Iman Vellani

            On Sunday morning I worked out the chords for the first verse of “Aux enfants de la chance” (To the Children of Chance) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of four sessions. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            At around midday I got caught up on my journal. 

            At 13:00 I went for lunch with my upstairs neighbour David. We walked down Cowan to a new place at Dufferin and King called Toronto shawarma. On the way David pointed out all the places he used to live which is half the buildings on Cowan. I had the chicken shawarma wrap and he had the beef. I had an orange Brio and he had a sparkling water. I insisted on paying which is always hard work with David. His water didn’t have a twist off cap and the guy behind the counter couldn’t find a bottle opener. Fortunately I have one on my jackknife which I keep in my backpack. The shawarmas were enormous. David says he makes $125,000 a year. He also says he bathes in ice water five times a day. He’s a follower of Lobsang Rampa. 

            I took a siesta at 14:30 and only slept an hour so I could take my bike ride downtown and back at the usual time. It got very damp and cold on the way back and the cold sank into my winter gloves. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos at 17:30, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening in about half a year.

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

            I looked at the Movie Maker project for my August 19, song practice to find out if the electric version of “L’accordion” is good enough to upload to YouTube. It’s not. Since I’ve already uploaded a good acoustic version of both that song and my translation, I’m going to consider that song finished and move it out of my regular repertoire. I’ll start doing “Amsterdam” by Jacques Brel or my translation and “Le déserteur” by Boris Vian or my translation every day. I’ll also nudge out “Personne” by Serge Gainsbourg and my translation because I was just using it to practice my whistling. I whistle in “Le déserteur”. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Joanna Dances Lightly” and “Joanna” from August 4 to 7. On August 4 I played “Joanna Dances Lightly” on my Kramer electric guitar and it was okay but the camera was too close. On August 5 I played “Joanna” on my Martin acoustic and the take starting in Part B was fine. On August 6 I played “Joanna Dances Lightly” on the acoustic and the take at 7:15 in part B was pretty good but a motorcycle roared by at the end. This version is already in Movie Maker. On August 7 I played “Joanna” on the electric and it didn’t sound great, the light wasn’t good and the camera was out of focus. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for my song “Angeline” I inserted the Greta Garbo clip into the main video to correspond with my line, “until it brushed against my soul”. I put it in just before the line and then synchronized the line in the concert video with the studio audio. That brings me up to the beginning of the first chorus and since I start singing it in the concert video before the studio audio I need to find a video clip to push it back. The chorus has a theme of falling and so I started looking into videos of people falling through the sky. I might find what I need more than once in The Man Who Fell to Earth. 

            I heated the last ten mini quiches and melted a little five-year-old cheddar on top of each one. I had them with two beers while watching The Marvels. 

            In the previous movie Captain Marvel destroyed the AI that the Kree world depended upon. The result over the next thirty years is war and environmental disaster. They are losing their atmosphere and their sun. Dar-Benn the leader of the Kree is seeking out the two quantum bands and finds one on a remote planet. The other one should be there but it isn’t. She uses the band to create jump points in space that allow instantaneous travel across light years. Captain Marvel goes to investigate the jump point that Dar-Benn has just created. Meanwhile Monica Rambeau is an astronaut doing repairs outside of a space station in Earth orbit commanded by Nick Fury when another jump point appears near her. At the same time Kamala Khan, alias Ms. Marvel is on Earth drawing comics when she is supposed to be doing homework. Kamala always wears the bangle that her mother gave her, which is also the other quantum band. When Marvel and Rambeau touch the jump points Marvel is transported to Kamala’s room, Kamala suddenly finds herself in a space suit outside of the space station, and Rambeau is where Marvel was. Marvel uses her powers again and is transported back to the planet where the jump point is. She is attacked by Kree and easily takes them out but learns the Kree are going after the Skrull refugee camp on the planet Tarnax. She returns to her ship and goes there with her cat-shaped alien pet Goose. Dar-Benn plans to strip the atmosphere of Tarnax. She fights some Kree in a corridor but is transported away and Kamala appears there. She sees Goose eat two Kree and is holding her when she is transported back to her house. Then Goose coughs up the two Kree in the living room in front of her parents and brother and they attack. Marvel goes from being with Fury to Kamala’s home to fight the two Kree. Everyone keeps jumping back and forth and Kamala accidentally brings two Kree warriors from Tarnax to the space station. The Marvels each end up back where they are supposed to be. But then Fury and Rambeau travel by normal means to Kamala’s house. Kamala tries to show off her powers but is replaced by Marvel. Marvel immediately flies away but while she is on her way to space is replaced by Kamala who can’t fly and falls. Rambeau has to try flying for the first time to save her. But while they are falling together they try to use their powers and are transported to Tarnax. Dar-Benn is about to kill them when Marvel arrives. They fight Dar-Bann but Marvel discovers that if she uses her powers on Dar-Benn her quantum band absorbs the energy. Dar-Benn opens up a portal leading to the Kree homeworld and begins sucking the atmosphere of Tarnax to Hala. They have to quickly evacuate Tarnax.

