Jane Axell

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the third verse of "Vieille Canaille" (Old Rascal) by Serge Gainsbourg. That's halfway through the song. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            I spent another hour and a half trying to eliminate the delay while playing guitar in Ableton. At one point not only did I still have delay but I wound up with endless reverberation. Somehow it stopped going on continuously but there was still reverb that I couldn't stop without stopping the sound altogether. I can't get any sound when I switch to the ASIO driver, which lets me lower the buffer size. I only get sound from the Windows driver which has an unchangeably high buffer size and causes delay. If I raise the sample rate I get static along with the reverb. This is very frustrating. I'm going to try Audacity again. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. I could have worn shorts but it's not that hot in my apartment with the breeze coming in from the lake. On my way down Yonge Street the guy who dresses as Spiderman was perched on top of a traffic light box beside the Eaton Centre. As I passed I called out , "Spadinaman!" He called back, "Spadinaman? You know it!" 

            I weighed 85.6 kilos at 17:00. 

            I got an encouraging email from Albert Moritz who said he'd planned on giving me some advice that I'd asked for before sending my manuscript to Ekstasis but he said what I arrived at was similar to what he was going to tell me: 

            What you discovered in looking up Ekstasis was more or less what I was going to mention. The publisher, Richard Olafson, who's a good poet himself, walked out of North Battleford at the age of 16 to become a Beat. Went to the Nairopa Institute, met some of the originals, was actually an associate and helper of Burroughs for a while. The press has its erudite and international side but also a Beat emphasis; it's no friend of the merely polite. As far as I'm concerned, what Exile said about your book was purely an excuse. Not a reason or a judgement at all. They weren't going to publish the book so they cobbled together something that sounded like a reason. The idea that your neighborhood isn't unique is absurd - even apart from the general fact that every neighborhood is unique is the poet can find the uniqueness, as you certainly have done. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            I spent another hour and a half on solving the delay problem. I worked entirely with Audacity this time and had no problem hearing the guitar without reverb but not without a slight delay. The slight delay throws me off and all the solutions I've been following from tutorials have not worked for me. This is too frustrating and time consuming and so I think I'll have to go back to the plan of getting speakers for the interface. 

            I made a new batch of gravy with the drippings from the chicken legs I roasted a week or so ago. I had some with a large potato and my last hot Italian sausage while watching season 9, episodes 14 and 15 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            The first story picks up from where the previous one let off. The Clampetts are at Malibu Beach where they've gone to fight off the Grunion invasion that Drysdale told them about. The Grunion are actually small fish but Drysdale has convinced the Clampetts that they are people intent on taking over California. The Clampetts have captured one surfer and one beach girl, thinking they are Grunions. The surfer admitted he was a Grunion because Elly May forced him to and the young woman admitted it because she was hungry and Granny was going to feed her. The Clampetts decide this isn't much of an invasion and go home. 

            Drysdale begs Jane to come back to work for him because she always finds a solution to his problems. She is almost convinced until Helen comes and tells Drysdale that the Clampetts still believe that the Grunions are people. Drysdale decides he doesn't need Jane because his plan didn't fall apart after all. He goes to the Clampett mansion on crutches and covered with bandages. He says that he was severely wounded while invading the beach of the island of Grun. He tells Jed that the Grunion that he encountered at Malibu were weak Grun deserters but the tough Grunions remained to defend their island. He's hired an actor to pose as a Navy medic and backup his story. His plan works but then Drysdale reneges on paying the actor. 

            The Clampetts decide that the big invasion of the tough Grunions is happening that night and so they head back to Malibu to fight them. 

            Jane has decided to return to the bank to organize the secretaries against Drysdale's unfair employer practices. They call themselves The Girls from G.R.U.N., standing for Girls Resist Unfair Neglect. Jane leads them to protest at Malibu Beach that night since so many people will be there along with a fireworks display. The Clampetts are already at Malibu and Elly sees Jane and the secretaries first but she thinks that the women are Grunions that Jane captured because she hears them chanting, "We are the girls from GRUN!" Jethro captures Ulla, one of the secretaries, thinking she's a Grunion. Ulla tells them that GRUN doesn't have any men and so the Clampetts think it's an island of women. When Jethro hears that he says he's swimming to Grun and runs for the ocean. Then the fireworks start going off and the Clampetts think its the US Navy bombing Grun. 

            In the second story the Clampetts are on their way home from a disappointing night on Malibu Beach with no Grunions to fight. Jethro tried to swim to the non-existent island of Grun and ran into a shark that bit him once before he started biting back. The Clampetts go to the bank where the girls from GRUN are protesting outside. Jethro tries to carry off Ulla again but Jed makes him put her down. Another woman asks Jethro if he wants a karate chop and he thinks it's something to eat. The secretaries tell the Clampetts that the bank is like a prison and so Jed invites them to come to his house for protection. When Drysdale doesn't give them a fair answer they say they are going to the Clampetts but suddenly Drysdale changes his tune and says he will give them everything they ask for and more. He says for them to go to his office and wait for him but then he tells security to lock them in and cut off the phone. Then Drysdale steals their Grunmobile and heads for the Clampetts and walks in with a cane to tell Jed that the Grunions have brainwashed Jane. Granny says if ever a girl didn't have a dirty brain it's Jane Hathaway. Granny and Elly look at a painting on the side of the van that shows Drysdale with his foot on a secretary and holding a whip. They tell him he shouldn't do that. Drysdale argues and Granny flings him onto his back. Then Granny treats him in the parlour by giving him a spoonful of something. He jumps to his feet and runs around without a cane and complains it tasted like turpentine. Granny says it was. 

            Meanwhile the secretaries are trapped in Drysdale's office and so most of them take off their dresses and tie them together so Jane and Helen can climb down and go to warn the Clampetts against Drysdale. After they leave Granny arrives at the bank and climbs up the dress-rope to free the secretaries. Then Granny learns the whole story and returns home to fetch Drysdale and take him to the bank where the girls are outside. Granny has stripped Drysdale down to his underwear and makes him walk through the line of women to get inside. 

