Celeste Holm

            On Wednesday morning I memorized the eighth verse of “C’est le Bebop” by Boris Vian. There are six verses left to learn. 

            I memorized the eighth verse of “Glass securit” (Security Glass) by Serge Gainsbourg and finished revising my translation. 

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

            I weighed 86.3 kilos before breakfast. 

            I read a few more pages of The Buried Giant. Edwin, the boy who was kidnapped by the ogres, was bitten by a baby dragon before being rescued by the warrior Wistan. Now the superstitious Saxons including his own family have rejected him and want to kill him because they are afraid he will turn into a monster. Wistan persuades Axl and Beatrice to take Edwin to be adopted by a Briton village and Wistan accompanies them part of the way.

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before lunch, which is the most I’ve weighed at midday in three weeks.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was raining lightly and so I only went as far as Bloor and Gladstone and then went south. I stopped at Freshco where I bought three bags of red grapes. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos at 17:00. That’s the heaviest I’ve been in the evening in about half a year. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:50.

            I read several pages more of The Buried Giant bringing me to almost the halfway point in the book. Axl, Beatrice, Wistan and Edwin are travelling together. They need to cross a bridge that’s being guarded by soldiers and so Wistan poses as a drooling half wit to fool them. They later run across an elderly knight in rusted armour and it turns out to be Sir Gawain. Although no longer formidable he still wears his armour to honour his late uncle, King Arthur. Then one of the soldiers who’d let them through confronts them again. He’s looking for a Saxon warrior. Wistan reveals himself and says that he is in Briton territory to slay the she-dragon Querig because his king has learned that the Briton King Brennus has a dragon whisperer to tame Querig and use her for a super weapon against the Saxons. Wistan is forced to kill the soldier. Gawain is upset at Wistan because he thinks it’s his job to kill Querig. But the problem is that he’s taken decades and not fulfilled the task. Leaving Gawain they all go to the mountain monastery to see Father Jonus but so far he has been tied up with other things. Wistan senses danger in the monastery. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, chopped onion, five-year-old cheddar and chopped tomato. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 10 of Burke’s Law. 

            In this story a psychiatrist named Techman calls Burke because he thinks one of his patients is trying to murder him. While they are on the phone the doctor is shot and killed. Burke doesn’t want the news to get out that the doctor is dead because he wants to trap the killer. Burke goes to see Mrs. Techman. She’s obsessive compulsive and tells Burke to jump over the threshold because “Step on a crack break your husband’s back”. Burke and his team are checking out all of the doctor’s current patients. Tim and Les check out the burlesque artist Gigi String. She says she has a split personality. Half of her wants to take it off but the other half wants to keep it on. She says she thinks Techman ought to pay her for all the questions he asks her. Burke goes to see the wealthy Helen Forsythe. One of her guns is missing. She says Techman told her she was too violent. Tim goes to guard the doctor’s secretary Janet Fielding and gets bonked on the head and knocked out outside her door. Burke comes there and sees a cigar in her ashtray. She says it’s hers so Burke lights it for her and she’s choking on it because she’s obviously not a cigar smoker. Mrs. Techman gets shot slightly in the arm by a burglar. They catch Dominic Farrow, another of the doctor’s patients hanging around. Movie star Dorrie Marsh and Helen Forsythe’s son Larry try to steal a plane and fly to Mexico but they catch a snag when Larry doesn’t know how to start the plane. The murder happened on a Tuesday. All of Techman’s Tuesday patients also have appointments on Thursdays and so when Thursday comes around Burke sets himself up in Techman’s office to receive each patient. The first patient is Gigi. She says it takes sincerity to murder someone and she is a very insincere person. Then Dominic comes. When he leaves he jumps over the threshold and says “Step on a crack break your husband’s back”. Then Larry and Dorrie come saying they just got married. Larry says he can’t find his mother. Helen comes for her appointment and points a gun at Burke. She says she thought he was the doctor and wanted to spook him. She tells Burke she hopes he cracks it and he says he just did. Burke goes to Mrs. Techman and finds a cigar in her ashtray. They find Dominic hiding in the bedroom. Burke arrests Mrs. Techman for murdering her husband. She shot herself in the arm earlier. He says that it was “Step on a crack break your husband’s back” that gave her away because that’s not the expression. She was subconsciously revealing that she killed her husband. 

            Helen Forsythe was played by Celeste Holm, who made her Broadway debut at 19 in The Time of Your Life. She originated the role of Ado Annie in the musical Oklahoma and was the first to sing “I Cain’t Say No”. 

            Her first film appearance was in 1946 in Three Little Girls in Blue. For Gentleman’s Agreement she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. She was nominated for two more Academy Awards for her roles in Come to the Stable and All About Eve. In 1954 she had her own short lived sitcom Honestly Celeste. In 1959 she was a regular panelist on the short lived game show Who Pays?. She played Abigail Townsend on the 1970 sitcom Nancy. She had a one woman show called An Intimate Evening with Celeste. She said, “I believe that if a man does a job as well as a woman he should be paid as much”. Her son coined the term “hypertext”.