            Marvel uses three Skrull mind reading devices so she, Monica and Kamala can share their memories and get a united feel of the situation. If Dar-Benn keeps creating jump points she’ll break the universe. They figure that if she stole an atmosphere for Hala she will next steal water because Hala is suffering from drought. The richest water planet is Aladna and so they go there where everybody communicates by singing and dancing and it turns out that Marvel is a princess. On their way there they train by playing games while practicing deliberately changing places so they won’t be thrown off while it happens in battle. They juggle and catch each other’s balls when they shift. They also skip rope. This story is about building teamwork by being able to put oneself in another’s place. When they arrive Marvel is suddenly wearing a princess gown with the Captain Marvel symbols and she dances with the prince and tells him in song that the Kree are about to invade. Meanwhile on the space station a pink, brain shaped thing is found and they are trying figure out what it is. The Kree land on Aradna and attack. The Marvels and the people of Aradna fight back. Kamala fights the Kree with her scarf while Marvel and Monica fight Dar-Benn. But Kamala ends up instinctively using her power and winds up switching with Marvel in front of Dar-Benn who sees for the first time that Kamala has the other quantum band. Dar-Benn opens up a jump point and begins draining the water from Aradna. The Marvels escape through several jump points. Marvel concludes Dar-Benn is going to steal Earth’s sun next. The space station has to be evacuated but they don’t have nearly enough escape pods. Fury opens a closet and discovers Goose with several of those pink brain things. They hatch and kittens emerge. Fury picks up one of the kittens and it immediately swallows one of the crew members. Fury has an idea to solve the evacuation problem The kittens are allowed to run amok and swallow everyone since somehow there is a storage dimension inside each one. The Marvels arrive and help gather the kittens and aim them at the crew while the aria from CATS is playing. The Marvels face off against Dar-Benn and after a long battle she is down. Monica tells Marvel she has the power to rejuvenate Hala’s sun and so she agrees to do it. But Dar-Benn starts fighting again and takes Kamala’s bangle. She flies with them to open another jump point but is somehow destroyed by the energy. Marvel brings both quantum bands back for Kamala. There is now a hole in space-time. Monica tells them that she can repair the tear from the inside if Marvel and Kamala charge her with energy. Monica repairs the hole but she is trapped on the other side. Marvel fixes Hala’s sun. The Khans move into Marvel’s country home. Monica wakes in a hospital in an alternate reality where she meets her mother who she lost in her own world to cancer. Her mother does not know her because she never had children. She is Captain Marvel in that reality. 

            Ms. Marvel is played by Canadian actor Iman Vellani, who graduated from Unionville High School in Markham and was going to study Integrated Media at OCADU when she was cast as Ms. Marvel. She was considered perfect for the part because, like Kamala she is a Marvel fangirl and obsessed with Captain Marvel. She co-wrote four Ms. Marvel comics for Marvel. If the proposed Young Avengers project is filmed, she will probably be one of the stars.