I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions.
I weighed 87.4 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in 24 days.
I read a few more pages of The Buried Giant. Soldiers have come for Wistan and Edwin. They want to kill Edwin because he has been bitten by a dragon and now the she dragon Querig can track him. Wistan holds the soldiers off while the monks send them down a trap door that supposedly leads to a tunnel to the forest beyond the monastery. In the tunnel they meet Sir Gawain again who tells them there is a beast in the tunnel and the monks meant for them to be killed. He is there to protect them. They tread a long way over a carpet of bones before encountering the monster.
I weighed 87.6 kilos before lunch. That’s the highest it’s been in several months.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way home. I bought five bags of red grapes, two packs of blueberries, a pack of blackberries, bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a pack of ground pork, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips.
I weighed 86.6 kilos at 18:00.
I was caught up on my journal at 19:00.
I spend some time making notes and jotting down page numbers for the opening dialogue I’ll be doing with Kenzo in class tomorrow. I found a couple of things I’d missed before. Ben Woolf in The Mere Wife feels weighted down by his tattoos, some of which are of monsters. Also Beowulf doesn’t seem to be only motivated by glory in deciding to die fighting the dragon. When the dragon burns his home Beowulf blames himself, thinking he had offended god against the old ways. Maybe this refers to a conflict between pagan traditions and Christian faith.
I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg while watching season 1, episode 11 of Burke’s Law.
The story begins with a person dressed as a witch performing a ritual while mixing potions. In the middle she comments about having to wear the ridiculous costume but continues. Then she says “Tell me who my enemy may be” as she pours something into a cauldron. There is a small explosion and then a hooded figure appears before her and throws something in her face. Meanwhile Amos Burke receives a record the size of a 45 RPM vinyl disk. When he listens it is the voice of a witch named Purity Mather predicting her own death. She says she’s a direct descendant of Cotton Mather. She provides Burke with a list of suspects. At the scene of the crime it is determined that she died and was disfigured by sulphuric acid. They also take into custody her familiar, a raven with a locket around its neck. Inside the locket is a note that breads, “Summon me from fire, the witching hour, full of woe”. They go to see George O’Shea who claims to be a Muslim fakir. He sleeps on a bed of nails. He’s also a consulting chemist for several cosmetic brands. He says he’s perfected a pill that will enhance the colour of lips so people won’t have to apply lipstick. He says Purity Mather stole the formula. They find sulphuric acid and he lists several practical uses for the chemical. At the time Purity was killed he was in the mosque leading the prayer. Burke goes to see I.A. Bugg who is with a continuously screaming woman. Bugg says he holds seances and also that he’s thrilled to hear that Purity is dead. He goes into his bedroom to change and as soon as he leaves the woman stops screaming and talks with Burke. She says he hires her to come there three nights a week to act frightened while he chases her around the apartment. She says Bugg tries to communicate with his childhood violin teacher Viola who is dead. She says Purity promised to raise Viola’s ghost but it was a fraud and he planned to get even. Burke discovers that Bugg has escaped through a private elevator in his bedroom. She says Bugg went into his bedroom for half an hour at midnight, which is when Purity was killed. She says her name is Girl Girl. Burke goes to see Count Carlo Szipesti who is in a hearse that is currently parked in front of a movie theatre where he is making an appearance at an all night horror film festival. He says he’s a vampire. He says Purity called him a fraud and he could have killed her. Burke says he’s not a vampire but the count says it’s not his fault he has dental troubles and his teeth aren’t sharp. The count has to go home before the sun comes up. Burke goes to see Rina Jacobs who runs a nudist camp. She’s supposedly nude as she talks to them from the other side of a fence but we can only see her from the shoulders up. She thinks Purity is responsible for the death of her fiancé. They go to see Venus Hecate Walsh (played brilliantly by Gloria Swanson) who thinks she’s the reincarnation of the goddess Venus. She thinks Burke and Tim are there to distribute handbills to advertize her Venus cult. She says one of the benefits of worshipping Venus is free love. She says that Purity pulled all of the godly beauty out of her like a vacuum cleaner. They relocate Bugg at Viola’s mausoleum. Burke goes home and sees a hooded figure climbing out through his bedroom window then jumping down and running away. They find an empty vial and take it to be analyzed. Burke goes home again and Tim joins him. Tim gets a call from the lab as Burke is about to brush his hair. Tim knocks the brushes away and says they contain curare the South American arrow poison that is always fatal. The raven is still wearing the locket. Burke opens it up again and looks for a secret compartment behind the first one. Inside is the chemical formula for O’Shea’s invention. Tim then figures out that the original note in the first part of the locket connects to a nursery rhyme: “Monday’s child is fair of face / Tuesday’s child is full of grace / Wednesday’s child is full of woe / and Thursday’s child has far to go”. Burke says he knows who the killer is and they’ll find out at the witching hour since it’s Wednesday night. They go to Purity’s house. They catch the count sneaking around. He says he and Purity were partners in marketing O’Shea’s stolen formula. He said he got a note from Purity to ignore what the papers said about her death and so he brought some papers for her to sign. Burke says Purity isn’t dead. Purity shows up in a slinky gown and she’s the one they thought was Rina at the nudist camp. Rina is the one who was murdered. She tries to disappear but says she put too much unicorn horn in the vanishing powder.
Purity was played by Janet Blair, who at age 18 was the lead singer for Hal Kemp’s band. She was spotted by Columbia and the studio signed her. Her first film was Three Girls About Town in 1941. She co-starred in Two Yanks in Trinidad, My Sister Eileen, Broadway, Something to Shout About, Once Upon a Time, Tonight and Every Night, The Fabulous Dorseys, Gallant Journey, That Mad Mr. Jones, Public Pigeon Number One, Night of the Eagle, and The Black Arrow Strikes. When Hollywood film producers lost interest in her she became a successful nightclub singer. Then she co-starred in the musical South Pacific. She married Nick Mayo the producer of that show and they bought and operated the Valley Music Theatre. On TV she co-starred on Caesar’s Hour, and The Smith Family.
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