer is taking him into custody the cop also collapses. Astro Boy sees a fly flying away from his body and Astro Boy follows it. After a meandering chase, Astro Boy catches the fly and takes it back to the observatory. There he encounters a robot fly named Bobo who says he can’t catch him. Bobo runs and enters a larger identical robot named Regular Bobo. Then Regular Bobo enters Big Bo, who enters Bigger Bo, and finally they are all inside of Biggest Bo. Astro Boy and Biggest Bo fight and Astro Boy leaves Biggest Bo defeated. 

            Biggest Bo is found by his creator Mr. X and The Brotherhood of Xes. They take him back to headquarters and fix him. Mr. X tells Bo to go feed the flies. The flies are the poisonous horse flies that Mr. X found by the cobalt bomb testing site, and they plan to use them to take over the world. Meanwhile, Biggest Bo is by himself lamenting the fact that he has to be a bad guy when he wants to be good like Astro Boy. 

            Astro Boy takes the horsefly he caught to Dr. Elefun who studies it and says it’s a mutation. Then he gives a fairly sensible explanation of how species mutate. They go to the observatory to see if there are any more of the horseflies there and find them inside the telescope. Mr. X and his men show up with guns that shoot poisonous flies, but each fly comes out dead. Then Bobo comes out and says he fed them all DDT because he wants to be a good robot, like Astro Boy. Bobo tries to fly away but Mr. X shoots him with a ray gun. Astro Boy rescues the injured Bobo and Elefun and then defeats Mr. X and his Brotherhood. Gumshoe arrives to find them unconscious and lined up. Astro Boy is sad about Bobo being hurt but Biggest Bo tells him he and the other Bos will fix him. 

            I got very sleepy while writing this review and went to bed with my clothes on at 22:30. I slept for an hour and dreamed that I was doing some kind of investigation when suddenly the sink in my living room started overflowing. I was on the floor trying to mop it up with a towel when the phone started ringing and I thought it must be my landlord calling to shout at me about flooding downstairs. But then I heard my daughter’s voice on the phone and I picked it up. She was between 10 and 13 years old and had gone out to visit people but had gotten lost. I was glad she got through to me but then the line went dead and I was saying, “Hello?” out loud in my sleep. 

            I got up, finished writing my review, wrote about this dream and then went back to bed at 0:30.