Jane Greer

            On Tuesday morning I worked out the chords for the intro to “C’est le Bebop” by Boris Vian and for the first two verses of “Dispatch box” by Serge Gainsbourg.

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

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I finished re-reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain submits himself to the Green Knight’s axe but the Green Knight pulls back at the last split second and doesn’t behead Gawain. Then the Green Knight reveals that he is really Lord Bertilak who has been his host for the last several days. He has been magically given the form of a green giant by an enchantment conjured by Gawain’s Aunt Morgan La Fey. He also reveals that when Lady Bertilak was seducing Gawain it was under his orders and that the injury shielding magic green girdle that Gawain is wearing is also his. Gawain is now ashamed and plans to do penance for the rest of his life. Bertilak says all is forgiven and urges him to come back to his castle and party where everybody loves him but he refuses and goes back to Camelot. He confesses his weakness to Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table but none of them think it’s a big deal. He’s alone in his guilt despite being surrounded by people who love him. It seems he would have been perfectly fine with his sin if Bertilak hadn’t exposed him. 

            I’ve been reading the novel Pearl by Siân Hughes, but just on the toilet. Now that I’m done with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight I started tackling the book full on and got about half of it read. It’s loosely based on the Medieval poem Pearl. A woman is recounting her early memories of her mother and her beautiful madness before that madness led to her mother’s suicide. Then she tells the story of growing up in the aftermath of her mother’s death with her overwhelmed father and fragile little brother. They had to leave the old house in the country and live in a townhouse. The narrator in her teens had a lesbian relationship with a rich Goth girl. There’s also some mention of the narrator presently having a daughter who is showing the same symptoms of madness that inflicted her mother.

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It’s back to being cold again after some insanely warm weather. On the way back I was doo doo doing a melody that seems to be original and so I held onto it and doo doo dood it into a sound file when I got home. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos at 17:30.

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

            I read about eighty pages of Pearl. The narrator Madeline’s Goth girlfriend Emily thinks there’s a conspiracy by Madeline’s father that keeps them from living in their country house. Emily also thinks she can communicate with the dead. It’s Emily’s idea that they travel to the old house. Emily is the dominant one in the relationship but as soon as they are out in the country she becomes a wimp and Madeline has to take control. They stop at a pub that still has a ladies entrance and a ladies section of the bar in Madeline’s old village. Emily wants to get her phone charged but she’s in the wrong section and the men won’t talk to her. Until the 1970s bars in Toronto were legally required to have a separate entrance for ladies and escorts. At the old house there is no heat and no electricity so Madeline has to burn old furniture in the fireplace. Emily tells Madeline that she had a brother that died before she was born. She learned this from her mother who it seems was Madeline’s father’s lover. Later Madeline visits a group of Travellers who have puppies to give away. Madeline picks the runt of the litter. Taking care of it helps straighten Madeline out but she still cuts herself. She becomes an artist and gets invited to a summer solstice party. It turns out that the whole group are pagans and many of their practices and the smells in their home make her realize that her late mother was a Pagan. I have about 64 pages left. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken breast while watching season 1, episode 29 of Burke’s Law. 

            The titles of these stories usually begin with “Who Killed…” and then they are followed by someone’s name. In this case it was , “Who Killed My Girl?” so I suspected the victim would be Amos Burke’s girlfriend. I was right. It begins with a couple saying goodnight at her door but we only see them from the waist down. Then we see the beautiful blonde Diana Mercer in her expensive home where she is shot twice with a 38 revolver fitted with a silencer. Apparently this is a goof because a 38 can’t be fitted with a silencer. Amos is woken up in bed to hear that the woman he’s dropped off has been murdered. They had been in a relationship years before but Burke had ran when she was getting serious. Diana became man crazy and several people had keys to her home. Burke takes Diana’s address book and goes off hunting for the killer on his own, shutting out his colleagues. But Tim has a photographic memory and has already memorized the entire address book. Burke goes to see jazz trumpet player Scubie Baker who is so rude in the way he talks about Diana that Burke punches him. Later Tim goes to talk with Scubie and the same thing happens. Tim and Les go to see Diana’s friend Laura Jean who is a bar girl by profession but doesn’t drink real booze. Laura also has a key and came by earlier that night to pay some money she owed Diana. Diana took Scubie from her but Laura says if women killed women for stealing their men there wouldn’t be any women left alive. Burke is at home and goes into his study where he is slugged by someone wearing a ring. Someone goes through his pockets to find the address book but runs when Henry comes into the room. Burke goes to see Arthur Wade, who grew up with Diana and was in love with her. She left him for Burke. He also had a key but says they would only get together and talk. Burke goes to see Carol Smith and thinks the woman who answers the door is Carol. But she is Lonnie and Carol is her husband. She says her husband was having an affair with Diana. Lonnie says she went to Diana’s house last night to beg her to leave Carol alone. Carol is an astronomer and works at the planetarium. He admits having a key to her home but doesn’t own a 38 revolver. Burke goes to see Frank Walsh who had been the chauffeur for Diana’s father until he died. He says that she was broken up about her father’s death and would call him to talk. Tim finds out that Carol Smith did buy a 38 six months before. When Burke confronts him about it he runs and is arrested. He says he just got scared but he didn’t kill her. The police can’t find the gun and so it looks bad for Smith but then Lonnie comes and gives Burke the gun. They find it hasn’t been fired. Burke talks with Diana’s Aunt Adrienna who says Diana lost it when she learned her father had been a womanizer and decided to become worse. Burke concludes the person who slugged him deliberately wore a ring to throw him off. Tim finds out that Frank Walsh the chauffeur owns the building where he has his apartment. He could have got the money from blackmailing Diana’s father and then tried her. If she refused to pay he might have shot her. They organize a sting, with Tim pretending to be a crooked cop trying to extort money from Walsh. Walsh pulls a 38 on Tim and Burke jumps him. Burke almost chokes him to death but stops. 

            Lonnie was played by Jane Greer, who is descended from John Donne. Her mother entered her in and she won baby beauty contests. She had palsy at the age of fifteen and it partially paralyzed her face. The facial exercises that she practiced helped her achieve a versatility of expression that aided her acting career. As a teenager she sang with big bands. One of her first films was the 1945 movie Dick Tracy. She co-starred in Run for the Sun, They Won’t Believe Me, The Big Steal, You’re in the Navy Now, Against All Odds, and Station West. She is best known for her role in the film noir, Out of the Past. Howard Hughes was obsessed with her and she married Rudee Valee to escape but Hughes fought to ruin her marriage so she would return to him. She became known as the queen of film noir.