The Enemies

            On Tuesday morning I finished revising my translation of "J'ai pas d'regret" (I've No Regrets) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I'll run through playing and singing the song in English to make sure everything fits. 

            I memorized the third verse of "C’est rien, je m’en vais, c’est tout" (It’s nothing, I’m done, I’m gone) by Serge Gainsbourg and revised my translation of the final verse. 

            When I went into the bedroom to get my guitar I saw a black spot on the upper hinge of the old exit door at the head of my bed. It was in a small hole there so I dug my toothpick in and killed another sick looking bedbug. I'm hoping that the spores are going to do more than make them sick and that I'm going to see zero bedbugs soon. 

            I weighed 84.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I left for the Bildungsroman seminar at 11:10 and took the same route as last week: College to St. George, north to Hoskin Avenue, east to Tower Road and then south to lock my bike beside Hart House. I sat on the floor in front of the classroom for a few minutes and read a few more pages of David Copperfield, up to 412. David goes to visit his old school chum Traddles, who as a child got beaten by the schoolmaster more than any other student for no particular reason. Traddles is now a lawyer or law student. 

            We looked at the autobiographical fragment in the back of David Copperfield. It was unfinished. It was begun in the 1840s when he was already famous. John Forster was supposed to be Dickens's biographer and he promised not to publish it until after Dickens's death. It was a secret.

            What is literally true? Dickens's father went to debtors prison. Dickens did work at Warren's Blacking as a child and the business is mentioned in Great Expectations. Stephen Marcus wrote Who is Fagin? 

            I suggested that perhaps one reason Dickens didn't want the autobiography published while he was alive is that people might think he was less creative if they thought he was lifting ideas from his own life. I thought also that if the autobiography had been published while he was alive he would have to go through David Copperfield bit by bit to say what parts were true or not. Otherwise people might think it was all true. 

            Putting secrets into a novel. Confession. Most of Dickens's famous books were published before David Copperfield. Treat the autobiography as a fiction too. Not facts but narrative. He was world famous at the time. 

            Even if you were to copy the phone book it would be about you. 

            Novels with an emphasis on childhood were new at the time. 

            We talked about the situation in Jane Eyre when Jane is mistaken for a beggar. I said that calling her a beggar is an insult to beggars. If someone drove a truck a couple of times one wouldn't call them a truck driver. I don't think anyone got my point. 

            Dickens suffered in secret.

            He uses a genuine child's voice. 

            We looked at the first paragraph of the novel. He suggests that anybody else might be the hero of his story. I said being born and crying when the clock is striking midnight poetically suggests that he is a victim of time. 

            Both David's mother and Peggotty have the first name Clara. 

            Frozen moments. Scenes he returns to. Who is he in each place? What does it mean to leave a self behind? 

            I said that when David's infant half brother is buried with their mother and David imagines that it is him, that is a mirror scene. Professor Jaffe adds that he erases the baby at that moment. 

            On the way home I stopped at Freshco where I bought three bags of black grapes and some bananas. 

            I weighed 83.6 kilos at 15:00, which is the lightest I've been at lunch in a week. 

            I had a late siesta. 

            I weighed 84.3 kilos at 17:20. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:30. 

            I spent at least two hours reading David Copperfield and got up to page 448. There are a lot of coincidences in this novel. It reminds me of the philosophy that a world where time travel exists would be fraught with coincidences. It turns out that Traddles's landlord is Mr. Micawber. David has Traddles and the Micawbers over for dinner. We learn that Micawber is once again deeply in debt. David hears that Mr. Barkins is dying and so he goes to Yarmouth to see him and Peggotty. 

            I had a potato with gravy and three pork ribs while watching season 4, episode 11 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            Jethro asks Jed for advice on how to get a girl and he tells him that he used to sit in front of the market whittling. Jethro tries it but it doesn't work. Jed decides that they need to throw a wing-ding for the kids. He asks Mr. Drysdale to arrange it and so Drysdale enlists Jane to find a musical group, but he suggests she get Guy Lombardo. She informs him that what is popular now are groups like The Beatles but Drysdale doesn't know who they are. He's suddenly interested though when she tells him that they made $14 million last year. She mentions Herman and the Hermits, The Animals, Freddie and the Dreamers and The Byrds but says they are probably not available. She suggests she may be able to get The Lizards, The Frogs, or The Termites. Drysdale says, "Get them. What ever Granny wants to cook."

            To audition bands Jane takes Jethro with her on the town. They go to The Whisky a Go-Go to hear the real garage rock band The Enemies, who play "Mojo Woman" and "Pretty Woman". The music is so infectious that both Jane and Jethro are overwhelmed and can't stop dancing. Jethro goes out the next day and buys a wig, some mod clothes and an electric guitar. That night the Clampetts decorate their house for a barn dance and The Enemies show up, along with everyone that had been at the Whisky the previous night. Jed tries to teach them to square dance and play Turkey in the Straw but when they do it just sounds like rock and roll. Granny in frustration goes for her jug to sit in the parlour and Drysdale joins her, but Jed and Elly stay to dance. 

            The Enemies played themselves. They were from Buffalo, New York and were originally called The Vibratos. When Cory Wells left the air force he joined the group as their very talented lead singer, and they moved to LA where they renamed the band The Enemies. They were the house band at The Whisky a Go-Go for a year. Their first single was "Sinner Man". They also appeared in the movie "Riot on the Sunset Strip", which I think I saw with my mother at a drive-in when I was about fifteen. Danny Hutton produced their version of "Hey Joe". Later Wells and Hutton would form Three Dog Night with Chuck Negron. 

            I searched for bedbugs and didn't find any on the bed or walls but there were some babies caught in the sticky trap that Steve from Orkin set near the head of my bed. I don't know how long they'd been there but it's the first time any bedbugs have gone into one of those glue snares.