Edward Andrews

            On Tuesday morning I finished working out the chords for the intro of "Fugue" by Boris Vian. I'll start the crazy verses tomorrow. 

            I worked out the chords for the intro and half of the first verse of "Love On the Beat" by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 84.7 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I've been in eight days. 

            I left for the Bildungsroman seminar at 10:11, which is nine minutes earlier than usual. I was dreading that the way downtown was going to be rough and dangerous after last night's snowstorm, so I gave myself more time. I also took the Bloor bike land instead of my usual route because I expected College to be narrower because snowbanks would force cars to park further out from the curb and there would be a much thinner passage between the cars and the streetcar tracks. The bike lane was slushy and wet but surprisingly clear. It was a good thing it wasn't freezing, otherwise it would have been treacherous. It only took me half an hour to get to University College. 

            We began our discussion of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 

            The 1831 edition is more compact. 

            Percy Shelley writes the preface: "The amiableness of personal affections". 

            Mary Shelley's parents were well known writers, and her husband and friends were also already famous in the literary world. She was under pressure to write. 

            She was a nineteen year old girl writing about a monster and so her propriety was at risk. Percy assumed the role of protector of the text with his preface. 

            The story came to her in a dream. Professor Jaffe said that there is a separation between herself and the story by saying "I saw" of what was in the dream. I said I've created things that came to me in dreams and it felt more connected to a deeper part of myself. 

            I said Captain Walton is interesting because he is the only one in the story who is not uncontrollably terrified by the appearance of the monster. 

            Minor characters. Walton is a failed poet.

            There are narratives within narratives such as Walton telling of the master and the lieutenant. Every beginning must link to what went before. 

            I said the Frankensteins are a weird family. The painting that oversees the home is of the dead mother Caroline mourning over her father's coffin. This is the way they want to remember her, in a relationship with death. 

            Victor implies that it is his father's fault that he went the wrong way as a scientist because he didn't explain why Agrippa's alchemy was a faulty study. 

            Victor follows beauty even in his education. He does not listen to the ugly professor's teachings but responds well to the attractive teacher. 

            Victor says, "Nobody could have had a happier childhood" than he did. I said it was very common for writers in that era to speak in superlatives. 

            The professor suggests that Victor's reference to his mother's caresses and his father's smile is a mirror moment. 

            Why are the beautiful parts of the monster ugly together? The Frankenstein family members are all beautiful but it is an ugly family. 

            Primitive man's perception of giants. Victor describes the size of his creature more than his features. A giant is an object of fear. "Giant", "monster", "creature". Where do words like that come from? 

            I talked with my presentation partner Parisa and got her to send me an email to just say hi so we would be connected and I could send her my presentation. She said she's really nervous because she's not used to speaking in public. 

            On the way home I was waiting at the light at Queen and Spadina when a cyclist behind me tapped hard on my backpack and told me to move to the right. There was a snowbank on my right and I ignored him. When the walk signal came on there was still no green light for vehicles. The cyclist in front of me went ahead but I waited. The guy behind me said, "Go! Why don't you go?" I said, "It's a walk signal, dummy!" 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I got grapes and bananas. 

            I weighed 83.8 kilos before lunch at 15:30. 

            I took a siesta from 16:00 to 17:30. 

            I weighed 84.5 kilos at 17:40. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:13. 

            I read through my presentation and made some changes. It's ready to go but I'll keep polishing it over the next week and maybe even try to memorize it. 

            I had a potato and lima beans with gravy while watching season 5, episode 14 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In this story there is another visit from Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. I was pleasantly surprised that they did a Bob Dylan song, and it was a pretty good version of "Mama You've Been On My Mind".

            They are in Beverly Hills to shoot a commercial for Foggy Mountain Soap and they introduce the Clampetts to the Commodore as he likes to be called, who is the head of the ad campaign. He wants Jed and Granny to be the faces and voices of Foggy Mountain Soap because of their back woods character and honesty. 

            Meanwhile Jethro is back on his Hollywood director schtick and he has Elly May dressed in a plastic mini-skirt, plastic boots, and a plastic cap, playing the role of his "Yes Girl". Whatever he says she's supposed to say, "Yes J.B.!" He shows up on the set of the commercial thinking he is the director. He's just visited the set of a Marlon Brando movie where they are wallowing in motivation and so he wants to know what the motivation is for this commercial. Someone asks him if he's out of his mind and he asks Elly, "Am I out of my mind?" She says, "Yes J.B.!" But Jethro gets sick from his cigar and is out of the way. 

            Jed and Granny come in to do the commercial and the Commodore reminds them that he wants honesty. Granny follows the script up until she is supposed to name the best darn soap. But in all honesty she can't praise any soap other than her own homemade lye soap and so that's what she does. The Commodore is in a daze and has to be led away. 

            The Commodore was played by Edward Andrews, who started stage acting at the age of 12 and was on Broadway by 21. His first movie was "Rushin Art" in 1936. By the 1950s he was one of the most recognizable character actors on television and in film. He co-starred in the film noir "The Unguarded Moment", then the movies "Hot Summer Night", "The Absent Minded Professor", "Son of Flubber", "The Young Savages", "Good Neighbour Sam", "The Glass Bottom Boat", and "How to Frame a Figg". He played Commander Roger Adrian on the short lived sitcom "Broadside". He was the star of the short-lived science fiction series "Supertrain". He appeared in a series of popular Bell Telephone commercials. The character of Tabitha on "Bewitched" was named after his daughter. 

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