Mamie Van Doren

            On Thursday morning I revised my translation of verses eleven and twelve of “C’est le Bebop” by Boris Vian. 

            I worked out the chords for the instrumental intro and the first verse and a half of “Mon Légionnaire” by Raymond Asso. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar for the last of four sessions. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning in twenty five days. 

            I had gone to bed early last night and so I had to catch up on my journal at midday. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. East of Dufferin there were two cops walking in the middle of the Bloor bike lane. I called out “Watch your back!” but they didn’t hear. Then as I got closer I shouted “Watch out!” and one of them turned his head and jumped sideways. One would think they would train the police to be aware of their surroundings. I went to Yonge and Bloor and as soon as I was heading south I was faced with a strong wind. Even though I was going downhill there was so much resistance that it was like I was going uphill. It was the same when I started riding west and sometimes it was all I could do to maintain enough momentum to stay balanced. It was a real workout. 

            I weighed 86.2 kilos at 17:30. That’s the least I’ve tipped the scales in the evening 28 days.

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:21. 

            I finished re-reading the poem Pearl and then I wrote three stream of consciousness pages with Pearl and Kerilyn Harkaway-Krieger’s essay “Mysticism and Materiality: Pearl and the Theology of Metaphor” in mind. I transcribed the first page. 

            I had a bowl of the potato soup that I made yesterday with plantain chips and a glass of soymilk while watching season 2, episode 12 of Burke’s Law. 

            Buddy Jack Cook, a guest in a high class hotel is found shot dead in the elevator. He was a corporation raider and an influence pedlar. He was scheduled to go on trial on Monday and all the witnesses subpoenaed against him are staying at the hotel. Pepe Van Heller the manager is very annoyed by the police presence in the hotel. In Cook’s room there is a roll of cord on the coffee table and two untouched drinks. They find the business card of Harold Harold who is Cook’s accountant and is staying in the room below Cook’s. They find Harold playing with an elaborate machine with spinning wheels and bells. He says he takes it with him when he travels and has a much bigger one at home. It’s his therapy and he’s still perfecting it. Tim asks, “What does it do?” Harold says, “Do? Nothing! That’s the beauty of it! This is my rebellion against efficiency!” This has been quoted in films and on TV so many times that everyone has forgotten that it originally came from Burke’s Law. Burke asks where he was when Cook was killed. He says every day at 18:55 he takes a fifteen minute walk then he washes his hands. Burke observes that his hands are dirty. Harold says it’s from the machine but Burke says it looks more like dirt than grease. They find more cord and some peat moss. Burke digs in the flower bed on Harold’s balcony and finds a gun. Harold is arrested for murder. His prints were on the gun and nitrate was on his hands. Burke says the nitrate could have come from the peat moss. Harold says when he came back from his walk he found the gun on his floor. Then the police knocked and he panicked. Burke points out that the gun was Cook’s and asks why Harold didn’t place it beside the body. Why are his prints on the gun but not on the elevator buttons? He wouldn’t have fired the gun without gloves and then put them on to press the buttons. Burke thinks Harold was framed. Burke is on the patio trying to convince Pepe to hire Tim and Les as waiters. Clarissa Benton arrives and calls out to Burke, “Oh captain!” and he says, “Yes?” But she thinks he’s the captain of the waiters and so he plays along with a French accent. She decides to dine in her room and for Burke to serve her personally. As she is one of the suspects, Burke continues to play along. Once they are alone she comes on strong until he starts asking questions about Cook and she realizes he’s a cop. She says Cook was a con man who almost stole her corporation. Cook’s lawyer Atherton leaves the hotel every night and comes back in the same cab every morning. Tim finds out that Clarissa is Cook’s ex-wife. Burke goes to see suspect Tristram Corporal while he’s taking a dance lesson. Burke points out that he was tied up in a crooked deal with Cook and if he’d gone to trial so would he. The dialogue in this episode is horribly cliched. Burke sees Atherton at the hotel and calls to him but he runs away and escapes in a cab. Another suspect is Aurora Knight. Burke sees her enter the lounge. Tim says she only digs musicians and so Burke talks the band into playing “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” by Dorothy Fields and he sings it to her. When he’s finished she says she knows he’s a cop. Tim is still posing as a waiter. She orders a bloody Mary and Burke asks for a blue horizon. Les says that’s water but it isn’t now. Tim forgets Aurora’s order. In the previous season Tim had a photographic memory. Burke and Aurora dance until his questions get annoying then she throws her drink and leaves. Burke bribes a cabbie to tell him where he drives Atherton every night. It’s to a bakery where Atherton bakes bread to unwind from the stress of his job as an attorney. Burke says Atherton was criminally involved with Cook. When Burke leaves the bakery he gets shot at in the alley. Whoever fired dropped the key to Cook’s room in the alley. Burke goes to Cook’s room and orders breakfast by room service. Then he calls the desk and says he is throwing a party and wants invitations sent to Tristram, Clarrisa, Atherton, and Aurora. Pepe comes in and asks what Burke is up to. He tells Pepe he knows he’s the killer and that he tried to kill him last night. The bullets they found in the alley will match the gun he’s carrying. Pepe pulls the gun. Tim and Les arrive with breakfast and hit Pepe with the door making him drop his gun. 