            Ulla was played by Jane Axell, who appeared in the 1963 Swedish film Venusberg and then starred in the 1964 German-Swedish risqué comedy movie "Maibritt, das Mädchen von den Inseln" (The Girl from the Islands). After that she seems to have only appeared in these two episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies and one episode of Love American Style. She obviously tried to make it in Hollywood but either nothing opened up for her, she became disillusioned with Hollywood, or maybe just found a relationship that fulfilled her more. Not everybody has to become a star.

May 31, 1993: Marie said she wanted hire me to teach her yoga

Thirty years ago today

            On Sunday when I brought my daughter back to her mother's place, Nancy was an asshole and wouldn't bring her for me to kiss goodnight. On Monday I posed at the Heliconian Club. After work I bought a Metropass. I found a number in the directory that I thought might be Marie's and so I called it and it was. She seemed glad that I found her and told me she would have tracked me down if I hadn't reached her, but couldn't talk just then. Later I tried her number several times and she was finally home at 16:30. She said she wanted to hire me to teach her yoga on a regular basis. We arranged to meet on Wednesday. When I called Nancy she was still all uptight.

Susan Bernard

            On Monday morning I memorized the second verse of "Que tu es impatiente, la mort" (Death You're So Impatient) by Boris Vian. 

            I memorized the second verse of "Vieille Canaille" (Old Rascal) by Serge Gainsbourg and made more adjustments to my translation. 

            I weighed a whopping 87 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I've been in the morning this year, and 1.3 kilos heavier than last year. 

            I composed my cover letter to send to Ekstasis Editions: 

            Dear Richard Olafson, This letter accompanies my exclusive submission to Ekstasis Editions of the forty page manuscript for my book of poems "Paranoiac Utopia." These poems are inspired by one of the most unique communities in the world, Toronto's own village of Parkdale. It's unique in many ways but particularly because it is where the Mad Pride movement began. My poems touch on its vibrant street life, its kaleidoscopic blend of cultures, accompanied by a peripheral Greek chorus of its discarded population of the mentally ill. My own background as a poet is somewhat unique in that I was raised on a farm in New Brunswick, where I began writing, but in my mid teens I ran away and suddenly immersed myself in the Canadian inner city experience. For many years I lived and wrote on the streets of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. In 1993 I joined the spoken word community in Toronto. That year I started my own weekly reading series called "The Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy" which ran for seven years, mostly on the frontier of Parkdale at the Gladstone Hotel. In 1994 I formed the band Christian and the Lions, which featured my poetry in song form. In the latter half of the 90s I organized two annual poetry slams: "20,000 Poets Under the League" and "Slamnation." I also put out two hand made chapbooks: "Vomit of the Star Eater" and "Adventures in Standing Still." I am currently a fourth year English Specialist at U of T and have studied poetry under George Elliott Clarke and Albert Moritz, the latter course being Albert's Poetry Master Class. Albert Moritz has been kind enough to help with the editing of my manuscript and he has put Ekstasis Editions at the top of the list of publishers for submitting my book. I think that this book would complement some of your previous publications, such as "Homeless Memorial" by John La Greca and "The Big Thirst" by Jim Christy. The former because of its invocation of the spirit of the street and the latter because of its grit. Thank you for having a publishing house that receives the work of poets to consider for publication. I hope that you'll consider mine and I look forward to your response. 

            In their submission instructions they say to send the manuscript with a stamped return envelope and so they may not accept email submissions. But they don't say they don't accept email submissions so I sent my cover letter and my manuscript as two attachments in an email. If I find out they want it by mail I'll have to buy more paper. I haven't even had to submit paper essays at U of T for four years because everyone wants to save paper. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta and slept half an hour longer than usual. But I managed to get ready and leave for my bike ride downtown only fifteen minutes later than usual. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos at 17:15.

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. I tried to solve the delay problem of hearing my guitar in Ableton. I followed a tutorial and a lot of what I learned last year about Ableton came back to me. I was able to hear the guitar but not without a delay. I learned that Windows drivers can't diminish the delay and that I needed an ASIO driver. I followed a link and tried to download one but ended up downloading a driver manager app which I had to uninstall. Then I saw that I did have an ASIO driver for my Scarlett interface and when I switched to it the buffer size went way down, which is supposed to cure the delay, but then I couldn't hear the guitar at all again. Also Ableton crashed once and I had to restart it. I had to stop trying to figure it out so I could have dinner. I'll try again tomorrow. Hopefully I can get this set up properly for recording so I don't have to waste my time like this. I've got other things to work on like finishing the video for my song "Instructions for Electroshock Therapy". 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and two hot Italian sausages while watching season 9, episodes 12 and 13 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In the first story Jed finally learns why Granny is so afraid of Mark being with Elly. She thinks a Naval Frogman is frog from the navel down. Jed brings Granny to the pool so she can see Mark remove his flippers and his wetsuit, so now she knows Mark is human. Now she's back to being obsessed with Mark marrying Elly. Mark announces that he's leaving the Navy to work full time on his oceanography project with the help of Jed's $48 million cheque. Mark goes to the bank to open a special account but when he gets there he sees that Drysdale has already elected himself treasurer. Mark tells him Jed will be president and he's made himself treasurer. Mark was going to put the money in the Commerce Bank but in view of Drysdale's attitude he's going to put it in another bank. Drysdale takes off his jacket to challenge Mark to a fight and tells him to take off his jacket. He does so and Drysdale tells him to step outside. Then Drysdale sends Jane out to fight him and closes the office door. A minute later Drysdale brings Mark's jacket to him and apologizes. Mark leaves and then Drysdale reveals to Jane that he picked Marks pocket and removed the cheque for $48 million. Drysdale has sunk so low in her eyes that Jane decides to resign. She gives Helen Thompson her job as Drysdale's secretary. Drysdale asks Jane where she'll find another man like him to work for. She says, "It won't be easy. Most of them are behind bars". Jane says she's going to retire to the beach and watch the grunion invasion. The grunion are little fish that appear certain times of the year. Jane shows him a newspaper headline about the invasion. 

            Drysdale decides the only way to stop Mark from getting Jed's money is a devious full Iago plan. He dresses in his fake Navy uniform and goes to see Jed. He shows Jed the newspaper headline about the Grunion invasion and makes Jed believe that the Grunion are human invaders from another country. He also makes Jed believe that Mark is a coward for resigning from the Navy at a time when his country is being invaded. Jed decides he and his family are grabbing their guns and heading for the beach to fight the Grunion invasion.

