Terry Moore

            On Thursday morning I memorized the second verse of “Amour puissance six” (Love to the Power of Six) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

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

            I weighed 85.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            I worked on my critical summary and got another paragraph done. I’ll finish it sometime in the evening: 

            The poem’s elegant structure uses concatenation in the tying together of sections with link words. Some of these are homonyms that interact with other similar words with different interpretations. These diverse nuances of the same words serve further to create a swirl of contrasting meanings that put the reader off balance. This system of poetic concatenation forms a web that runs through and connects all of the meaning with a central undefined meaning of “the connectedness of all things”. One of the homonymous link words that Krieger expands on in detail is “date”. Sometimes several meanings can be possible for a Middle English word like “date” in one phrase. She shows this in the example of line 493 where the word “date” in “there is no date of His goodness” could mean “end”, “limit”, “season”, “rank”, or “time”. 

            I weighed 86.2 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been at midday in a week. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was lightly raining and so I decided to only go as far as Bloor and Dovercourt. I stopped at Freshco on the way home where I bought a pint of strawberries, a half pint of blackberries, bananas, two bags of black grapes, three bags of avocadoes, a pack of grape tomatoes, leaf lettuce, a pack of mushrooms, an English cucumber, broccoli, a bunch of asparagus, several kinds of dressing: balsamic, basil balsamic, raspberry, poppy seed sweet onion, and sun dried tomato. I got a large bottle of two in one shampoo-conditioner. I looked for razors but the shelf was absolutely bare. I thought maybe they lock their razors elsewhere like No Frills does but when I asked about it the cashier didn’t know. She asked someone else, who asked someone else who confirmed they don’t have them. I walked over to Metro where I bought a Gilette Proglide with two replacement blades for $22.

            I weighed 85.3 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:50. 

            I finished my Critical Summary and uploaded it around 19:30. Here it is: 

                                          The Mystical Generation of Paradox in “Pearl” 

            In Kerilyn Harkaway-Krieger’s essay “Mysticism and Materiality: Pearl and the Theology of Metaphor” she argues that it is through metaphor that “mysticism” manifests itself in language. The Medieval poem “Pearl” is then a mystical work of art because of its heavy use of metaphor. She goes on to say that dreams are also a form of metaphor. That would imply that dreaming itself is a mystical experience. As “Pearl” takes place almost entirely in a dream it suggests that this would render it as an even more deeply mystical poem, but also accessible because anyone could potentially dream such an experience as the poet describes. 

            “Pearl” is a poem about a dream that leads to finding not only a lost daughter who is named or nicknamed “Pearl” but also to witnessing manifestations of religious ideals for which the pearl also stands as metaphor. Krieger points out that “Pearl” is divided into twenty sections, each with five stanzas of twelve lines each. The poem uses alliteration, (ababababbcbc) rhyme, special repetitions of words called “concatenations”, words that sound the same but have different meanings, and puns. The concatenations in the poem bring the link word in the last line of the previous section to the first line of the next section. These mechanical elements combined with particular word choices serve to signal the suggestion of a world beyond space and time. 

            One example of this is how the concept of a pearl is used as a type of stairway of metaphors leading to the infinite. The pearl is introduced as the rare gemstone that has been lost; then the lost pearl is revealed to be the narrator’s dead daughter; then in the dream pearls are first presented as the common strewn gravel foundation of a higher world; then pearls serve as the organized adornment of the speaker’s found but now heavenly daughter; then the pearl is shown to be that essence of human life and consciousness that many call the “soul”; and finally at the top of the ladder of pearl symbolism is the City of God Jerusalem, which is also a pearl decorated with pearls. 

            I think that the meaning of a pearl as a metaphor for something immaterial but of great value is ironically dependant on the degree to which the reader values the physical objects known as pearls. For someone who places no value on pearls the metaphor would be lost like the pearl in the poem. 

            Krieger writes that one of the most important ways that metaphor is used as a tool is to express the connectedness of opposites such as singularity and multiplicity; and materiality and spirituality. The bringing together of the familiar with the unknown in the same word creates a tension that turns over the engine of paradox. This disorients the reader and puts them off guard to be more open to deeper levels of meaning. 

            The poem’s elegant structure uses concatenation in the tying together of sections with link words. Some of these are homonyms that interact with other similar words with different interpretations. These diverse nuances of the same words serve further to create a swirl of contrasting meanings that put the reader off balance. This system of poetic concatenation forms a web that runs through and connects all of the meanings with a central undefined meaning of “the connectedness of all things”. One of the homonymous link words that Krieger expands on in detail is “date”. Sometimes several meanings can be possible for a Middle English word like “date” in one phrase. She shows this in the example of line 493 where the word “date” in “there is no date of His goodness” could mean “end”, “limit”, “season”, “rank”, or “time”. 

            The poem “Pearl” generates paradoxes of meaning through the employment of metaphors and homonyms played against one another. The tension between these conflicting meanings of a given word in a sense cancel each other out but leave behind the same word, now charged with the unknown. It is this poetic dance of opposites that renders “Pearl” a mystical work of art.

            I finished reading chapter 2 of The Hobbit. I thought that I’d read it over fifty years ago before I read Lord of the Rings but the story is not familiar, so maybe I just read the trilogy. Bilbo gets suckered by Gandalf into going on an adventure to retrieve dwarf treasure from the cave of Smawg the dragon. He’s travelling with a group of dwarves and so far they would have got eaten by three trolls if Gandalf hadn’t saved them. 

