Earl Scruggs

            On Tuesday morning I finished working out the chords for "En rire de peur d'être obligée d'en pleurer" (No Good Crying it's Best to Choose Laughter Always) by Serge Gainsbourg. I'll run through the song in French and English tomorrow and then upload it to Christian's Translations. 

            I weighed 84.9 kilos before breakfast. 

            I worked on copying text from the English in the World lecture slides but the first lecture was very time consuming. 

            I weighed 84.7 kilos before lunch. 

            I woke up half an hour later than usual from my siesta and so I didn't have time to take a bike ride all the way downtown. I went as far as Palmerston and headed south. But Palmerston was closed at Ulster for construction and so I went west to Manning and south to Queen and then home. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:54. I logged onto Zoom for the Medieval Literature class at 18:00. 

            Alex says that this is the penultimate class, but the syllabus says there's something called a poster session for December 13. 

            Of our essays, everything is marked but there are problems getting on Quercus. I don't understand why there are problems getting on Quercus. All the other professors and TAs can get on Quercus easily. Is this a legitimate course or not? 

            Paper extensions are possible but with less feedback. 

            Essay guidelines. Observing paradoxes is a good starting off point. Find problems in a text and use another text to shed light upon it. Such and such is both this and this. 

            I said the outsider is an unknown but must also be familiar enough so we can relate. 

            Outside and the marvellous. 

            Who is the most inside figure in the texts we've studied? I suggested Bisclavret's wife is an insider because she resists the outsiderness of Bisclavret. Hrothgar is an insider because he represents the establishment. 

            I said I'm not sure if the Pearl poet is the same as the Gawain poet. 

            Alliterative middle English is a return to old style because Old English was more alliterative. 

            I say the pearl is a metaphor for the soul, perfection, and flawlessness. She is one of the 144000 brides of god. She has no spot but doesn't fit in the ground. 

            Ornamentation is both secular and spiritual.

            We looked at the scene from Indiana Jones and the Last crusade when they find the Holy Grail. The guy didn't choose which grail, a woman did. It was the wrong one and he died. 

            I say that the people of Beowulf pursue treasure and value it above everything. Human qualities are defined in relation to treasure. The only one who cares nothing for treasure is Grendel, who eats the rich. 

            The Dream of the Rood compared to Pearl. 

            Professor Walton has a migraine so she's turned off her camera and is sitting in the dark while listening to and watching the class, as Alex handles it. 

            Pearl says the speaker is wrong.

            Why is treasure on earth embraced in the spiritual realm. I say that it has to be valued in an earthly way for it to have value as a metaphor for spiritual treasure. Someone who does not think Pearls are valuable would not be moved by the idea of the soul being a pearl. I say that in the context of the poem, one is already adorned in heaven and so one doesn't have to seek ornamentation there. 

            The father is a jeweller who created Pearl. 

            We took a break at 19:15.  

            We broke into groups looking at the text. I had thoughts on the three meanings of the word "spot". There is spot as in a flaw, but also as in place, and also as an amount of something when he refers to "a spot of spices". The Pearl is without spot, but the poet is at the spot where Pearl is buried with a spot of spices spread over her. So when the speaker says that Pearl is "without spot" he also means that she has no place on Earth. 

            Medieval Fragments is a book about lapidaries by Julie Somers. Bestiaries as metaphors. 

            The pearl represents the Virgin Mary. 

            Orientation as direction. Medieval orientation was east. Asia was the top of world and a place of wonder where things like the phoenix existed. 

            The style of the poem is ornate. The poem as a pearl. About the role and value of poetry. 

            I find these online classes very unsatisfying and we still haven't been given a proper explanation why they are not in person even though we enrolled in an in-person course. It seems to me we deserve to be told. When I asked Professor Walton a couple of weeks ago she basically told me she couldn't tell me. 

            I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg while watching season 2, episode 24 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In this story Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and their wives Gladys and Louise are visiting the Clampetts. The wives are city women and beautiful but Lester and Earl are forcing them to take country cooking lessons from Granny. The women hate it and want to get away to Gladys's aunt in San Francisco. 

            Another reason that Lester and Earl are there is to convince Jed to find a wife. They found their wives by auditioning singers and Jane has the idea to do the same. But Lester and Earl's wives wouldn't understand Flatt and Scruggs auditioning singers since they don't need them now. So they agree to let their wives go to Frisco and to take Elly May with them to teach her to be a lady. The auditions are organized and Jane is receiving calls from a lot of women. So when the wives call from San Francisco to let their husbands know they've arrived, Jane doesn't know who they are and thinks they are just calling about the audition. The wives rush back to Beverly Hills. Meanwhile the auditions are taking place, although Jed doesn't know what they are really about. He says he wouldn't want a wife who is touring as a singer. The wives come back and confront their husbands. But everything is okay when they all sing "Mail Order Bride" together. Earlier Flatt and Scruggs played that song as well as "Foggy Mountain Breakdown". 

            Earl Scruggs grew up in a musical family and learned to play the banjo at a time when it was essentially a rhythm instrument. But at the age of six, he encountered a blind banjo player who finger picked. After this, Scruggs began to also develop a version of the three-finger picking style that eventually elevated the banjo to a lead instrument. He first played on the radio at age 11. He played with a few bands and then joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, which already had Lester Flatt as a lead singer. It was a very successful group but the touring schedule was gruelling and so Flatt and Scruggs quit, even though Monroe begged them to stay. They formed Flatt and Scruggs, and in 1949 they recorded Scruggs's "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" which became a Grammy winning classic. In 1962 they recorded a version of The Ballad of Jed Clampett which became the first number one country hit for a bluegrass song. They broke up in 1969 and Scruggs formed the Earl Scruggs Review with his sons. They collaborated with Linda Ronstadt, Arlo Guthrie, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Later he collaborated with Elton John and Sting, among others. Country purists didn't appreciate his deviations into pop. 

            I searched for bedbugs and I must have killed one on the baseboard that runs out from the head of my bed. After digging at a black speck in a crack, the tip of the toothpick had that dead bedbug smell.