            In the second story the Clampetts are getting ready to head for the beach to fight the grunions when Jane pulls up in a dune buggy. She says she's taken a little place at Malibu and they can use it for their headquarters. The Clampetts arrive in Malibu and build a sand fort facing the beach. Jed looks at the ocean through a little telescope and thinks that a lone surfer he spies is a Grunion scout. Then Jane finds them and when Jed tells her their plan to fire on the Grunion she explains that they have to be captured by hand. They ask what to do with them after one captures them and she says they make a delicious dinner but it takes twelve of them to make a meal. Jed thinks she means they are good cooks but it takes a lot of them to serve up a dinner. Jed sees more surfers and thinks the invasion has started. One of the surfers lands on the beach and Elly goes down to confront him. She asks if he's a Grunion and he says no but she insists that he is and flips him. She won't let him up until he confesses to be a Grunion and so he does. Even Elly has turned into an asshole in this last season. Elly takes him prisoner and brings him back to the camp. Jethro asks for food but Granny says he can't have anything until he's done like Elly and captured a Grunion. Jethro finds a girl on the beach who says she's hungry. Jethro tells her if she's a Grunion then they can have a feast and so she says she is. He carries her back to camp. 

            The girl on the beach was played by Sue Bernard, who was the daughter of renowned Hollywood photographer Bruno Bernard who invented the pin-up and who took many early and later photos of Marilyn Monroe including the famous shot of her with her dress being blown up by the air rising from a subway grating. She claimed to have been the first Jewish Playboy Playmate of the month in the December 1966 issue, but Cindy Fuller appeared seven and a half years earlier. Sue co-starred in "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill" and was a regular on two seasons of General Hospital. She has written six books, mostly about her personal experiences growing up in Hollywood and meeting so many big stars through her father. She's also curated books of her father's photographs and written a book about motherhood.

May 30, 1993: Nancy would have killed me if she'd found I'd fed our daughter bacon

Thirty years ago today 

            On Sunday my daughter and I got up at around 7:30. I was still trying to salvage my birthday from four days before when I didn't have the money to celebrate it properly, so I got her ready and took her out for breakfast. We were too early for anything in the Beaches and so we walked all the way to Coxwell with her red wagon and went to The Mecca. Nancy would have killed me if she'd found out that I'd fed our daughter bacon, but she had a really good time. We went to visit Tom Smarda but he'd gone to church, so we walked back to the Beaches and played in the Kew Park playground. We went home and she played with the hose in the back yard. She went to sleep at around 17:00 and was still down at 20:30 when I started getting her ready to take back to her mother. She didn't wake up until we were at the bus stop. A lady gave us a ride.

Foster H. Phinney

            On Sunday morning I memorized the first verse of "Vieille Canaille" (Old Rascal) by Serge Gainsbourg and made some adjustments to my translation. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I've been in the morning in 42 days.

            I worked on getting caught up on my journal because I fell behind on my birthday while writing about the very complicated story of the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. That's the most I've weighed at that time this year and it's 1.1 kilos heavier than I was at that time last year. I had a toasted Montreal style bagel with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back.

            I weighed 86 kilos at 17:00, which is the heaviest I've been at that time in three weeks. 

            I was finally caught up on my journal at 18:23. 

            I researched the last ten years of the poetry catalogue of Ekstasis Editions to see if they publish any poets who do anything like what I do. Among the many academic poets they publish there is "The Homeless Memorial" by John La Greca. It's very different from my work in style but somewhat similar in the spirit of how it connects with the streets. There's a little bit of "The Big Thirst" by Jim Christy which has some grit to it. I might mention them in my cover letter. 

            I made pizza on Greek flatbread with Basilica sauce, a sliced hot Italian sausage and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 9, episodes 10 and 11 of The Beverly Hillbillies. These stories fall under the same boring arc of Granny's aquaphobia. 

            In the first story Granny has sent for Shorty to come back to Beverly Hills from the hills of Tennessee. For some reason she thinks he can help her stop Mark from marrying Elly. Granny tells Mark that Elly has been promised to Shorty since she was twelve years old. But Elly makes it clear that's not the case. Granny still believes Mark is half frog and she also thinks Mark's idea of farming the ocean is against nature. Drysdale is also against it because Jed wants to spend half of his $95 million to invest in it. But Drysdale pretends he's all for it and that it is Jane that opposes it when the opposite is the case. He has two guards put Jane in a straight jacket and tape her mouth, then he shows her to Jed, saying that the idea of him investing in ocean farming drove her crazy. Jed tears up the cheque to stop what he thinks is causing Jane mental anguish. Shorty goes to the pool dressing room. Granny comes looking for Shorty and sees Elly's pet seal for the first time. She thinks Shorty has been turned into a seal. 

            In the second story Granny still thinks Shorty has been turned into a seal. She can't take him to Dr. Klingner for a cure because the psychiatrist is out of town. She's got the seal in the kitchen and is preparing to feed him a hot meal. Mark tells her she can't do that. Granny tells Mark she's going for her shotgun and so he'd better turn Shorty human again. Mark finds Shorty and brings him into the kitchen so Granny will think he's changed back. Jed goes back to the bank to get the money for Mark. Jane is out of the straight jacket and she goes to tell Drysdale about the money. He tells her he's a changed man and he had an epiphany. He gives her a $100 bonus cheque. Jane is thrilled about Drysdale's transformation. Both Jane and the other secretary Elizabeth Gordon are moved to tears. Drysdale gives Jane the rest of the day off. After Jane leaves Drysdale tells Elizabeth he has two jobs for her. First, stop payment on Jane's cheque, second, put on the nurse's uniform that's waiting for her in the bathroom. When Jed arrives Elizabeth is dressed as a nurse and Drysdale is dressed as Napoleon. He tells Jed he needs his money so his troops won't starve in Russia. Meanwhile Granny wants to go back to the hills because she thinks the family has gone insane. Jethro begs her not to leave so he doesn't have to eat Elly's cooking. Suddenly Granny gets the idea that all she has to do to break up Elly and Mark is to let Mark eat Elly's cooking. Elly cooks a giant meatball the size of a basketball but Jed catches it and forces Granny to cook an edible replacement. Shorty brings Elizabeth to the mansion and she gives Jed back his cheque for $48 million. She goes swimming with Shorty and she's wearing a backless swimming suit. Granny goes looking for them but finds two seals in the pool so of course she thinks Shorty and Elizabeth have been turned into seals. 

