Robot Politicians

            On Thursday morning I finished memorizing “L'avant-guerre, c'est maintenant” (The Pre-War is Happening) by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords, but the only ones offered for the song are by Chordu and Planete Partitions. Chordu and Chordify use an app to detect the chords for just about any song one could search for, but I don’t like them because they detect every sound in a song and give each one a chord. Planete Partitions merely offers the chords for sale and I’m certainly not going to pay for them. I started working them out and figured out the intro and the first line. I might have the whole song done by tomorrow. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            I worked on my essay from 10:00 to 11:00 writing about the way that Bakha’s realization that he is an Untouchable is described with imagery of pregnancy. It had penetrated him and instantaneously developed to a “quickening” which is the moment halfway through pregnancy when the fetus begins to kick at the walls of the womb. It is as if Bakha is pregnant with his own untouchability. Or the Untouchable that he understands himself to be is pregnant with the unborn and unfulfilled Bakha waiting to come into being as someone with no being. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before lunch. I made guacamole with my last avocado and cilantro and ate it with kettle chips. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. It was another fairly warm day for April. I stopped to pee at The Horseshoe. The bartender was someone I hadn’t seen there before. She seemed colder than the others. As I was walking past the bar to the washroom she said, “Hi?” I explained I was just going to use the washroom and she just kind of gave me a disapproving look. 

            On the way home I stopped at Freshco. I noticed this time that two cashiers were not wearing masks, and one of them, Katerina smiled at me when I came in. I bought five bags of green grapes, a pint of strawberries, a half-pint of blueberries, three vine-ripened tomatoes, a pack of fresh salmon, a pack of breakfast sausages, a pack of bacon, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, two cans of peaches, a jug of orange juice, and a container of Folgers Black Silk coffee. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos at 17:50. I asked for a meeting with Apala to discuss my essay and she said we could meet on Friday at 13:00. I asked where she wanted to meet and she said she’d send me a Zoom link tomorrow. I don’t want to meet on Zoom and requested that we meet in the real world. In a general email, she offered her students in-person meetings if we preferred, so hopefully, that also meant me. 

            I got caught up on my journal at around 19:00. 

            I worked for about an hour on my essay. 

            I had a boiled potato and steamed lima beans, spinach, and scallion with margarine while watching an episode of Astro Boy. 

            This story was more complicated and interesting than usual. It begins with Astro Boy receiving a visitor who is only the bottom half of a robot. He says he is Mr. Knobby Knobody and he and his people need Astro Boy’s help but he can’t divulge why yet. Since Astro Boy is so famous he must travel in disguise as Knobody’s upper half. Astro Girl provides a big coat and a hat to complete the disguise. As they are walking they pass Mr. Pompus and Astro Boy says hello. Pompus doesn’t quite recognize Astro Boy’s voice but it sounds familiar and the robot’s footprints have an unfamiliar hallmark. As a detective, Pompus decides to investigate. 

            Astro Boy and Nobody board a plane for the Land of Goshen, which is the only country to have ever elected a robot as president. Pompus has followed them on the plane. After they arrive, enemies throw a bomb at Astro Boy and Knobody and then shoot ray guns at them. They escape in a car. Pompus jumps in a taxi and tells the driver to follow that car. But the cabbie is an enemy agent and Pompus is kidnapped. He is taken to a palace where he meets Prince Uply. 

            Meanwhile, Knobody takes Astro Boy to the presidential residence where Knobody is reunited with his upper half. He now formally presents himself as the presidential secretary and then introduces Astro Boy to President Ditto. Ditto explains that while most humans were glad to vote for a robot president, there are some that resent it and have formed a rebel group against it. 

            Prince Uply tries to persuade Pompus to convince Astro Boy not to help the president but he refuses. So Pompus is tortured by being placed in a pressure box full of rocks. The box is closed and water is poured in. Each rock is half sponge and half concrete and they expand when they are wet causing Pompus to be in danger of being crushed. After a while of excruciating pain Pompus is removed from the box for now. 

            Uply appears before Astro Boy and Ditto on a video screen. Uply shows that he has Pompus and threatens him harm if Ditto does not resign. The presidential palace is attacked by several robot monsters that have crab claws and shoot steam. After Astro Boy destroys them Knobody announces that the president has been abducted. Astro Boy follows the rocket carrying Ditto to an island in the ocean where he finds Pompus has been tied to a cross that is booby-trapped with high voltage electricity. If he tries to take him down Pompus will be electrocuted. But Astro Boy blasts the wires and frees Pompus. Then Astro Boy is attacked by Uply’s robot vultures but after destroying them he is low on power. He has just enough fuel to carry Pompus to Nobody’s ship and then he falls to the bottom of the ocean. He is recovered and recharged but is still unconscious. Pompus has to call Dr. Elefun for directions ion how to repair Astro Boy. 

            Meanwhile, we learn that Prince Uply is the creator of Ditto. Uply wanted to be president but he had given too much intelligence to Ditto, who knew he could be a better president. Now Uply operates on Ditto and removes his electronic brain, making him Uply’s slave. He orders Ditto to schedule an announcement on national television that he is resigning and instating Uply as president. But now that Astro Boy is recovered he goes to the TV station and has himself made up to look like Ditto. Astro Boy delivers a speech restating Ditto’s democratic ideals. Uply and his men raid the TV station to stop Ditto but Astro Boy defeats them all. Ditto’s electronic brain is restored and now Uply repents and says he will from now on be on Ditto’s side.