June Foray

            On Monday morning I worked out the chords for almost all of "Suicide" by Serge Gainsbourg, but I still need to finish the final line. I also need to rework my translation of at least one of the verses. I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning, I did my laundry. At the laundromat a woman about my age recognized me from 1998 when my daughter and her child both attended Parkdale Public School. We chatted about our negative experiences with the Toronto school system. I found out her name is Jocelyn. She was folding her laundry while I was stuffing mine into my bags. She said the woman who works there folds sheets perfectly but she's never been able to figure out how she does it. 

            I weighed 85.1 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta and when I got up, I took a bike ride downtown and back. When I got home, I realized that I must have only taken a siesta for half an hour because I was home an hour earlier than usual. I went to bed for another hour. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos at 17:15. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:05. 

            I reviewed nine videos of me playing "Time of the Yo-Yo" and "Le Temps des Yo-Yo" from June 26 to July 5. The problem in all of them is me not holding the Gm7 chord long enough. Starting in July, it looks like I made a conscious effort to hold it longer but the take on July 5 was the closest to being successful. 

            I downloaded a video that shows the parts of a shock therapy machine being described with the help of a pointing stick. I converted it to AVI and then imported it to Movie Maker to change it to the same format as my "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy" video project. I'll import it into the project tomorrow and copy it to the end of the timeline to edit it down to just the pointer footage. 

            I divided the hard copies of my poetry that were written between 1993 and 2000 into two folders. One folder, as best as I can discern, is from 1993 to 1996; and the other is from 1996 to 2000. 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and my last two chicken drumsticks with a can of Lug-Tread Lager while watching four Bugs Bunny cartoons from 1996. 

            In the first story, Witch Hazel returns. She is at home making a potion that is short one ingredient. She is also very obsessed with remaining the ugliest of all and so she keeps asking the genie in her magic mirror, who confirms that she is indeed the ugliest. But then the doorbell rings and it is Bugs Bunny trick or treating while disguised as an ugly witch. She consults her mirror again and this time he says that her visitor is uglier. She invites Bugs in and prepares tea for her guest, adding a prettifying potion to eliminate the competition. But when Bugs says he can't drink the tea with his mask on and takes it off, Hazel sees that her visitor is a rabbit and also remembers that a rabbit is the missing ingredient for her potion. She comes after Bugs with a machete, but he gets away. But then she dangles a carrot on a fishing line and after he bites it, she is able to reel him in. She ties him up and prepares to hatchet him but then tears well up in his eyes and Hazel begins to cry. Bugs asks why she's crying, and she says because he reminds her of her pet tarantula. Bugs brings her a cup of tea, which she drinks without thinking and it turns her into a beautiful young woman. She runs to her mirror and the genie finds her so attractive he jumps out of the glass and starts chasing her. She tries to escape on her broom, and he pursues her on his magic carpet. Bugs calls air raid headquarters to report a genie with light brown hair chasing a flying sorceress. 

            This time Witch Hazel was played by June Foray, who started doing radio voice work at the age of 15. By the late 1930s, she was starring in her own radio show called Lady Make Believe. She began appearing on Lux Radio Theatre and The Jimmy Durante Show, and other popular shows. This led to her recording children's albums for Capitol Records. She became the voice of Granny in the Tweety cartoons and also of Mattel's doll Chatty Cathy. She voiced Natasha Fatale on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. She became active in campaigns to preserve animated cartoons and won awards for both this and her voice work. 

            In the second story, the idea is that different hats change the wearer's behaviour. Elmer Fudd is a mild-mannered man in a derby until a hunter's hat is placed on his head and he goes wild for shooting rabbits. While he is chasing Bugs Bunny a truck carrying a variety of hats is crossing a bridge when the back door malfunctions and all of the hats fall out to be caught by the wind. Bugs is desperately trying to escape from Elmer when an army combat helmet with technical sergeant stripes lands on his head. Bugs begins to bark commands at Elmer, which he feels compelled to follow. He orders Elmer to march over a cliff. He falls into the water and comes up wearing a general's hat. He advances toward Bugs with a commanding air and Bugs runs away but then Elmer gets his hunter's hat back and Bugs gets the hat of a game warden, who confronts Elmer. But then Elmer has a pilgrim's hat and says he's just shooting turkeys for Thanksgiving. Bugs suddenly has a braided wig with feathers land on his head that is meant to represent a First Nations warrior. He grabs Elmer's gun and starts shooting at him. They both lose their headgear and Elmer grabs his gun back. Bugs runs across a highway and a pink bonnet falls on Elmer's head while Bugs gets the hat of a boy scout. Bugs crosses back over to help Elmer cross the road. The hats blow off and Elmer begins attacking with his gun again. Then Bugs gets the fedora of a gangster and tells Elmer he's in his territory and he's going to rub him out. But then Elmer gets a cop's hat and starts to arrest Bugs. Bugs hands Elmer $10,000 as a bribe but Elmer says, "How dare you try to bribe me." Then a judge's wig falls on Bugs's head and he sentences Elmer to 45 years. Then Elmer has a bride's veil and asks Bugs to marry him. A groom's top hat falls on Bugs's head and he says he would be delighted. They get married and Bugs carries Elmer to a little cottage saying, "I think it helps for a picture to have a romantic ending." 

            In the third story, Bugs reads of a bumper carrot crop in Tennessee and so he hops a choo-choo for Chattanooga. But on the freight car are two very hungry hoboes who speak in the voices of Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton from the Honeymooners. They invite Bugs for dinner and begin boiling water in a pot. They are holding clubs behind their backs and when they go through a tunnel there is a loud whacking sound but Ralph winds up in the pot. Bugs escapes to the top of the train, which is driving through LA smog and so vision is obscured. Bugs tells them, "I went that way" and the hoboes run to fall into a car full of alligators. They go after Bugs again on top of the train but wind up hitting a wall when the train goes through a tunnel. They are knocked off the train but as Bugs is taunting them while looking back, he hits the wall as well. 

            In the fourth story, a wrong turn at the Hollywood Freeway seems to have steered Bugs not only to France, but also to the time of Napoleon, and right into Napoleon's palace where he finds the emperor making battle plans with a three-dimensional table map. Bugs takes on the voice and manner of the race track tout from the Jack Benny show to advise him towards a different move. But Bugs takes some of Napoleon's snuff and sneezes to ruin the whole map. Napoleon calls for his guard to arrest him. The guard chases Bugs with a bayonet but is tricked into poking Napoleon. Napoleon forces his guard to take a bayonet in the rear as punishment. Napoleon finds Bugs playing with the map again and attacks him with his sword. Then Bugs puts on drag as Josephine and Napoleon asks her to dance. Bugs checks what's on the jukebox: "St Louis the 14th Blues" by the Count du Basie; "The Bastille Boogie" by the Duke D'Ellington; "Three Coins in a Fontainebleau", etcetera. Bugs begins to dance but then Napoleon sees the rabbit's tail and knows it is not Josephine. Bugs is captured and taken to the guillotine, but he escapes. While pursuing him, Napoleon is confronted by two orderlies from a mental hospital who say, "Here's another Napoleon! That's the twelfth one today!" and they take him away. Then Bugs says, "Imagine him thinking he's Napoleon when I am!" 

            I went to bed at about 0:45 and was too tired to search for bedbugs. Chances are I wouldn't have found any anyway.