            The assistant director for these episodes was Foster H. Phinney, whose suave good looks led to him starting out as a dress extra and a stand in for lead actors. He became the regular stand-in for Kirk Douglas who considered him his good luck charm and got him small parts in all his films. He also helped him get the job of assistant director. He was assistant director for the movie Spartacus and many other films and TV series.

May 29, 1993: My daughter was having fun in the mall and when I took her out she hit me

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I called Nancy to tell her that I wasn't working that day after all and so I wanted to pick up my daughter. She said for me to meet her at Fairview Mall. I was drinking a milkshake when they showed up and my daughter had some. We wandered around the mall, she played on the toy electric cars, we went into the pet shop, we danced to a musician, we went up and down and up in the elevator, and she played on a tricycle. When I took her out of the mall she hit me. She went to sleep around 20:30 so it was too late for me to hit the supermarket. I went out to the payphone to call Diana Dufretes and apologized for the crack I'd made on Friday night about her not contributing to the evening.

Harry L. Wolf

            On Saturday morning I memorized the first verse of "Que tu es impatiente, la mort" (Death You're So Impatient) by Boris Vian. 

            I blog-published "River of Alcohol", my translation of "Mon père un Catholique" by Serge Gainsbourg. I still have to post it on Facebook tomorrow and then I'll move on to learning his song, "Vieille Canaille" (Old Rascal). 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before breakfast on the day after birthday eating. It's the heaviest I've been in the morning in 41 days. 

            Around midday I rode down to No Frills where I bought five bags of very expensive cherries, a pack of ravioli with spinach and cheese, mouthwash, dish detergent, and a container of skyr. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before lunch, which is the most I've weighed at that time this year. It's seven-tenths of a kilo heavier than this time last year. 

            I had a not-toasted bagel with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown to Staples because I wanted to look for some speakers for my interface, but they only had single speakers that didn't look like they were designed for stereo mixing. I rode to Steve's and Connor, the guy who sold me the Scarlett interface last year was there on the second floor. I told him about my problem of delay. He said he could sell me monitors but they were large and expensive and he wasn't even sure they would work. He says that he is able to eliminate noticeable delay digitally through Ableton by lowering the buffer rate. I told him that in my free version of Ableton I'm not given an option of lowering the rate. It's stuck at a very high buffer rate. He said I could also eliminate the delay in Audacity. So it looks like I don't need speakers and might just be doing something wrong. I guess I could also try to just unplug the speaker jack from the back when I'm recording and stick it in the interface. Sometimes with a technical problem like this I just need a fresh start so we'll see. 

             I weighed 85.7 kilos at 17:45. That's the heaviest I've been at that time in twenty days. 

             I worked on my review of Everything Everywhere All At Once and wasn't finished before dinner. I grilled five hot Italian sausages and had one on my last slice of seven grain bread toasted with Dijon, chili sauce, horseradish, five-year-old cheddar, and a slice of dill pickle. I ate it with a beer while watching season 9, episodes 8 and 9 of The Beverly Hillbillies. They've really worn out this frogman story arc by repeating the same gag over several episodes. Granny is confused by the concept of the frogman and thinks that Mark turns into a frog, as does everyone else that snorkels. It's as if the writers know this is the final season and stopped giving a fuck. 

             In the first story Jed explains that Granny is afraid of water and doesn't think it's natural. She thinks Jethro turned into a frog and thinks that the psychiatrist Dr. Klinger can turn him back. But he always just has Jane bring the frog back to the Clampetts and by coincidence she sees Jethro before she sees the frog and thinks Klinger worked his magic again. Then Jed tries scuba diving in the pool and Granny finds another frog, thinking it's Jed. She takes it to Klinger and when she comes home she finds Jed human again. 

             In the second story Mark tries to help cure Granny of her fear of water by showing her a film of the bottom of the sea and telling her it's the future of farming and the way to solve the problem of world hunger. Jed says he'll finance Mark's undersea farming project with $40 million or so. Drysdale had originally thrown Mark out of his office but when he heard he might marry Elly, who'll inherit her father's millions, he begins to butter Mark up by claiming to be a navy man. But when Drysdale hears about the possibility of Jed taking that much money out of his bank he throws Mark out. He begins to plot with Granny against the idea of Mark and Elly getting married. Jed, Elly, Jethro and Mark go snorkeling in the pool again and Granny finds four big frogs and one small one in the pool. She thinks the small one must be one of the neighbour's kids. She takes them all to Dr. Klinger and leaves them with him again. This time Jane explains to him that Granny has aquaphobia and so Klinger thinks that he has a solution. He turns out to be an amateur snorkeler and so he figures that since Granny trusts him so much, if he goes to her home and scuba dives in the pool she will understand that it isn't dangerous. He goes there with Jane and in the back by the pool he meets Jed, Elly, Jethro, and Mark. He goes to the dressing room to change into his gear while the rest go to the front. On the way they meet Granny and tell her that Klinger is scuba diving in the pool. She runs to stop him but he's still in the dressing room and all she sees is a frog, which of course she thinks is Klinger. She takes the frog back to Klinger's office where she meets his beautiful secretary, who also happens to be his wife. She tells her that her husband has turned to a frog and that she'll have to kiss him to turn him back to a human. She says she knows it's embarrassing so she won't watch. Granny leaves and then Klinger comes in through the back. He kisses his wife and Granny peeks, thinking he's just changed back. 

             The cinematographer for these two episodes and many others was Harry L. Wolf, who was also the principle cinematographer for Baretta and for eleven episodes of Colombo. He won two Emmy Awards for his work on those shows. He was nominated for a third for his work on Little House On the Prairie. He served two terms as the president of the American Society of Cinematographers.