            I’m also about halfway though chapter 2 of Bored of the Rings by the Harvard Lampoon. It was written by Henry Beard and Douglas Kenney, who after they left Harvard went on to create the ground breaking humour magazine, The National Lampoon. Bored of the Rings is a parody of Lord of the Rings that is in many ways better than the original. It’s well written and hilarious. It not only parodies Tolkien’s Medievalist epic but it also parodies modern commercialism. Written in 1968 it holds the record for being the longest continuously in print parody in history. 

            As this was the last night of my fast I had my last salad without dressing other than lemon juice with a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching season 2, episode 26 of Burke’s Law. 

            A near retirement cop named Danny Robin meets someone in an alley and is shot and killed. It turns out that he was Burke’s mentor and friend and so now Burke is obsessed with finding the killer. There were two jackhammer operators working across the street who saw Danny enter the alley but didn’t see anyone else walk in or out. 

            Burke and Tim search Robin’s apartment. There’s a strong box there that they unlock with a key they found on his body. Inside is an envelope addressed to Captain Burke. The paper has a list of names: Melinda Drake, narco, suspended sentence; Armand de Bouvier, blackmail charge dropped; Joe Piante, assault with a deadly weapon, victim disappeared; Paul Anders, murder, official verdict suicide; Nikki Manners, smuggling, murder, insufficient evidence. 

            Burke goes to an air strip where he watches Melinda Drake skydive and then talks with her. She tells Burke what she did yesterday but since she was alone it doesn’t serve as an alibi. She says she hasn’t seen Robin for two or three weeks. She says he tried to be her father but was just as bad at it as her own. 

            Suspect Paul Anders has just been the victim of an attempted murder. Burke goes to Anders’s mansion where Anders is busy wheeling and dealing on the phone while his wife Beatrice shows Burke where the bullet hit the mantle when it missed her husband. She says her back was turned when the shot was fired and the shooter go away without being seen. She’s feeling dizzy as she talks with Burke. Burke talks with Anders who also doesn’t have a good alibi. Anders says he only saw Robin once in his life, twenty years ago when Robin tried to connect him with the death of his wife, which was deemed a suicide. He had an air tight alibi at the time of her death but now the two men that provided it are dead.

            Tim and Les go to see Armand de Bouvier who they find rehearsing an Apache dance (That’s one in which many of the movements simulate a violent encounter between a pimp and a sex worker). He seems surprised that Robin is dead. He uses his dance partner as his alibi. He says he saw Robin ten days ago and it was not a shake down. Robin was afraid someone would kill Armand.

            Burke finds Joe Piante in a warehouse having a fistfight with someone. He breaks it up. Joe says he saw Robin a couple of weeks ago when he questioned him over somebody being hit on the pier. He admits he has no alibi and he hated Robin. 

            Burke goes to see Nikki Manners who he finds dressed as Cleopatra. Her apartment is decorated in an ancient Egyptian style. She explains that she’s designing the jewellery for a musical called The Cleopatra Way. She’s decorated her home in this way to keep her in the mood. She says she and Robin were friends. A merchant seaman was killed and had one of her business cards in his pocket. She says Joe Piante was on the dock when the sailor was killed. Paul Anders loaned her some money and she paid him back. Armand is the one she gave the money to. She had an affair with Melinda’s father at the time when her mother had an accident and Melinda blamed Nikki. Robin knew all this. Nikki was involved in a smuggling and murder case on the dock where Joe was working. Armand blackmailed her. Anders gave her the money to pay him off. 

            Burke goes back to see Melinda but she has died from an overdose. Burke finds out that Robin only had a couple of weeks to live when he was murdered. Knowing he was going to die he bated a killer who’d gotten off so the person would kill again and this time be convicted. Burke goes to Joe and is very confrontational and insulting with him until Joe throws a punch. They fight in the warehouse and at one point Joe grabs a hook, but then puts it down and uses his fists. Burke beats him with a karate chop and then tells him he knows now by the way he put the hook down that he didn’t kill Robin.

             Burke goes to see Beatrice Anders’s pharmacist. The druggist notes that her three prescriptions for intestinal disorders are usually only used as an emetic to completely clear the system of arsenic. If she had arsenic in her system there would be no trace after the emetic and death would be by heart attack. Burke goes to the alley where Robin was killed. He’s arranged a meeting with Anders. Burke frisks him and says he’s going to nail him for Robin’s murder. Anders points out a ventilated door that leads to a factory and then the next street. Anders grabs a gun from behind a crate. He admits he’s slowly poisoning his wife for the insurance like he did with his first wife. Burke reveals he has Tim and Les acting as snipers in nearby buildings. Anders surrenders. 

            Nikki was played by Terry Moore, who started out as a child model. She made her film debut at the age of 11 in Maryland. She starred in Mighty Joe Young, Shakeout on 101, Postmark for Danger, and Why Must I Die? She co-starred in The Return of October, The Great Rupert, He’s a Cockeyed Wonder, Gambling House, Two of a Kind, The Barefoot Mailman, Man on a Tightrope, Beneath the 12 Mile Reef, King of the Khyber Rifles, Daddy Long Legs, Between Heaven and Hell, Bernadine, Peyton Place, Cast a Long Shadow, Platinum High School, Black Spurs, Town Tamer, Waco, Going Overboard, Beverly Hills Brats, Aimy in a Cage, and Death Dimension. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in Come Back Little Sheba. She appeared on the cover of Life and was called Hollywood’s sexy tomboy. She claimed to have been married to Howard Hughes even though she went through two other marriages during the time she was supposed to be married to him. She received an undisclosed settlement after his death. One report says it was $350,000. She published a memoir entitled The Beauty and the Billionaire. She was a pilot and helped to train Leonardo DiCaprio for his role in The Aviator as Howard Hughes. She posed nude for Playboy at the age of 55. She produced America’s Funniest Home Videos. She was still taking acting classes at the age of 81.