            Aurora was played by Mamie Van Doren, who was crowned Miss Palm Springs at the age of 18 and then was discovered by Howard Hughes. They dated for five years. She also dated Clint Eastwood. Her first film appearance was in Jet Pilot. She starred in Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, Three Nuts in Search of a Bolt, Untamed Youth, Sex Kittens Go to College, Born Reckless, High School Confidential, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve, The Beautiful Legs of Sabrina, Vice Raid, The Blonde from Buenos Ares, The Candidate, and The Navy vs the Night Monsters. She co-starred in The Beat Generation, The Big Operator, Ain’t Misbehavin, Running Wild, Teacher’s Pet, The Las Vegas Hillbillies, You’ve Got to Be Smart, The Arizona Kid, and Yankee Pasha. She posed for Playboy twice and she’s proud to have done so. She took her first name from Mamie Eisenhower. She’s been married to Thomas Dixon since 1979. They maintain a website from which they sell Mamie Van Doren nude photos and merchandize. She wrote several autobiographies: My Naughty Naughty Life, I Swing, Playing the Field and My Wild Love Experiences. She had an affair with Buzz Aldrin and says, Any man who could make it to the moon can make it with me anytime”. She says Canada is the United States’ enlightened cousin and a lot of fun. She says Steve McQueen had an arousing reckless energy and was hard to get along with but one makes allowances for a good fuck. She says if she feels like having sex she does it anywhere whether it’s in public or not. She says a lot of films got called B movies because a woman was the star. Marlene Dietrich once made a pass at her and she regrets having turned her down. She says Doris Day was a gold plated bitch. She says, “Everyone likes to play hookers”.

Jill St. John

            On Tuesday morning I revised my translation of verses eight to ten of “C’est le Bebop” by Boris Vian. 

            I finished transcribing the fourth set of chords that I found online for “Mon Légionnaire” by Raymond Asso. Then I worked them out for the first half of the instrumental intro. Two of the sets I found start off with B flat minor and that’s the only thing I agree on so far. 

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

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            I read D. W Winnicott’s “The Location of Cultural Experience.” It seems to be another Freudian mother substitution idea. 

            I re-read the first half of Kerilyn Harkaway-Krieger’s essay “Mysticism and Materiality: Pearl and the Theology of Metaphor” because I plan to write my penultimate Critical Summary on it. 

            I weighed 87.8 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been at midday in a week.

            It was raining hard all afternoon with even some thunder but I needed a few things at the supermarket so I headed out. I left home at around 16:00 and the rain had gotten light and so I decided to see if I could take my usual bike ride downtown. But by the time I was on the Bloor bike lane it started raining harder again and so I went south on Gladstone to Freshco. I bought two bags of grapes, some bananas, and a carton of soymilk. The cashier Priscilla who has worked there for years and usually wears a lot of artfully applied makeup, including false eyelashes, was totally make-up free for the first time and I almost didn’t recognize her. Not that she’s a tense person but she seemed a lot more relaxed without makeup. She told a co-worker that she woke up late so maybe that’s why she didn’t have time to put on the peace paint. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos at 17:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:52. 

            I finished reading Kerilyn Harkaway-Krieger’s essay “Mysticism and Materiality: Pearl and the Theology of Metaphor”. Dreams are metaphors. Did she say that metaphor is mysticism or was I dreaming? 

            I organized a second page of the poem Pearl so that for each line the middle and modern English are opposite one another.

            I cut up my last six potatoes, added them to the last of my gravy and added a whole jar of salsa to make potato soup. It worked out pretty good. I had a bowl with some plantain chips while watching season 2, episode 11 of Burke’s Law. 