May 28, 1993: It was the start of the seven year long group poem that I later named "The Gumby Bible"

Thirty years ago today

            On Friday the cheque from George Brown College that I'd been expecting for the last three days still hadn't come. So I called them and found out it had been sent to the wrong address because only "22" had been visible in the address window. I went downtown to pick it up and cash it on my way to work. I posed at Central Technical School from 12:40 to 15:15 and after work, now that I had some money I decided to enjoy a bit of what I'd missed because of being broke on my birthday. I walked along Bloor and saw Wanda Porter at Futures. I had a drink with her and we chatted. I learned that she'd thought I was married, I guess because she'd seen me with my daughter and maybe her mother. I was thinking that maybe she liked me. She said she wanted me to do her astrological chart. I walked to Yonge Street and checked out a couple of sex magazine shops where I bought "Oriental Pussy" and "The Betty Pages". I went home and showered to get ready to go for dinner at Diana Dufretes, Jodie, and Ray's place. I got their charts together to give them and bought some beer on the way downtown. Yehuda was there too. I read Diana, Jodie and Ray their charts. After a big meal cooked by Ray we followed him to a bar. Later we went to Mudds Cabaret where I passed around my writing book, so about ten people contributed to a group poem: 

Children covet their parents' freedom and parents covet their children's, 

Freedom is creation and communication, and communing freely leads to procreation

Without creation, freedom is unattainable

You must freely create it to get the feeling of how cool it feels

I eat technology, I drink media! 

More is one less than infinity

and every moment a cross-section of eternity

a dense bluey form of interconnected infinity 

within the bowels and jaws of a child

In a world of impurity the child knows how to colour silently

Our jealousy destroys innocence

Arbitrary Arbus, are you crazy?

Choose your roose, goose, Sunyday

Arbitrary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? 

Little lives coveting speckled rays of knowledge from the unreachable

straining for a growing place to come back to thine truth does bodily

the shape-shifting truth is always changing colour, frequency, texture

She was barred, bitched, you ate it

and she's gone, and I'm hungry, and I feel sick, and tired

and ripped, and gone, and wired to absence

Absolom of the papacy limited children of innocence

dag and stab the inno-soul circle of patronage

suck the smug and frug on 'til blood's spawn has flud

Warm, juicy mess, she loved it. 

            I went home from there.

Jamie Lee Curtis

            On Friday it was my birthday. 

            In the morning I listened to Switched On Bach during yoga. I didn't want to listen to Radio Canada because there's a segment called Capsule Linguistic that opens and closes with someone doing annoying whistling. 

            I finished posting "The Final Waltz", my translation of "La Dernière valse" by Boris Vian. I listened a couple of times to the last of the Boris Vian recordings I have on my computer, which is "Que tu es impatiente, la mort" (Death You're So Impatient). After this song I'll have to search YouTube for recordings of his songs. 

            I tried to do some recording with my guitar and microphone but came up against a delay that made it hard to play. I wanted to hear myself synchronized. I searched around for three hours and it doesn't seem possible. Plus sometimes I could hear myself and sometimes not and I don't know whether I did anything or if it was just glitchy. It's very frustrating. Some say I need to buy more equipment to monitor without delay. I pretty much wasted the first few hours of my birthday because nothing was accomplished. There's no delay when I listen with headphones through the interface but I want it with the speakers. I didn't even try it with the electric which apparently is another problem because one can't really get an electric guitar sound through an interface. On further searching I think I can get guitar amp sounds simulated digitally, but the issue now is to just be able to hear the guitar without delay. I might need a separate set of speakers just for the interface. 

            I went out to a bakery on Brock where I spent a ridiculous $10 on a breakfast sandwich. The guy asked if I wanted it heated. Who wants cold eggs unless it's egg salad? I had it at home with my coffee.

            For lunch I went up to Ali's and got a spinach and potato roti. For years they just put spinach with the curried potato but for the last couple of years they've thrown in other vegetables like celery and maybe cabbage with the spinach and it has a nasty taste and texture. Last time I'd thought it was just an order mix up but next time I'm going to make sure they just use spinach. I had it with a beer while watching part of a 1978 concert of Parliament Funkadelic. The video is in black and white and the sound is pretty bad. 

            For a long time there's been a big crack running up the plaster of the eastern wall of my living room above the door that leads to the kitchen. Today I decided to chisel away the plaster between the crack and the southern wall to expose the brick. I might free up the brick for that whole wall eventually because I think it would look better. I'll have to re-plaster the edges where the east wall meets the ceiling and the southern wall though. 

            I rode up to Walmart and bought briefs, tank tops, and socks. For almost the last year they've had no black tank shirts but now they finally do. 

            I took some photos of my new guitar strap. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:17. 

            I went down to Pope Yes to try the classic chicken sandwich to see what all the fuss has been about. I still don't know. It's just crispy battered chicken on a bun with something close to mayonnaise and two small pickles. I also got a box of six biscuits. The whole thing cost $15.23. I gave her a $25 and I was sure I gave her two dimes and a nickel but she have me back a $5 and change instead of a $10. She said that I'd given her a dime and two five cent pieces. Anything is possible. I gave her a dime and she gave me back a $10. I told her she still owed me a nickel. She said she needed to hear the number of the coin because she didn't know what a nickel is. It's the first time in my life that I've ever encountered anyone in North America that didn't know what a nickel is. I added chili sauce, tamarind chutney and an extra pickle to the sandwich and had it with two beers and three biscuits while watching "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once". 

            Evelyn and her husband are Chinese immigrants who own a failing laundromat. They have a daughter named Joy in her late teens or early twenties. Evelyn is trying to deal with the fact that her daughter has a girlfriend. Evelyn's father has just come from China to live with them and he thinks that Evelyn is a failure. Evelyn and her husband Waymond are being audited by Internal Revenue. Evelyn and her husband are on their way to an interview in the elevator of the tax building when Waymond suddenly changes his expression as if waking up. He opens an umbrella to block the surveillance camera and begins speaking to her without a Chinese accent, telling her that they are in grave danger. He puts a headset on her that looks a lot like a set of hands free phone devices. He tells her that she might feel a slight pressure in her head. The elevator opens and she sees her point of view at the moment of her birth. Then she sees her life flash before her. Then Waymond shifts consciousness and he's back to his previous self without remembering anything. The headset seems to be invisible to everyone. The very quirky auditor named Deirdre Beaubeirdre finds many discrepancies in the items that Evelyn has claimed as business expenses, such as a karaoke machine for the laundromat. During the interview Evelyn is physically there but she is also pulled away to a broom closet by the version of Waymond who she met in the elevator. He says that he is from another universe and that there is a great evil endangering all of the universes. He's searched for years for the person who could fight that evil and all possibilities have led him to her. He tells her he is about to die in this reality but he'll contact her later. Suddenly two hands smash through the door, grab his head and break his neck. Deirdre bursts through the door, grabs a pipe, swings it and knocks out Evelyn. She screams during the interview and everyone looks. Deirdre gives them until that night to get their expense records in order. As they wait for the elevator Deirdre walks toward Evelyn and she thinks she's going to attack her again so she punches her and knocks her down. Deirdre shouts for security. Suddenly the other Waymond takes over just as security arrives. He puts on Evelyn's headset, pulls a Chapstick out of his fanny pack and eats it. He presses a button on the headset, shifts consciousness, then removes his fanny pack and uses it as a martial arts weapon against four security guards. He takes them all out Jackie Chan style. 

