Neko Case

            On Friday morning I worked out the chords to the first verse of "Fugue" by Boris Vian. I said that yesterday too but it depends on where one thinks the verse ends. Maybe the repetitions of "Fer fer fer ..." are like a bridge to the second verse. 

            I finished working out the chords for "Love On the Beat" by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through singing and playing it in French. Tomorrow I'll run through singing and playing my translation and if everything is fine I'll upload it to my Christian's Translations blog. 

            I weighed 84.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I've been listening lately to Mary Chapin Carpenter's discography and it's okay but not particularly interesting from a lyrical standpoint. I felt the same way about Brandi Carlisle's discography. Carpenter has more lyrical range than Carlisle and she's more gender specific about relationships. But still there's mostly a belief in love and songs that either say, don't leave me, I'm leaving, or lets stay together, with little simple country and western style insights thrown in. The only female singer songwriter who has stood out for me over the last few discographies I've listened to is Neko Case. She's got some attitude and she's not tied down to certain tired sentiments. She uses more symbolic language and she's more skeptical about love. It's kind of country punk music and she's lived in Canada and collaborated with a lot of Canadians even though she's from the States. I also like the fact that she's been banned from the Grand Old Opry. 

            I worked on polishing my Frankenstein presentation. I made some adjustments but mostly read through it a couple of times. 

            I read some more of Peter Pan. I'm about a fifth of the way through the book. 

            I weighed 84.3 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride to Bloor and Bathurst. The way was a lot dryer than yesterday. There's supposed to be another storm tonight and then warm weather tomorrow and so if that occurs it will be slushy all over again. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:00. 

            I read another chapter of Peter Pan. I read through my presentation again twice. Lately I've been reading it twice for every chapter of Peter Pan, but I'm making so few changes now that I decided I'd just read Peter Pan for the rest of the evening. I'll go through the presentation again a couple of times tomorrow. 

            I had a potato with lima beans and gravy while watching season 5, episode 17 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            The mayor of Bug Tussle, Amos Hogg comes to visit and the Clampetts are deeply honoured because he's the most important person they've ever entertained. He spouts a lot of sayings from famous speeches by other people, like "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself". These are things that the Clampetts have never heard and so they think he's a genius and a silver tongued speech maker. 

            Hogg is scheduled to leave on a certain day and to impress the Clampetts Mr. Drysdale says it's too bad because he would have arranged a get together between the mayor, the governor, and a few movie stars. But Hogg has decided to stay on and so Drysdale's foot is in his mouth. He confesses to Hogg in private that he can't keep that promise. Hogg confesses that Bug Tussle is broke and he needs $100,000, which would be at least a million today. Drysdale refuses to give him the money and instead tries to arrange for the party he'd promised. 

            Meanwhile Hogg is trying to ask Jed for the money but is interrupted by Jethro. Jed thinks that Hogg was going to ask to marry Granny. Then Hogg finds out that Granny has $15 million and he decides he will ask her to marry him. Drysdale is afraid of that because then the Clampetts would move to Bug Tussle and take their money from his bank. He rushes into the parlour with a cheque for $100,000 and Hogg almost immediately rushes out with it and heads home. 

            I searched for bedbugs and found another one perhaps in exactly the same place as last night, the same size and in the same bloodless condition.