Lilia Skala

            On Sunday morning I finished transcribing the chords for “Suck baby suck” by Serge Gainsbourg that had been posted on Ultimate Guitar. Then I started working them out and I found them to be accurate but that in every place where there was a B chord there should be a G chord. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I didn’t have time to paint the first coat of white gloss on the Masonite that I’d glued to the kitchen floor because I had to get caught up on my journal. I hadn’t finished it last night because I got sleepy and went to bed early. I did go to the hardware store to buy another small tray, brush, and roller kit. Home Hardware will start closing on Sundays beginning on Christmas Eve. 

            On my way there I saw that the glass in front of the ad screen on the side of the bus shelter had been broken into a spiderweb pattern but not shattered, probably by a kick. Above the broken part someone had written, “I am broken like this screen”. I stopped to take some pictures. While I was doing that a guy passed who looked like Jason Momoa. 

            I weighed 86 kilos before lunch. I had Ritz crackers with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of limeade. 

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

            I weighed 85.2 kilos at 17:25. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:08. 

            I reviewed the videos for my song practice performances of “L’accordion” and “The Accordion” from August 11 to 15. On August 11 and 15 I played “L’accordion” on my Martin acoustic guitar. On August 11 the take at 20:45 was not bad and I was expressive. On August 15 the take at 18:00 was not bad. On August 12 I played “The Accordion” on the acoustic and the take at 19:00 was okay although the light wasn’t great. On August 14 I played it on my Kramer electric guitar and the take at 21:00 was pretty good and looked and felt good. It’s the best English electric one so far and it’s already synchronized in Movie Maker. On August 13 I played “L’accordion” on the Kramer but it didn’t sound very good and I suddenly slowed down at one point. 

            In my “Megaphor” video project I shaved the video of the spiral galaxy formation down from two minutes to eight seconds. I think the pieces are ready to insert into the main video and I’ll edit some of them further once I see how they fit. There are only about thirty seconds left in the song and hopefully the rest won’t be as time consuming. 

            I scanned another five black and white negatives. They were all outdoor shots. There are fifteen negatives and eight boxes of slides left to scan. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a cut up beef burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching the fourth season finale and the fifth season premier of Green Acres. 

            In the first story Lisa and Eb are watching a movie about a man who reincarnates as a racehorse to win a race and save his wife and daughter from financial ruin. Lisa calls it “reinarceration” and Oliver corrects her that it’s “reincarnation” but she says that’s only when one comes back as a flower. Eb says he wants to come back as a dog. Eb has a date to have dinner at Lorelei’s house and leaves on his scooter. But there is a big storm and the bridge is washed out and Eb never makes it to Lorelei’s house nor does he return home. Oliver organizes a search party and finds Eb’s scooter by the washed out bridge. Meanwhile Lisa is at home and hears a knock on the door. It’s a big dog and so she thinks it’s the reincarnation of Eb. Oliver chases the dog away and continues to look for Eb. A deputy comes to interview Lisa but when he hears about people turning into dogs he feels his time has been wasted. Then Eb returns. Oliver comes back with the dog and tells Eb to keep him for his next reinarceration. 

            In the second story at the beginning of the fifth season we finally meet Lisa’s mother. She arrives in a limousine driven by an ethnic stereotype of a Japanese chauffeur named Kyoto. She claims to have recently bought a palace in Italy that came with a countessship which she chose over a palace with a kitchen. One can’t become a countess that way in Italy. She says she could have bought a palace in Sicily and become the queen there but it didn’t have any bathrooms. Eb overhears and tells everyone that she’s a queen. Hooterville organizes a 21 gun salute but the cannon only has three balls and so they have to retrieve each one seven times. A cannon wrecks Oliver’s porch, another goes through the wall of his barn and he takes another in the gut. The countess has a dog that is the same dog that was in the finale of the fourth season. 

            Lisa’s mother was played by Lilia Skala who was born in Vienna during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Before the war she was one of the first female architects in Austria, then she became a star of Max Reinhardt’s stage troupe. She escaped Austria in 1939 and worked at menial jobs in New York’s garment district until she reestablished herself as an actor and eventually became a star of Broadway. Her first Broadway appearance was in Letters to Lucerne in 1941. She had a feature role in Call Me Madam. She became a regular on several soap operas including Claudia: The Story of a Marriage. She played Mother Superior Maria in Lilies of the Field, for which she was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. She co-starred in Ship of Fools, Deadly Hero, and Flashdance. She co-starred in the mini-series Eleonor and Franklin, for which she was nominated for an Emmy. She continued acting into her 90th year.