            Meanwhile the Deirdre that knocked out the other Evelyn introduces the great evil that the other Waymond was talking about. Her name is Jobu Tupaki but she is another version of Evelyn's daughter Joy. She examines the body of the Evelyn on the floor and says she's not the one. Jobatobaki can switch through universes like she's channel serving and she arrives at the one where Evelyn is in Joy's body.

            The police are looking for Evelyn and Waymond who are hiding in the tax office. The other Waymond tells her that he is the version of Waymond from the Alphaverse, which is the first universe to develop the technology to contact the others. The Alpha Evelyn was the scientist who invented that technology but she was murdered like she has been in every universe. Jobu is building something that is designed to pull all the universes into nothing. That is the reason why in every universe things have started to feel and taste wrong. They are attacked by Deirdre. As he did with the Chapstick, Waymond has to perform out of the ordinary acts in order to Versejump in order to access the abilities of other versions of himself in other universes. In the Alphaverse there is a team working with computers to calculate the possibilities and communicate to him through his headset. This time he is told that he has to self-administer three paper cuts in order to jump. But Deirdre has accessed a professional wrestling version of herself and grabs him, slams his back on her knee and then drop kicks him. Now Deirdre is after Evelyn. Waymond communicates to Evelyn from the Alphaverse that she has to Versejump. He tells her to concentrate on a universe in which she studied martial arts, then she has to perform a statistically unlikely act in order to make the jump. He tells her to tell Deirdre she loves her and mean it. Evelyn finds her universe's Waymond as Deirdre is coming after them. She keeps telling Deirdre she loves her but it's not working. They run into a stairwell. Deirdre jumps from several floors and is about to make impact with Evelyn when Evelyn finally tells her she loves her and means it. Evelyn Versejumps through several universes until she arrives at the one where a kung fu master saves her from a mugger and then trains her to fight with her pinky finger. She becomes a glamorous kung fu movie star. Now she has the consciousness to fight Deirdre as if she is moving in slow motion and defeats her. Evelyn tells Alpha Waymond that she wants to live in the last universe she accessed. Waymond tells her very firmly that the other worlds are only for acquiring special skills. If one falls for the temptation of staying one invites contradiction leading to chaos. That's what happened to create Jobu Tupaki. She now has the power to be in all of the universes at the same time. Jobu Tupaki arrives and the police try to stop her but she makes one cop spit glass, suddenly makes another be dressed like Carmen Miranda, jumps on another and he is suddenly upside down and falling on his head, bullets are turned to smoke. She fights another cop with two giant floppy dildos. Evelyn suddenly realizes that Jobu Tupaki is Alpha Joy. She pees her pants and jumps to a universe where everybody has hotdogs for fingers. In that universe she is also Deirdre's lover. Jobu shows Evelyn what she built that threatens the universe. She built a giant bagel and put everything on it. Everything is being sucked into it because Jobu has concluded that nothing matters. Suddenly the Alpha version of Evelyn's father arrives, Alpha Gong Gong hits Jobu with his wheelchair and knocks her through a wall. He tells Evelyn and Waymond to follow him. Evelyn's father is senile but this one is fully conscious. Alpha Gong Gong tells Evelyn she has to kill her daughter. She refuses. She instead decides that if she can become like her she will become strong enough to stop her. She begins jumping from universe to universe. Alpha Gong Gong gives orders to I guess the Alpha Police to kill Evelyn before she becomes another Jobu Tupaki. Now Evelyn, Waymond and Joy are on the run. Evelyn has a big fight scene with several Alphas. She has a big fight with the Alpha version of one of her laundromat customers who is now using her little dog on a leash as a spinning weapon on a rope. She fights another guy who loses his powers and so in order to jump again he has to pull down his pants to try to sit on one of Deirdre's butt plug shaped tax auditor trophies. Evelyn keeps kicking the trophy away so he can't reach it. But another Alpha takes a flying leap and sits on it. Evelyn sucks the snot from a guy's nose so she can also jump to martial arts skills. She takes them both on. Meanwhile another version of herself is watching the whole fight in a movie theatre. Alpha Gong Gong pins her to a wall with a wheelchair and unpins a hand grenade. She snorts a fly and accesses the pinky power kung fu universe to free herself. More attack her and she defeats them with her pinky. Alpha Waymond is killed by Jobu. Evelyn faces Jobu but is overwhelmed by all the jumping and dies. But this is all in the movie that the other Evelyn is watching. Evelyn has planned a Chinese New Year party at the laundromat for all her customers. She confronts Alpha Joy who takes her to the Alphaverse and shows her the bagel. She says every version of Joy is Jobu Tubaki. People start getting sucked into the bagel. Alpha Joy starts heading toward the bagel to enter its oblivious hole. Evelyn tries to stop her. Jobu's followers like Deirdre attack Evelyn. Evelyn starts to fight but then stops herself, not wanting to hurt anyone. Instead of accessing her own fighting potential in the multiverse she begins accessing the greatest needs of her enemies. One opponent needs a chiropractor and she fixes his back. Another who is attacking her with a scissors needs domination and she becomes a dom and spanks him. She gives all of her enemies their hearts desire. She stops Alpha Joy from entering the bagel. She fights her defensively in every universe. Finally Joy begs to be let go and Evelyn says okay but tells her she will always be there for her and Joy comes back. The tax audit goes fine and everything is all right. 

