Sara Berner

            On Thursday morning I memorized the first two verses of “Strike” by Serge Gainsbourg. There are two more verses so it’s possible I’ll have it nailed down tomorrow. 

            One would think that after a month of intense practice of some of my songs I would play them better, but that does not seem to be the case. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday, I finished cleaning the radiator at the eastern end of my kitchen. Since I still had a clean bucket of soapy water I used it to wash the top, side and front of my refrigerator. Then I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up all the paint chips that had fallen on the wooden floor around the radiator. I used several brushes to sweep the chips out of the cracks between the floorboards. I finished the job with the vacuum cleaner, but then when I wanted to use it to clean a little more of the cracks in the kitchen floor, it shut down. I think it overheated and will probably work next time I use it but I really need a new vacuum cleaner. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was a sweltering day, but a good breeze blew to take the edge off. I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought five bags of cherries, a pint of strawberries, bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a larger pack of cheaper extra-old cheddar for cooking, skyr, two bags of kettle chips, mild salsa, Basilica sauce, and Sunlight dish detergent. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:55. 

            I reviewed four videos of me playing my song “Megaphor” from July 4 to July 7. On July 4, I did it three times and two of them were pretty good except for being off on the B chord near the end. On July 5 it was pretty good twice until the end when I hit the B chord wrong both times. On July 6 it seemed I was getting better at playing the body of the song but tended to still screw up the ending. On July 7 I did it three times but each time at least one hit on the B chord was off at the end. 

            Using a variety of sources I tried several times to download a video containing the image of the Vietnamese monk who burned himself to death in the lotus position in 1963, but 4K Downloader said it couldn’t parse it. I don’t know if it’s a censorship issue. 

            It was too hot to use the stove, so for dinner I had kettle chips, salsa, a cold chicken leg, and some ice tea that I brewed yesterday. I ate while watching four Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1948. 

            In the first story, Bugs is floating on the ocean in a barrel. On the barrel are the signs “Help” and “SOS” but inside he seems to be having a pleasant time. He’s reading Esquire, eating carrots, and singing the Harry Owens song, “Where the Trade Winds Play.” Bugs is floating towards the island of Bingzi Bangzi, the land of the ferocious apes. The apes are shown relax-ing and reading books such as “The Apes of Wrath.” But in one hut a female ape is complaining to her husband Gruesome that the stork has yet to visit them. Gruesome just growls ferociously and grumbles, “Kids!” The female goes down to the shore just as Bugs’s barrel is floating up. She looks inside and thinks that the stork has finally delivered a baby to her. Bugs tries to tell her that’s not the case but when she starts to cry he decides to play along and let her believe he’s her baby. She dresses Bugs in baby clothes and takes him home to meet his father. When Gruesome sees Bugs he tells his wife he’s taking junior for a walk. Then Gruesome tries to get rid of Bugs. He throws Bugs high in the air but doesn’t catch him when he comes back down. Bugs says, “Can we try it again my way?” and then he hits Gruesome with a shovel. The two face off like two apes about to fight but then it turns into a conga dance before Bugs knocks a coconut on Gruesome’s head. There is a chase and Bugs is pretty good at swinging from vine to vine and from limb to limb. But finally, Bugs reaches the edge of a cliff and he is cornered. Gruesome grabs him and jumps on him and throws him to the ground until Gruesome collapses. Bugs says, “I wore him out!” 

            In the second story Bugs is getting ready for date with Daisy, but in the den next door his rival Casbah has the same intention. They emerge from their holes side by side but Casbah has a bigger bouquet, so Bugs goes back and gets chocolates; Casbah goes back to getter an even bigger box of bon bons; Bugs gets a diamond ring; Casbah gets a necklace. They go back and forth, each time getting bigger gifts until Bugs gets an anvil and drops it on Casbah’s head. Bugs gets to Daisy’s place first and finds she’s gone shopping. He hears Casbah coming and he disguises himself as Daisy. He flirts with him on the love seat but sets a mousetrap for when he walks his fingers too close. Bugs serves him an exploding carrot. Casbah tries to grab and kiss Bugs and while holding him off he asks the audience, “Do all you girls out there have to go through this?” Bugs says he’ll kiss him if he closes his eyes, then he puts lipstick on a bathroom plunger and shoves it onto Casbah’s face. He loves it. Then Bugs hangs Daisy’s dress from a fence post and places a spherical bomb on top. He paints a female face on the bomb and puts a wig on top and lights the fuse. Casbah begins to kiss it and it explodes, but that seems to put him in ecstasy. But Casbah becomes wise to Bugs and begins chasing him. Then Daisy comes home but Casbah thinks she’s Bugs in drag and he hits her with a vase. She chases him away and Bugs has her all to himself. But as they are on the couch, Daisy sees a box of carrots and takes one. But they are the exploding carrots. He kisses her just after she eats it and she thinks the ex-plosion is from his kiss. She exclaims, “What a man!” 

            In the third story, Bugs is being forced to become the first astronaut to land on the Moon. He resists until he sees the rocket is being loaded with tons of carrots. But after he lands on the Moon, Bugs is out walking around when a rocket from Mars lands. From the ship emerges Marvin the Mar-tian and he proceeds to light the fuse of a missile that is aimed at the Earth. Bugs asks him what he is doing and he says he is going to destroy the Earth. Bugs steals the explosive device and so Marvin sends his green dog after him. The dog takes the bomb that looks like a stick of dynamite in his mouth, Bugs says “Give me that!” The dog says “Oh no I won’t!” Bugs says “Oh yes you will!” This is repeated until Bugs reverses it and says, “Oh no you won’t!” That makes the dog insist on giving Bugs the bomb. Then Bugs disguises himself as a Martian mailman and says, “Special delivery from Mars.” Marvin thinks it’s another bomb for his missile, but it’s attached to wires and a plunger and Bugs ignites it. It blows the Moon from a sphere to a crescent and Bugs, Marvin and the dog are hang-ing onto the lower corner. Bugs calls to Earth, “Get me out of here!” 

            In the fourth story Bugs is a lab rabbit and living a luxurious life. But then the scientist wants to use him for a demonstration of switching Bug’s brain with that of a chicken. The auditorium is filled with scientists and Bugs thinks he’s supposed to entertain them. He tries dramatic performance, magic tricks and song and dance but he gets no reaction. When Bugs realizes what is happening he runs away. After a long chase, the scientist gets him with laughing gas. A helmet with wires attached is placed on Bugs’s head and another on the chicken’s head. But we see there is another on the scientist's head when he pulls the switch and Bugs has cut the wire to his own helmet. Now the scientist has the chicken’s brain and the chicken has the scientist’s. 

            In the “Hare Splitter” cartoon, the voice of Daisy Lou was done by Sara Berner, who studied drama at the University of Tulsa. After graduating she was working in a department store but got fired for imitating a customer. She moved to New York and worked in a millinery that made costumes for Broadway. There she began to study her customers’ dialects. In the late 1930s, she toured with an all-girl Vaudeville act and did impersonations of famous female stars. On the Jack Benny Radio Program, she played Jack’s girlfriend Gladys Zybisco and the telephone operator Mabel Flapsaddle. She played Mrs. Horowitz in “Life With Luigi”. Helen Wilson on “Amos and Andy” and an Italian housekeeper on the Jimmy Durante Show. She voiced several female characters in Warner Brothers cartoons. She played Jimmy Stewart’s neighbour in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”. Eddie Cantor considered her to be the greatest impersonator and dialectician of all time. When she was being interviewed she would constantly change accents. 

            For the fourth night in a row I didn’t find any bedbugs.