Kit Smythe

            On Monday morning I was working on memorizing “Les frères” by Boris Vian and suddenly parts of the first few verses that have been solidly in my head for weeks slipped away. I’m sure it was just one of those days and I’ll get it back. 

            I memorized the third verse of “J'ai pleuré le Yang-Tsé” (My Tears Flood the Yangtze) by Serge Gainsbourg. There are just two verses left to learn so I should have it all in my head by Wednesday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of four sessions. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen floor in front of the counter. I’ve got to do laundry tomorrow and then my taxes on Wednesday. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a shorter siesta than usual. My upstairs neighbour sent me a desperate text that read: “Please help me, my plant is dying”. I went up there and looked, then assured him the aloe vera I gave him last year is perfectly fine. It’s green and it’s growing. He insisted on giving me $40. I gave him some soil and stuck a nitrogen stick into his plant pot. We’re going for lunch on Friday. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown. I had to pee at the disgusting McDonald’s washroom on Yonge just above College. I stopped at Freshco on the way back where I bought three bags of grapes, a box of spoon size shredded wheat, course sea salt in a reusable grinder, and Sponge Towels.

            I weighed 86.8 kilos at 17:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:15. 

            I compared the video of my song practice performance of “Joanna Dancing Lightly” from August 20 to that of August 14 and I think August 20 is a little better. I compared August 24 to August 20 and it’s clear that August 20 looks better. I compared September 3 to August 20 and there is very little traffic noise on September 3, plus it sounds just as good and it’s already synchronized in Movie Maker. I compared September 5 to September 3 and they are about equal. Since September 3 is already in Movie Maker it wins that round. I compared September 15 to September 3 and saw that the light and my playing are not as good on September 15, so September 3 will be uploaded to YouTube. I now have the four versions of the song that I’ll make videos for: acoustic “Joanna” from September 6, acoustic “Joanna Dancing Lightly” from September 11, electric “Joanna” from August 29, and electric “Joanna Dancing Lightly” from September 3, in that order. I’ll start that tomorrow. 

            I searched for a Greta Garbo video clip to fit the line, “You weren’t quite what I was looking for, though I’d been looking hard and long” from my song “Angeline”. I found the scene from Anna Christie when the bartender opens the door and she’s standing there looking disheveled. I think it’s perfect so I downloaded it, converted it to WMV and then imported it to the Movie Maker project for “Angeline”. I cut out everything but the part where she’s standing and looking around in the doorway. Tomorrow I’ll insert it into the video. 

            I finished scanning what I thought was the fourth to the last box of slides but it turns out it was the fifth to the last. It’s mostly baby pictures of my daughter and some of them with her mother Nancy. There are a few shots from a photo shoot I did of Nancy’s sister Susan climbing on some multi angled support pipes, but I forget where this was. 

            I grilled a pack of stewing beef. I had half of the bits with a potato and gravy while watching season 1, episodes 13 and 14 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Samantha’s plain friend Gertrude is looking for a boyfriend. Samantha wants Darrin to bring home one of the eligible bachelors who work at his advertizing firm. The only single guy he knows is Kermit, but he’s a swinger who dates all the models that the firm hires, so Darrin doesn’t think he’d be interested. But when Darrin asks Kermit to come for dinner he jumps at the chance for a home cooked meal. Samantha invites Gertrude as well and she and Kermit immediately hit it off. Darrin feels like something is not right because Gertrude is not what Darrin imagines Kermit’s type to be, considering the women he usually dates. When Darrin asks Kermit what he wants to drink he says he’ll have a Crazy Charlie and adds that it’s his own invention. He’s about to list the ingredients when Gertrude does it for him: two parts vodka, one part gin, and one part bicarbonate of soda. There is a drink called a Crazy Charlie but those aren’t the ingredients. Anyway Kermit is impressed and wonders how Gertrude knew. She says she doesn’t know. Darrin is alarmed and asks Samantha if Gertrude is a witch. She says she isn’t and that she just cast a little spell to help Gertrude out. Darrin isn’t convinced and tries to stop Gertrude and Kermit from being together. He calls Kermit’s gorgeous ex-girlfriend Susan and arranges for her to meet him and Kermit at a certain bar. But Samantha arranges for Gertrude to meet her at the same bar. Samantha casts a spell to make Susan mad at Kermit and she storms away. Gertrude arrives and Kermit asks her to marry him. They do get married. Plotwise it’s a very thin and lacklustre story. 

            In the second story Darrin’s parents are about to arrive to meet Samantha for the first time. Just before that Samatha’s Aunt Clara arrives through the chimney because she is elderly and her magic is always going wrong. Clara’s bag and umbrella do not arrive with her because they were not ready when she left. Later they ring the doorbell and float in. Samantha is glad to have someone from her own family there because she is nervous about meeting Darrin’s mother. Darrin is just meeting Clara for the first time himself and he doesn’t think she should be there when his parents are there. Samantha says she’s not going to hurt Clara’s feelings by asking her to leave. Meanwhile Clara is matter of factly telling Darrin’s parents that she and Samantha are both witches. But when Clara tries to walk through a wall she can’t and so they just think she is delusional. Samantha is getting the impression that Phyllis disapproves of her. Clara decides to help her out by preparing coq au vin and pineapple upside down cake for dinner but making it look like Samantha did it. Seeing Samantha as a good cook gives Phyllis a sick headache. When Darrin finds out that Clara conjured the meal he tries to ask her to not use magic. She takes that as meaning she is unwelcome and leaves. Samantha is upset that Clara has gone and she blames Darrin for being mad that Clara prepared the meal. When Phyllis hears that Samantha can’t cook she is overjoyed. She was afraid she was being pushed aside. Now that Phyllis knows Samantha isn’t perfect and now that Samantha knows she doesn’t have to be they can be friends and share a concern for Clara. Samantha asked Clara’s umbrella where she is and it told her she is at the bus station and so Darrin brings her back. In the first story Kermit was played by Adam West, who would soon be cast as Batman on the popular TV series. 

            Gertrude was played by Kit Smythe who graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1960. She debuted on Broadway in No Strings at the age of 21. She was the original Ginger in the pilot episode of Gilligan’s Island. The character was originally a secretary rather than a movie star.