            Deirdre was played by Jamie Lee Curtis, the daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. Her first roles were on television, starting with Quincy. She played Lieutenant Barbara Duran on Operation Petticoat and appeared several times as a panelist on Match Game. Her first movie was Halloween and she became famous through it as a Hollywood scream queen. She appeared in seven more Halloween films and other horror movies. The movie Trading Places, in which she played a kind hearted sex worker helped to break her scream queen type casting. She broke into comedy when she starred in the extremely successful "A Fish Called Wanda". She starred for four seasons on the sitcom Anything But Love. She starred in the movies Blue Steel, My Girl, Forever Young, True Lies, The Heidi Chronicles, Freaky Friday, Christmas With the Kranks, Knives Out. She won an Academy Award for her performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once. She's written several children's books. She invented a diaper. She dated Adam Ant and married writer and actor Christopher Guest who co-wrote and starred in Spinal Tap. By marriage she has the title The Right Honourable The Lady Haden-Guest but she never uses it.

May 27, 1993: I read my poems "Christmas 1979" and "Vomit of the Star Eater" and I sang my poem "Starnivorous Blues"

Thirty years ago today 

            On Thursday I worked at Central Technical School at 12:45. My cheque still hadn't come in the mail and so my celebration of my birthday would be further postponed. After work I headed home for a while and called Mike Copping at work from a payphone along the way. I told him about last week's poetry reading and he was impressed. He told me to give him a call next week and he might drop by Mudds Cabaret. I worked at the Ontario College of Art until 22:00 and then I went to Mudds. Diana Dufretes showed up and later Ray and Jodie came. I gave a reading of two poems: "Christmas 1979", "Vomit of the Star Eater" and I sang "Starnivorous Blues": 

Christmas 1979 

In the slow explosion of morning 

by the restaurant's volcanic light 

I find in a box of meteor rocks 

an alien transvestite 

She is wearing a mask 

she has carefully carved 

out of the burning flesh of martyred lust 

and I find myself wanting this strange little bird 

to be dancing on her knees to my animal thrust 

But this woman can't get love

because she got no womb to catch it in 

and this lady can't be courted 

because she ain't no lady in the living end 

But I swim in the strangest state of longing 

as she sits pouting over there 

glaring defiantly at the clientele 

until she stumbles upon my stare 

The waitress lights a cigarette for her 

and she takes a long sensual drag 

while along with the smoke 

through those red flaming lips 

I feel my breath is slowly taken away 

But this woman can't get love

because she got no womb to catch it in

and this lady can't be courted 

because she ain't no lady and in the end 

she's like some flightless bird 

in a peregrine falcon's dress 

She's exquisite food for my fantasies 

but my fingers need smoother slopes to caress 

Vomit of the Star Eater 

He felt a shooting star 

make a pass at his mind 

then an elevator-snowman 

rose up his pneumatic spine 

This sensation split him 

dividing him in half 

and ripped apart the spasmic instrument 

that makes us cry and laugh

One half of him straddled the comedy 

and rocked upon its back 

while playfully tying the other half onto 

the tragic railroad track 

So now he's strung out on being a hunger-freak 

just like all the starnivorous martyrs 

smearing their phosphorescent vomit 

as graffiti on the darkness 

Now he's locked in a light-speed-prism 

and the breaks have lost their juice 

so the rainbow of ideas

at the top is falling loose 

Now its hailing pearls of wisdom 

raining sacramental wine 

but the heavenly fruit turns to scarlet mud

in the troughs of human swine 

But he's still strung out on being a hunger-freak 

just like all the starnivorous martyrs 

smearing their phosphorescent vomit 

as graffiti on the darkness 

Shanghaied by the inner crowd 

he wakes up as a rebel 

getting orders from the spectrum 

of those flashing ghastly signals 

from his pyramid of crystal 

frozen from the sweat of man 

which he keeps parked out in orbit 

where it won't do the harm it can 

With its razor-sharpened edges 

our so-called mental health it could cut 

making french fries of our illusions

in its blasting furnace guts 

and then we'd all turn out to be hunger-freaks 

just like all the starnivorous martyrs 

smearing our phosphorescent vomit 

as graffiti on the darkness 

Starnivorous Blues 

Oh catch the silver honey 

that splays from the spinning stars 

but never lick their buzz saw blades 

they leave a shining scar 

and your mouth will bleed forever 

filling every mouth you kiss 

and give each one a taste for blood 

and an ear for the telltale hiss 

of the whispering bleeding space balloons 

falling from the sky of knives 

so they'll never eat at home again 

or want to be our wives 

Then they'll build balloon skin tepees 

out on the playing field 

and they'll dance round each crash landing 

with their hymens fully healed 

and they'll say "We're through with bleeding 

so we're giving men a pause 

and we've joined this massive harem 

as consorts of Santa Clause" 

And Santa gives them everything 

including time to think 

and they think, "Let's send the guys up 

for that bloody star-sweet drink" 

So they send men up in lipstick rockets 

tongues protruding from the ends 

to lick celestial clitori 

But they expect them back again? 

            The crowd's attention was fragmented by the noise from the other room, but a few people came up to me and told me they liked what I'd done. 

            Diana, Ray and Jodie seemed pretty excited about me coming to their place for dinner on Friday.

Heavenly Leather

            On Thursday morning I finished editing "La Dernière valse" (The Final Waltz) by Boris Vian on Christian's Translations. I just need to find a video of the song before I publish it on the blog. 

            I finished working out the chords for "Mon père un Catholique" (My Dad Was Catholic) by Serge Gainsbourg. I ran through it in French and English and uploaded it to Christian's Translations.

            Twelve days ago I emailed Albert Moritz to ask for advice on which publisher to send my poetry manuscript to since Exile Editions has rejected it but he didn't get back to me. I assume he gets hundreds of emails in a week and some just get missed, so today I added a reply to my message, asking if Quattro Books was still an option. This time he got back to me right away and answered: "In my opinion, no. It has been taken over from the last of the previous owners, the "four", Luciano Iacobelli (who died last August), by a new, ambitious owner...who seems to get nothing at all done. In all the time he's had the press, in which there were several books ready to go, he has produced only one book, and no one knows exactly what he's doing. My suggestions at present are Ekstasis Editions in Victoria, B.C. (Richard Olafson) and Black Moss Press in Windsor (Marty Gervais) and Guernica Editions (Michael Mirolla) of Toronto. Probably in that order. Another possibility is Hidden Brook Press, but I don't know how it would please you; you could look it up. Another is Allan Briesmaster's Aeolus House, but that is a sort of cross between a poetry publisher and a "vanity" press. Briesmaster retains editorial authority - no one gets to be published simply by paying for production - and he provides top-notch editing, copy-editing, and design, but, then, the author does have to pay for production: Aeolus House doesn't assume any costs. It has quite a good list of poets that it's built up over several years. I'm thinking, but those are what have occurred to me so far." 

