Elsie Baker

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the second verse of “La vie grise” (The Grey Life) by Boris Vian. 

            I ran through singing and playing “Somber Sunday”, my translation of “Gloomy Sunday” by Serge Gainsbourg. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog, edited it and published it. Then I posted it on Facebook. Tomorrow I’ll start learning his song “Aux enfants de la chance” (To the Children of Chance). 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second session of two. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning in a week though not nearly as light as I was that morning. 

            Around midday I measured off and marked with Frog Tape two more 31.5 x 31.5 cm squares to the left of the square that I painted with black gloss yesterday. I left the one in the middle white and painted the next one black again. I used a different roller and the paint went on smoother this time, requiring less. I had quite a bit left over in the tray and didn’t think I had time to measure off and tape two more squares, so I painted most of my bike frame. It’s been kind of a faded silver grey since I bought the frame. It needs to be touched up but it looks a lot better black. I had to throw away some of the paint in the tray. I think that next time, now that I’m more experienced with the measuring, marking and painting, I’ll try to measure off the next four squares and paint the fifth and seventh ones black in one session, completing that row.  

            I weighed 86 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back with my newly painted bike. It looks pretty good at least while looking down on it as I’m riding. 

            I weighed 85.8 kilos at 17:30. 

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

            In the Movie Maker project for my September 6 song practice I finished synchronizing the audio with the video. Then I saved a copy as “L’accordion (acoustic)” and isolated that song. I added a fade to black effect and a 3-D ripple. Tomorrow I’ll publish the movie and then upload it to YouTube. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Angeline” I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio for my line, “I felt fire I felt ice attack”. But then the video jumps ahead of the audio for my line, “I felt the ripping of a hole”. So I started searching for clips from Greta Garbo movies that might fit either of those lines. I’ll look some more tomorrow. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 6, episodes 2 and 3 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story Lisa wants to have a party for Lori to introduce her to the local children and Oliver is fine with that. But Lisa keeps coming up with extravagant and expensive ideas for the kind of party it will be. First she wants hors d’oeuvres, waiters and a band. Oliver tells her to do something simple. Then she wants a circus party and rents an elephant from Haney. Oliver makes Haney take it back and tells Lisa to have a plain party but she thinks he means “plane” party and rents a WWI plane from Haney. Oliver nixes that too. He gives Lisa $10 to get the ice cream and cake and she puts it down her cleavage. Eb says he’ll go get the party favours and Lisa tells Oliver to give Eb $10. Oliver says, “I just gave you $10!” but Lisa says, “I already deposited that.” Lori has her party and they have a scavenger hunt that finds a part that Oliver needs for his tractor. 

            In the second story Eb keeps bugging Oliver for a car but he refuses. When Oliver buys Lori a new bike Eb begins to get jealous. Then Lori shows on Arnold’s toy piano that she has talent and so Oliver rents her a piano from Haney for $12 a week. At first Oliver offers him $10 a week but he says he wouldn’t even rent it to his mother for $10 a week. Then an elderly woman who Haney says is his mother steps up and asks to rent the piano for $10 a week and Haney turns her down. When Eb sees the piano it’s the last straw and he decides to leave. But he finds life on the outside is very expensive and so he comes back to find that Oliver has bought him a little dune buggy. 

            The elderly woman was played by Elsie Baker, whose mother was an actor and her father the owner of a stock company so her stage debut occurred when she was a baby. She grew up on the vaudeville stage, then worked in radio and films, then finally television. She was also a contralto singer. Her first film appearance was as a vampire in the 1916 silent film serials The Mysteries of Myra. She played several characters in the serial Beatrice Fairfax. She co-starred in the 1968 horror film The Ghosts of Hanley House.