Dave Kahn

            On Tuesday morning I started translating "J'ai pas d'regret" (I've No Regrets) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished memorizing "Norma Jean Baker" by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords and found a set that I started transcribing. I'll finish that tomorrow and search for more. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I tried to complete the Peer Review assignment on Peer Scholar. I was able to read one student's review of my essay but when I went to answer the questions about my response, some of the number scales didn't match the questions. One question asked on a scale of one to seven how many negative emotions I felt from reading the review, but the scale was from 1 to 100. Another question only offered the option "Strongly Disagree" and I couldn't change it. Once all the boxes were filled the "Save" button wouldn't work and so I couldn't move on to the second peer review. I emailed the professor about it and she sent a message to everybody to hold off on the peer reviews until she could fix the bug. 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was cold enough to wear winter gloves and so I put mine near my backpack when I got home. I also better get new batteries for my flashers because in a few days it's going to start getting dark before my bike ride is over. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 17:10. 

            I was caught up on my journal just before 18:00. 

            Since this is Reading Week and there was no Medieval Literature class at 18:10, I read the Corpus Christi Play that is scheduled for next week. That only took about half an hour and then I spent most of the rest of the three hours working on my essay, "Grendel is a Rebel": 

            In the poem Beowulf, Grendel is a political, economic, and class revolutionary. He has made a deliberate choice to attack the upper-class warriors, the elite nobles of Scylding society in their lavish gathering place. His actions cannot be explained simply as those of a savage man-eater. If all he needs to do is to eat humans he could do so without going anywhere near the mead hall. Hrothgar is the ruler of a kingdom, and some of his thanes must be the land barons that govern the properties thereof. Although the poem does not mention any common people, logic dictates that there would be a surrounding population of peasants, farmers, fishermen, tradespeople, and slaves to attack and kill in their undefended homes. But instead Grendel chooses to raid the gathering place of the king's greatest warriors in what must be the most fortified structure in the kingdom. As Grendel only ravages those that Hrothgar has made rich, his actions are a revolution against the wealthy and those who rule. 

            Grendel, unlike the Vikings that he marauds, does not fight for profit. He opposes the proto capitalism of Viking society, to terrorize and punish only the wealthy who revel in power. Millenia before Jean-Jacques Rousseau allegedly coined the phrase, "eat the rich", Grendel is a revolutionary who literally eats the rich. 

            Grendel is tortured by the loud sounds of joy and by the songs of the poet storytellers that emanate daily from Hrothgar's mead hall. But he could not be offended by just any exuberant expressions of human joy. If Grendel has the ability to hear, even from the bottom of the lake, the reveling of the king's men, then he must also at least occasionally hear the sounds coming from those who live outside of the mead hall. He would hear, especially during festivals, the laughter and singing of nearby farmers, peasants, slaves, and the even more joyful shouting of common children. Yet nowhere in the poem is it mentioned that Grendel attacks anywhere but the mead hall. It is more likely that what tortures Grendel are the particular reasons that inspire the expressions of joy among the king's warriors. He hears them taking joy in self congratulation over the acquisition of wealth through conquest, as is demonstrated in some of the verses from songs like Beowulf, and in stories of Sigemund and Fitela about the racist slaughtering of giants. If Grendel and his mother are the only survivors of a holocaust, he has reason to be offended by songs and stories that glorify it. 

    

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork while watching season 2, episode 3 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            Granny gets the family up at 4:00 to start ploughing the front lawn. There was an episode in the first season when that was planned but they were going to dig a well first. In that story, after they set off the vast sprinkler system, nothing more came of it. That brings another question. That front lawn is about an acre in size and the grass is always well manicured. It is certain that Jed wouldn't be cutting it that close with a scythe or even know what a lawnmower is. So there must be groundskeepers that the Clampetts would interact with, and knowing the Clampetts, they would treat them like family, but they haven't appeared in any stories. 

            So the plan is to plough the front lawn and Jethro and Elly have acquired a mule for that purpose. But Nelson the mule won't do anything unless Elly tells him to. Next door, Milburn Drysdale wakes up to the sound of the mule and hears Jed shouting about ploughing. Drysdale rushes over there in his pyjamas and bare feet to try to explain that there are zoning laws and the whole neighbourhood will be in an uproar if they try to farm their front lawn. Granny tries to get Nelson working by having a staring contest with him to control his mind, but she loses. Drysdale's secretary Jane Hathaway takes Granny in her car to the farms outside of Los Angeles and to a supermarket to show her that gardening is unnecessary. But when they get back, Granny still wants to start ploughing because of the prices. She says that the $5000 she gave the supermarket cashier wasn't enough to buy the groceries she'd selected. Jane looks at the money and tells Granny it's Confederate. Granny says, "So am I!" 

            The music coordinator for The Beverly Hillbillies and many other shows was Dave Kahn, who started out playing saxophone, clarinet, and violin in big band orchestras like those of the Dorsey brothers. Later he studied music composition and became a music supervisor for Filmways, Republic, and Universal Studios. He composed the theme music for Leave It To Beaver and the Mike Hammer TV series. 

            For the second night in a row I found no bedbugs.