            Based on the order of Albert's list I'll try sending my book to Ekstasis Editions next. I'll have to check out what they do first in order to adapt to them the cover letter I already composed for Exile. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I wanted to go up to Walmart to buy underwear but after shaving and showering there wasn't any time to do it before lunch. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I packed up my Kramer electric guitar and took it with me on my bike ride to Yonge and Bloor, south to King and then west to Perfect Leather. They had the guitar strap all ready and it looks great. I'd brought the Kramer along so I could see how the strap fits. The holes didn't fit over the guitar's buttons and so the elderly lady punched the ones at each end a little longer. I also bought two black leather laces to use just in case I want to tie the strap from the top of the neck. They did an excellent job and I highly recommend Perfect Leather to anyone who wants to get any leather work done. 

            I stopped at Freshco on my way home where I bought seven bags of grapes, a pack of strawberries, a pack of blackberries, some bananas, a pack of hot Italian sausages, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, two containers of skyr, two jugs of limeade, one jug of orange juice, a bag of plain kettle chips, a bag of jalapeno kettle chips, a bag of Cheezies (which I haven't eaten in decades), a Caramilk bar, a pack of frozen naan, a pack of frozen roti, vanilla bean Haagen Dasz and coffee Haagen Dasz. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos at 18:30. 

            I tuned my Kramer and was able to adjust all but the high E string while they were locked. It's been years since I've tuned with that locking system and so it took a while to remember how it's done. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 20:12. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching season 9, episodes 6 and 7 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In the first story Granny still believes she turned Mark Templeton from a frog into a man. She thinks that when she met him he was only human from the navel up because she's confused about his occupation of being a naval frogman. She wants to find out if she changed him from a frog to a human or just half and half again. When he comes for a date with Elly May, Granny gets him to take his shoes off under the pretense of reading his fortune through his feet. She's glad to see he doesn't have flippers anymore. Granny takes a frog to Jane Hathaway for her to kiss so she won't be single anymore. Back at home she sees Mark with his feet in the water and when he takes them out he's wearing his flippers but she thinks they're his feet. She concludes that whatever body part he puts into the water turns to frog. Everybody in the family but Granny understands that he's wearing a frogman suit. Elly says she wants to be a frogwoman and Granny faints. Later when she sees a frog in the swimming pool she thinks Mark has turned back to frog again. Granny goes to tell Jane and Jane thinks Granny is having bad dreams and so she arranges for her to see a psychiatrist in the bank building. Granny brings the frog to the psychiatrist and tells him Elly wants to marry it. The doctor thinks she should have brought Elly along. She asks the doctor to tell the frog to stay out of the water and so he does. Granny is satisfied and takes the frog home. 

            In the second story Granny brings the frog home and tells Elly to kiss it so it'll turn human. She says she won't watch and so Elly takes it outside and lets it go. Mark arrives and kisses Elly. Granny sees them and thinks the spell is broken again. But when Elly tells her she and Mark are going to the pool so he can teach her to be a frogwoman. Granny begs them not to go. When they insist on going Granny jumps on Mark's back. Jed takes her off and locks her in her room. Granny has a dream that Elly marries a giant frog and when they kiss Elly becomes a frog too. Granny runs to the pool where Elly is getting her frogwoman lesson. When she sees the flippers on Elly's feet she's extremely upset because she thinks the transformation has begun. 

            Mark doesn't like Mr. Drysdale because he threw him out of his office when he first saw him. Now that Elly, the heir to Jed's millions might marry Mark, Drysdale wants to get on his good side. Drysdale dresses like a sailor and tells Mark a fake story about being a navy war veteran. That melts the ice and they become friends. Granny pushes Drysdale in the pool because he tells her he's the one who got Elly and Mark together. Jed locks Granny in her room again. Jethro brings her two frogs and she thinks they are Elly and Mark. She escapes from her room with the frogs and goes back to see the psychiatrist. She leaves them with him, expecting him to turn them into Elly and Mark. When she gets home Mark and Elly are there and she thinks the doctor is responsible for changing them back from frogs. Granny tells them to stay away from the water but Mark tells her she's giving Elly another frogwoman lesson. Granny jumps on his back again. 

            Granny becomes chronically less realistic with every season. 

            The judge who married Elly and Mark in Granny's dream, and who married Shorty and Gloria a few episodes ago, was played by Canadian actor Vincent Perry, from Woodstock, Ontario. He played supporting roles on several TV series, including a judge on Perry Mason.

May 26, 1993: My daughter had ice cream for the first time

Thirty years ago today 

            Wednesday was my birth day and my daughter and I got up around 10:00. I didn't make breakfast because I expected to take her to eat downtown when my cheque came. But it didn't come and my daughter was cranky as hell when I was getting her ready to go down to the payphone on Queen to call her mother. She had about eight different tools in her hands and every time she dropped one she'd throw them all down in frustration and begin to cry. If I tried to offer solutions she would start hitting me. I called Nancy to tell her I was bringing our daughter back to Scarborough but she said not to because she was coming down to the Beaches. Once my daughter was out she started to feel better. I took her to the bank with me and got out $7 . I bought us each a Klondike Bar and we ate them in the back yard. It was her first experience with ice cream. I took about fifteen pictures of her eating hers with ice cream melting all down her face and hands. 

            We were playing with the hose when her mother arrived. She fed her and then we all went for something to eat at the Beach Bar where Nancy loaned me $20. I took my daughter to play in Kew Park, and then she played with the library doors. I took her home for her nap while Nancy hung out at the library. She woke up and wanted to play in the bath about half an hour before her mother came to get her. We walked down to Queen and I put my daughter on the bus. I went for a beer and then I helped a guy carry some stuff back up Wineva and he turned out to be a writer, who I found out a few days later was named Norman Cristofoli.