I wasn’t able to finish memorizing “Ghetto Blaster” by Serge Gainsbourg because I wasn’t getting any audio from the extract on Apple Music. I tested YouTube and had the same problem. I checked my own audio files and they played. Sometimes restarting my computer fixes audio problems and so I did that but online sounds still didn’t work. I typed the question and found instructions for possible solutions. Finally I went into Settings and found that the audio for Google Chrome had somehow been turned off, so I turned it back on and it worked but by then there was no time. I’ll probably have the song nailed down tomorrow.
I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions.
I weighed 87 kilos before breakfast.
I continued to research ideas from the novel Pearl but I was dozing off.
I weighed 87.8 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been at midday since February 29.
I took a siesta and slept half an hour longer than usual. On top of that when I woke up I had diarrhea, so even if it hadn’t been raining I would have gotten away too late for a bike ride downtown. I rode to Freshco in the rain to buy grapes but all of them were too soft. I walked over to Metro and their red and green grapes were lined up pretty as a picture but they were also too mushy. So I went back to Freshco where I bought a bag of grapefruits and a bag of navel oranges. On the way home I stopped at Queen Fresh Market to check on their grapes but they were all too soft as well.
I weighed 87.4 kilos at 17:15. That’s the highest my evening weight has been since March 1.
I was caught up on my journal at 18:30.
I continued my research of some of the references in the novel Pearl:
The narrator refers to the location of The Green Chapel from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight being an hour’s drive from where she lives. Gawain considers it to be an unholy place but when the Green Knight allows Gawain to live, Gawain immediately assumes the role of penitent to a priest or judge, as in a genuine church. The Green Chapel may also be related to tales of fairy hills or knolls.
I downloaded an article on The Green Children of Woolpit by John Clark. Perhaps the children are a visitation from the fairy realm or green world. This speaks to Marianne’s sense of feeling displaced by her mother’s disappearance.
The skipping rhyme “Eaper weeper chimney sweeper / had a wife but couldn’t keep her / He put her in a pumpkin shell / and there he kept her very well” is perhaps a variation of the rhyme about a chimney sweeper who kills his wife and hides the body in the chimney.
I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, bacon, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching episode 15 of Amos Burke: Secret Agent. Although there are two episodes left, they are part of one narrative and so this is really the penultimate story of the series.
In Moscow a Russian agent named Boradine is captured while trying to trap a double agent.
Burke arrives in Moscow and is immediately arrested by Colonel Alexia Salov. But in the car she reveals the arrest was a mere precaution. She is his contact and she takes him to see Colonel Popoff. Boradine knows both Russian and US military secrets. They may have a common enemy in Red China if they manage to acquire Boradine.
Popoff tells Alexia to follow Burke. Burke contacts an agent named Leonid at a gym. Later Leonid is shot but Burke finds him before he dies. He tells Burke that the night Boradine disappeared a shipment of meat was sent away from the restaurant, including a whole ox. It was sent by rail to Bern, Switzerland. Burke leaves for Bern and Alexia is told to follow him.
In Bern, Agent Felicia Knight secretly photographs some men loading meat on a truck. Burke arrives later at Felicia’s home and we see they are old friends. Burke meets her fiancé Paul. Felicia thinks that Boradine was shipped inside the ox.
In his hotel Burke knocks on the door of the room adjacent to his because he knows Alexia is secretly staying there. She’s always cold and robotic when sober but after a few drinks starts kissing him.
Alexia goes to see Popoff. He doesn’t want Burke to know he’s in Bern but Felicia follows Alexia, notifies Burke and he arrives at Popoff’s office. Felicia puts a tracker on Alexia’s car. Burke follows her to a sanatorium. Burke sees Felicia home and then he is kidnapped by two men. He is taken to a warehouse and is about to be thrown into an incinerator but he breaks free. Paul arrives and shoots one of them and the other runs away. Paul is supposed to be a playwright and not an agent. It seems he’s not an agent but just happened to see Burke get grabbed and decided to follow with a gun.
Felicia has found that the director of the sanitorium, who she also photographed where the meat from Moscow was shipped is named Werner Kurtz.
Burke meets Popoff who shows him a dead body and claims it’s Boradine. Later Burke discusses it with Felicia and neither thinks the corpse is Boradine. Burke pretends to be Felicia’s alcoholic brother and she checks him in to the sanitorium. Kurtz is watching Burke through a two way mirror. Burke follows Kurtz into a linen closet and finds a secret door to that same set with the curved stairway that shows up so often as a dungeon. He steps into a freezer where he finds Boradine’s body frozen solid. Through a speaker Kurtz assures Burke that Boradine is alive. He tells Burke the door is locked and he will not survive the cold if he does not give up his gun. He tells Burked that Boradine is in a state of suspended animation. Then Popoff walks in and says they are selling Boradine to China for one million dollars. Burke is injected with a drug and they leave him in the freezer. Burke manages to pull a radio transmitter from his shoe to contact Felicia. He tells her where he is and she is about to leave when a hand holding a cloth with chloroform goes over her mouth. Alexia has gone to see Popoff but he is not home. She finds Boradine’s ring on his desk. In the freezer Burke holds his lighter to the thermostat. The guard outside sees the temperature change and opens the door. Burke knocks him out. Alexia finds the unconscious Felicia. Burke takes out another guard and gets a gun, then he stands down Popoff and Kurtz, getting them to drop their guns. Then Paul shows up with a gun pointed at Burke. But then Alexia and Felicia show up with guns pointed at Paul. Paul is about to shoot Alexia when Burke shoots him. Paul was a Chinese agent. Just before he dies he tells Felicia that he still loves her.
Alexia ends up on a date with Burke.
Alexia was played by Phyllis Newman, who made her Broadway debut in Wish You Were Here in 1952. She was the first woman to substitute for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. She won a Tony Award in 1962 for her performance in Subways Are For Sleeping. She was nominated for another in 1987 for Broadway Bound. She performed in many hit musicals. In 1979 she had a one woman show called “The Madwoman of Central Park West”. It ran for 86 performances. She had a regular role as a former madame on One Life to Live. Her memoir was called Just In Time.
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