Jane Connell

            On Sunday morning I published “Others Wrote It Many Times”, which is my translation of “Tout a été dit cent fois” by Boris Vian, on my Christian’s Translations blog. I still need to post it on my Boris Vian Facebook page. 

            I finished working out the chords for the first verse of “Gloomy Sunday” by Serge Gainsbourg and started on the second. I think they are the same. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third session of four. 

            I weighed 86.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            Since pest control is coming for an inspection on Monday I didn’t have time to do any painting on my kitchen floor project. Even though Steve from Orkin won’t be spraying tomorrow I decided I’d better tidy up anyway and so I swept the floors and cleaned the bathroom. Tomorrow I won’t be able to paint either because it’s a laundry day. Monday is usually a shower and shave day and so I’ll have to move that to Tuesday and so I might not have time to paint then either. Maybe there’ll be time on Tuesday to measure off and tape the lines around the first square that I’ll be painting black. 

            I weighed 86.2 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been at midday in twenty days. Must be the bagels. I had another toasted bagel with cream cheese and a glass of limeade. 

            In the afternoon it was raining and so I didn’t take a bike ride. Instead I labeled the bags of candy that I’ll be sending to my daughter Astrid, put together the shipping box, and addressed it. I’ll mail it on Monday.

            I weighed 85.9 kilos at 17:30. 

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

            I listened and watched again the videos of my song practice electric guitar performances of “The Accordion” on August 14 and September 3 because I wasn’t sure if I’d made the right decision to pick August 14 over the other. I was right. I compared September 5 to August 14 and on September 5 there was still a rattling sound when I barred the B flat chord and so August 14 is the best possible electric take of that song if I decide to upload it to YouTube, plus it’s already synchronized with the audio recording in Movie Maker. 

            I compared my August 19 electric performance of “L’accordion” to that of August 29. One is not much better than the other but August 19 has the advantage of being already synchronized and so it wins this round. I compared September 4 to August 19 and although I play it a little better on September 4, there is still a rattle on the B flat and my mouth fumbles the word “centimes”. I compared September 14 to August 19 and it really isn’t good enough to bump the one that’s already synchronized. So if I do upload an electric version of this song it’ll be the one from August 19. The acoustic versions are much better though and so I’ll just have to check on how the synchronized videos of the electric guitar performances look and sound to decide. I’ll start working on synchronizing with the audio recording the song practice video of my September 6 song practice tomorrow and then isolate the acoustic take of “L’accordion” to get it ready to upload to YouTube. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Angeline” I inserted the clip of Greta Garbo from the movie Ninotchka into the main video to correspond with the line, “When I saw you in the café there you seemed nervous and alone”. Then as best as I could I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio for my line, “Like a short circuit with your heart frayed bare”. But then the video goes ahead of the audio for the beginning of the line, “until you stood to read your poem”. So now I need to look for a very short clip of a woman standing to read to push back the video, preferably something from a silent film. 

            I labelled and filed the second box of slides of the remaining eight and started on box number three. I only had time to scan the first three and they were all shots of sculptures of me in a reclining pose. It looks like images of that sculpture take up almost half the box and the rest are street shots and pictures of my daughter at about the age of one and a half. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, four mini sausages, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 5, episodes 22 and 23 of Green Acres. 

            In the first story Oliver wants to take Lisa on a romantic picnic, just the two of them. But when Eb finds out about it he wants to go and Lisa says he’s welcome. Then Eb wants to bring his girlfriend Linda Wheeler. But when they pick Linda up her father won’t allow Linda to go unchaperoned and so he comes. Then Mrs. Wheeler and Grandpa also have to come. Then they have to pick up Sam who they’d invited to dinner and Sam brings his date Clara. Then Hank Kimball wants to go and since there’s no room for everybody in Oliver’s car, Hank drives the rest. Oliver gets to the picnic site but Grandpa is missing because he got lost when they stopped for gas. But when Hank arrives he has grandpa and his new girlfriend, an elderly woman he picked up at the gas station. Afterwards when Oliver and Lisa are alone with some caviar and champagne and are finally going to enjoy some romantic time together, Eb walks in with Linda, followed by her family, Grandpa’s fiancé, Hank and Sam. Oliver leaves them all in his house with the champagne and caviar and takes Lisa away. 

            Clara was played by Jane Connell, who met her husband Gordon Connell when they were studying drama at the University of California. They began performing as a duo in San Francisco night clubs. She became well known in New York theatre and on Broadway long before she acted in films and on television. She played Mrs. Peacham in The Three Penny Opera and Agnes Gooch in Mame, the latter she reprised in the film version. She played Jane on the 50s sitcom Stanely. She played four characters on Bewitched including Queen Victoria, Martha Washington, and Mother Goose. She was a regular on the children’s series Mr. Mayor. She played Bridget on the 70s sitcom The Dumplings and Roberta Domedian on the 90s sitcom Big Brother Jake. She was nominated for a Tony for her role in Me and My Girl. 

            In the next story Eb says that his 11 year old friend Dinky Watson built his own rocket, went to the Moon and brought back a Moon rock. Dinky confirms it’s true and shows them his Moon rock. Oliver doesn’t believe it but Lisa buys the rock for $14. She keeps it in bed with her and that night when the Moon shines on it the rock begins to make a beeping noise. Later when Arnold the pig oinks at it the rock beeps at him and later still it oinks at Arnold while Arnold beeps at the rock. Oliver sends the rock to NASA. Wilson of NASA public relations takes the rock to Dr. Stoddard who informs him that Moon rocks really do beep when exposed to Moon light. He says only he, the president and now Wilson know about this because the president doesn’t think the public is ready.