Dyan Cannon

            On Thursday morning I finished memorizing “Made in China” by Serge Gainsbourg. I looked for the chords but no one had posted them and so I worked the first two out for the instrumental. 

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

            I weighed 86.5 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in 24 days.

            I wrote three pages of stream of consciousness notes on “Sir Orfeo” and started transcribing them. Here’s what I have so far:

            “Sir Orfeo” has a striking parallel with “Pearl” but also a striking contrast between the Pagan and the Christian approach. The Christian afterlife is absolutely forbidden to the living but the Faerie world is mostly forbidden but somewhat accessible. If the Faeries can visit our world we should able to access theirs. King Orfeo mourns for the loss of his wife for ten years, withdraws from the world and lives the life of an ascetic and a wandering minstrel. The “Pearl” mourner gives up nothing. Meanwhile Orfeo’s wife gets to hang with the faerie ladies and engages in royal pastimes such as going hawking. He suffers while she doesn’t seem to. She seems passive to whatever happenstance occurs. She has to go to the faerie world until the faerie king says she can go back. She’s quiet about both situations whether being in one world or the other. Why is she scratching herself? Is it because she is facing irresistible magic and she is fighting it? What purpose does the self harm serve? Is the spell upon her body? Is she merely expressing frustration? Is it her beauty that attracted the faerie king and so she is attacking that as rebellion against that which would take her away? In “Pearl” one needs a purified soul to reach the kingdom but in “Sir Orfeo” one just needs to have soul in the musical sense. The reward is given for Orfeo’s musical offering. Maybe the beautiful music of humans is the advantage we have over the faeries. In “Pearl” there is an impassable barrier of water but in Sir Orfeo even solid rock is no barrier. He seems to have accomplished something special because a human in the faerie world is rare. Orfeo follows his wife through solid rock into the parallel universe of the faeries. Where people go not after they die but just before. It’s a kind of afterlife but not the same. The references to Pluto and Juno seems to indicate that Orfeo is a descendant Roman gods who are only seen as human ancestors rather than immortal gods. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos before lunch. I made chili with black beans, Basilica sauce, hot peppers and hot sauce and had it with potato chips and a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back. I bought five bags of grapes, two packs of strawberries, a pack of raspberries, bananas, bacon, two packs of five-year-old cheddar, barbecue chips, jalapeno chips, salsa, and paper towels. 

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 18:15. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:00. I’ve started re-reading the novel Pearl by Siân Hughes and researching some of the pagan elements as I go along. There is an old folk song quoted called “Green Gravel”: 

“Green gravel, green gravel / your grass is so green / The fairest young maiden / that ever was seen / … I’ll wash you in new milk / and wrap you in silk / and write down your name / in a gold pen and ink.”

            The song is from an ancient circle game that is played only by girls, all joining hands and dancing in a ring. One girl is called the ‘mother’ and stands in the ring to name the girls in any order she chooses. As each girl is named, she turns her back on the ring and covers her face with her hands; the game then goes on without her. This game is a dramatic representation of mourning, and the suggested explanation of ‘green gravel’ is that it is a corruption of ‘green grave’. The washing in milk and the wrapping in silk are preparations of a body for burial. 

            I made oven wedge fries and had them topped by the chili I made for lunch but with added salsa. I had it for dinner while watching episode 9 of Amos Burke: Secret Agent. 

            International businessman Alexander Szabo is attempting a hostile takeover of an automobile corporation. They say they will survive with their secret engine design. Szabo passes a cigar to one of the executives but he refuses to take it. However the cigar is rubbed against the man’s hand and it has a strange effect. He goes into a trance and begins reciting all of the design features of the new engine. Then he walks like a zombie to the window and throws himself to his death. 

            Amos Burke is in an exclusive tailors in London. Colonel Drummond the proprietor takes him through a secret door to a secret service headquarters. Burke is looking for Szabo. Drummond says the way to reach him is through Francesca, Szabo’s ex-wife. A mugging is staged in front of her house and Burke comes to the rescue, chasing him off. Francesca invites him in and then invites him to a party. The party is crashed by Szabo and his right hand man Garth. Burke takes pictures with his cigarette lighter. Francesca is obviously afraid of Szabo and he holds her arm, hurting her to force her to introduce him to Burke. 

            A man named Anton who Burke met at the party calls him and asks him to meet him on the 20:00 train to Brighton. But on the train Burke sees Anton walking in a trance. He throws himself off the train before Burke can stop him. Szabo tries to get information on Burke from Francesca. She knows nothing but he doesn’t believe her and slaps her. He tells her to never see Burke again and then he won’t let her leave his yacht. Later Francesca refuses to answer any calls from Burke. 

            Someone named Von Wydoff has been trying to reach Burke but then Burke learns that Wydoff has committed suicide like the others. Burke goes to his address and finds one of Szabo’s men injecting a man on a bed. Burke bursts in but the man gets away. The man on the bed is in a trance and says his name is Gunter Ernst. Even under watch at the hospital he tries to kill himself by beating his head against the wall. He says he needs to find his sister Inge. Inge was employed by Szabo as a biochemist. Von Wydoff had been in a nursing home and Burke has a hunch Inge is in the same place. We see Szabo’s men removing Inge. Burke tries to follow them but an elderly woman who is learning to drive blocks the way. 

            Burke comes home to find Francesca waiting for him. She says that if he wants to find Szabo he has to go through Garth. Burke tells her to call Garth and have him come to see her. While Garth is in her house Burke instals himself in the trunk of Garth’s car. When they reach Szabo’s house Burke uses an explosive to unlock the trunk from inside. He then uses a grappling hook to climb to the roof and then into the house through an open window. In one of the rooms he finds Inge. It takes a while to convince her that he’s on her side. When Garth checks in her room Burke knocks him out. They leave through the window and go to where Inge has the formula for the drug she developed hidden. The notes are inside the telephone in her lab and show how the drug could be used on a mass scale. Szabo, Garth and Janos come there. Burke lures them into the warehouse. First he kills Garth, then knocks Janos one assumes to his death over a railing. Then Szabo attacks Burke with a needle containing the drug but in the struggle it’s Szabo who gets pricked. Burke and Inge leave him to commit suicide. That seems unnecessary, impractical and cruel. He would be far more useful alive. 

            Francesca was played by Dyan Cannon, whose film debut was in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond. She became Cary Grant’s lover in 1961 and they were married from 1965 to 1968. She co-starred as Alice in the hit film, Bob and Carole and Ted and Alice in 1969. She co-starred in The Anderson Tapes, The Love Machine, Honeysuckle Rose, Author Author, Deathtrap, Coast to Coast, Shamus, and Caddyshack II. She starred in Such Good Friends, Lady of the House, Doctors’ Wives, and Child Under a Leaf. She won an Academy Award for writing and directing the short film Number One in 1976. She had her own musical stage show at Caesar’s Palace in the mid 70s. She hosted Saturday Night Live in 1976. She wrote, directed and starred in The End of Innocence. She guest starred in 17 episodes of Ally McBeal and co-starred in the sitcom Three Sisters. Her memoir was entitled Dear Cary and the new series Archie was partially based on it and for which she serves as executive producer. She’s prominently involved in several charities, especially for children. Next to Jack Nicholson she is the most famous fan of the LA Lakers and is at every game. She co-wrote the song “The Woman I Am” for Chaka Khan.