Mutation

            On Tuesday morning I finished memorizing “Monna Vanna et Miss Duncan” by Serge Gainsbourg and looked for the chords. No one had posted them and so I worked them out for the intro and the first line. The only singing is on the refrain “Hey Monna Vanna” and the rest is just Catherine Deneuve talking with music in the background. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before breakfast. In the late morning I sent an email to the registrar’s office asking for a solution to the fact that I owe almost $1000 in tuition because I thought I’d applied for the Noah Meltz grant for the fall and winter when it turns out it was only for the fall. I’m hoping for some kind of alternative bursary. 

            Around 12:30 I cleaned my kitchen counter and the sink, dials, and faucet. I used baking soda and it left a bit of a cloudy stain on the sink, so I’ll have to go over it again tomorrow. 

            I weighed 85.4 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon it rained and so I didn’t go for a bike ride. 

            I worked on my journal for yesterday.

            I got an email from the registrar’s office and the person told me it’s too late in the year for any bursaries to pay for the winter term of this year. She asked to know my financial situation and so I told her I am a low-income senior. Hopefully, something can be done. It seems to me that this problem is a mistake of the university and not mine. 

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

            I re-inserted the clip from Rosemary’s Baby in the Movie Maker project for the video I’m making for my song Instructions For Electroshock Therapy. It’s supposed to correspond with the part of the audio when I sing “Undress the patient and then lay them down just like a sacrifice” so that the audio of me singing “sacrifice” is synchronized after the clip with the concert video of me singing the same word. I think I’ve got it pretty much lined up but I’ll check again tomorrow if the Rosemary’s Baby clip needs to be shaved a bit more. Next, I have to add the other clip from Rosemary’s baby of Rosemary’s wedding ring being removed to correspond with the line, “To avoid any bruises let no metal touch the skin.” I’ll go back to look at my August journal entries before inserting the clip because I gave fairly detailed descriptions of what I was doing and where and when I was doing it. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last two honey garlic pork chops while watching two episodes of Astro Boy. 

            In the first story, Astro Boy is flying home when he sees a strange creature sitting on a branch. It looks part human but also part animal. He stops to talk to it but it runs away. He chases it but it evades him with the skill of a flying squirrel. It runs to a nearby building and Astro Boy follows. Inside a man calls the creature “Minute” and chastises him for having gone outside where there are germs. He puts Minute under a glass case and promises that someday he’ll be able to wander free but first must live in a germ-free environment. Minute shouts one word, “Earthquake” but the scientist tells him to go to sleep. But seconds later there is an earthquake. The scientist runs back and catches Minute’s case just before it’s about to fall. He asks Minute how he knew there would be an earthquake and he answers, “I just felt that way.” After the man leaves, Astro Boy sneaks into the lab, introduces himself to Minute, and says he wants to be friends, then he leaves before the man comes back. 

            Astro Boy convinces Dr. Elefun to come with him to visit the lab of Professor George Zingo. Zingo invites them in and shows him his experiments. He has manipulated DNA to make a four-legged bird, an elephant the size of a mouse, a fish with human hands and feet, a small gorilla with the strength of ten, a rooster with Zingo’s face, and finally he shows them Minute. Minute is the result of finding the most human qualities of animals. He’s part rabbit, flying squirrel, mouse, monkey, bear, and dog. Elefun tells Zingo that it’s wrong to make a creature like a person and then to put him in a cage. Zingo tells them to get out. But just then Minute calls, “Fire!” 

            That night there is a fire in the lab and Minute escapes. Astro Boy follows the firetrucks and puts out the flame, then he looks for Minute. Meanwhile Minute finds himself surrounded by vicious wild dogs. He instinctively fights most of them off but one grabs him from behind and is about to bite when Astro Boy rescues him. Minute says to Astro Boy, “Big black thing fall!” Astro Boy takes him to Elefun and Minute clarifies that the black thing will fall and explode on August 8. They are taking Minute to the Space Bureau when Zingo stops them and takes Minute back. At the Space Bureau the director says there is nothing scheduled to arrive from space on August 8 but a rocket from the Moon carrying uranium will arrive on August 6. 

            Meanwhile, on the Moon, the commander of the mining expedition decides to load the rocket to Earth with extra uranium so he can sell the extra and get rich. That causes a delay of two days. On the way back the overloaded rocket malfunctions and is abandoned. Now it is on a course to crash and explode on Earth. Astro Boy is sent up to stop it and Minute insists on coming along. Astro Boy can only stop the rocket by overloading the generator and exploding it in space. Minute is praised as a hero for saving millions of lives. Zingo allows Minute to be cared for in a hospital rather than his lab. 

            In the second story, Astro Boy and Mr. Pompus go to Balali for a demonstration of Dr. Blinkin’s Dream Machine, which supposedly can make it so robots can dream. Astro Boy meets Blinkin’s daughter Winkie. On the plane a man named Badream hears of this machine and wants to also come to the demonstration. 

            Astro Boy is put to sleep and the machine is turned on. At first Astro Boy is walking along a winding path that is suspended in empty space. Then he hears a girl scream and sees a giant beetle bug chasing her. Astro Boy fights with it and is knocked away but then grabs it by the tail, flies it high in the air, and drops it. The girl is Princess Pink and Astro Boy flies her home to her father’s palace. Her father King Pin is glad to have her back because she was lost. They’ve never heard of robots but Astro Boy says he’s a machine. Pin shows him his prized possession, which is a mechanical flying horse. He winds it up and Pink takes it for a ride but she is grabbed by the evil wizard Ali Badream on his flying dragon. Astro Boy tries to rescue her but is shot by a gun from the dragon and falls. 

            The dream switches to Astro Boy lying by a waterfall. A rabbit on a log is about to go over and calls for help. Astro Boy wakes and saves him. The rabbit is called Harry and he says Badream has a prisoner he wants to rescue and so Astro Boy helps him. In the prison is Hope, but she looks like Pink and Winkie. Badream is holding her hostage until her father brings him his magic music box. They rescue Hope but just then her father arrives. He refuses to hand over the box until Hope is safe but Badream pulls a gun and pushes Hope’s father down the stairs. Badream escapes in his flying mechanical dragon. Harry reveals he is a robot and gives Astro Boy the key to the music box. Astro Boy disables the dragon and it crashes. 

            The dream shifts to a train in the US southwest. He is riding with the girl but now her name is Charity. They are on their way to catch Badream and get back the music box. Charity’s father comes to ask if they are ready to get off in Cactus City. But Badream shoots a Gatling gun from his hotel window. Charity is in the open and he threatens to shoot her unless Astro Boy throws him the key, so he does. Badream uses it to open the music box and asks for the first of his three wishes: an escape balloon in which he flies away. Astro Boy flies after him and next Badream conjures a giant Indigenous warrior with a tomahawk to fight him in the sky. Astro Boy fights with the warrior and eventually throws him on top of Badream’s balloon. Charity says Astro Boy can have the last wish from the music box and he wishes to be a human being. 

            He wakes up in Blinken’s lab just as Badream is trying to steal the plans for the dream machine. Astro Boy blasts him with his rocket boots and saves the day but he wonders if he’s still dreaming. 

            I felt sleepy at 22:00 so I went to bed for an hour, then I got up and finished my journal, did the dishes, and got ready for bed a little after 1:00.