            At a magicians convention the escape artist Merlin the Great is performing his famous escape from a submerged coffin trick. He has enough air for one hour but he has been under water for five hours. He claims the trick is that he puts himself in a trance and slows down his breathing. The coffin is pulled out of the pool and opened. The hotel doctor declares that Merlin is dead and that he has been shot. Burke interviews McCoy the house doctor. The gunshot was at close range. They found a feather on Merlin’s shirt near the wound. Burke is approached by Pinky Likewise, a model who has been hired to serve as a magician’s assistant for all the magicians at the convention. She was assigned to Merlin today but he was too busy to rehearse because he had an appointment with somebody called Miriam. Burke watches the replay of Merlin’s act and before he is sealed in the coffin he tells the TV audience that when he comes up he will have a very important announcement. Burke goes to see Pinky and finds her apparently levitating on a platform. Burke tells her she might be arrested for vagrancy because she has no visible means of support. He asks her if any of the magicians owns a gun. She says Max the Mysterious uses one in his act for his bullet catching trick. Burke finds Max in his hotel room hanging by his feet and trying to escape from a straight jacket. He says he hated Merlin because he stole from his and all the other acts. Burke asks for Max’s gun but he says he’s having it repaired and he lost the receipt. George at the lab says the feather is a chicken feather like they use to stuff pillows. Tim finds Miriam’s portrait in Merlin’s room. Merlin’s memo pad has an entry “Flowers for Miriam”. They check the flower shop in the lobby of the hotel. The clerk says Merlin ordered a dozen roses yesterday and told him to send them to Miriam at the cemetery. They visit Miriam’s grave. She died in 1958. The groundskeeper says Merlin came once a month with flowers. Tim checks the records to see who owns the plot. Yesterday Merlin was there with a woman named Violet. Burke checks the hotel and finds there is a Violet registered there. He goes to her room. He knocks and no one answers but the door is unlocked so he enters. A woman’s voice calls from inside a trunk asking him to let her out. It turns out Violet is a ventriloquist and she’s making her dummy talk from the trunk. Both the dummy and Violet flirt with Burke. Violet tells him that she was in love with Merlin but he took her to Miriam’s grave to tell her he was still mourning his wife and couldn’t be with her. Max has a lump on his head and Les found a gun in his room. He admits he lied about the gun being repaired. It was stolen the day Merlin was shot. He recently came back to his room and was hit on the head. When he came to the gun was back in his room. Dr. McCoy says the blow could have been self inflicted. Tim is going through the cemetery records and discovers that Miriam was Merlin’s wife. An elderly man visits Miriam’s grave and Tim tries to catch him but he drives away. He does however get his license number. The lab determines that Max’s gun is the murder weapon. Burke goes to the address that’s on record for the license number. O.B. Danberry is a professional psychic. He asks Burke who he would like to speak to in the great beyond. Burke says, “Uncle Felix but that wouldn’t be easy.” “Why not?” “I don’t have an Uncle Felix.” Miriam was Danberry’s niece and he became her guardian when her parents died. He was against her marriage to Merlin because she was ill and Merlin was not good enough for her. She died during their honeymoon. Merlin acted as if someone was responsible but he didn’t say how. Burke suggests it might have been the same person who killed Merlin. Pinky is being sawed in half while she tells Tim and Les that the other day the Great Grindle threatened to kill Merlin. Grindle is a knife thrower. He ran against Merlin in a magician’s union election but Merlin won. He was plotting to kill him with a knife when he was shot. Burke consults Dr. McCoy about what Danberry is repressing. He asks if it would work to ask him to speak to Merlin on the other side. McCoy says he’d have to ask a psychiatrist. Burke thinks the announcement Merlin said he was going to make was connected to his wife’s death. He tells Tim and Les that he knows who the murderer is but he still has to prove it. They go to Danberry’s for a séance. Danberry claims he’s in touch with Merlin and Burke tells him to ask how Miriam died. Danberry is about to remember when there is a gunshot. But Burke is ready for this and Tim tackles Dr. McCoy. McCoy killed Merlin the moment the coffin was opened. He had a gun with a silencer inside his bag with a pillow for added muffling. They had another story a few episodes ago when a killer used a silencer on a revolver but there is only one kind of revolver that can be fit with a silencer and this kind wasn’t it. McCoy says Miriam was in pain and he put her on morphine but she became addicted. He nonetheless continued to supply it until she died of an overdose. It was just a coincidence that he was working at that hotel when Merlin checked in so he had to shut him up. 

            Pinky Likewise was played by Jill St. John and it’s funny that I recognized her as soon as I saw her. I don’t recall having seen much that she’s done but she was gorgeous and had great comic timing. She was pushed onto the stage and into radio by her mother when she was five. Her first TV appearance was when she played Missie Cratchit in The Christmas Carol in 1949. She was enrolled at UCLA at the age of 14 but left to do movies. In her teens she co-starred in Holiday for Lovers. She co-starred in Who’s Minding the Store?. She was the first Bond girl from the US as Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever. She co-starred in Tony Rome and was a fringe member of the Rat Pack. She co-starred in Banning. She starred in The Concrete Jungle. She dated Robert Wagner for eight years and married him in 1990. They are still together. She’s written a cookbook and been a TV chef.

February 28, 1994: I posed at the Stewart Building for OCA

Thirty years ago today 

            On Monday I posed from 13:00 to 16:00 for the Ontario College of Art at the Stewart Building on College.