Eve Arden

            On Sunday morning I uploaded “Les frères” by Boris Vian to my Christian’s Translations blog and arranged the French verses as they are in the original text. I only now need to organize the lyrics for my translation and then publish it. That should be done tomorrow. 

            I memorized the second verse of “Quoi toi moi t’aimer tu rêves” (What You Love of Me is what You Dream) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            Before song practice I opened up Amplitube to see if I could use it with my Kramer electric guitar through the audio interface. I couldn’t get any sound. The moving lights show that the app is hearing my guitar but I can’t hear it. I also can’t hear YouTube tutorials while the interface is plugged in. When I tried twice my computer shut down. I spent almost the whole morning trying to figure this problem out and I missed song practice. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been then since April 20. Mind you that’s because I missed breakfast three hours earlier. So breakfast became my lunch. I had cinnamon-raisin toast and spoon sized shredded wheat cereal with honey, bananas, and raspberries. 

            I downloaded Guitar Gear but couldn’t hear my guitar on that app either.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back and thought about my audio problem while riding. It occurred to me that I could try unplugging the speaker plug from the back of my computer and plugging it into the headphone jack of my audio interface. That was the solution I used to hear the cassette-to-MP3 converter through my speakers. When I got home I tried it and there was still silence but then I realized the headphone volume was down. I turned it up and could finally hear my guitar. I tried a few of the free amps in Amplitube and found one with a clean sound. That worked fine but then suddenly the sound was gone again and I couldn’t figure out if I’d done anything to cause it. I tried Guitar Gear again and that still didn’t work. I went back to Amplitube and fiddled a bit with things but to no avail. Finally I tried unplugging and re-plugging the speaker plug in the headphone jack and the guitar was back again. This time I made sure I didn’t touch anything because I wanted my guitar to play amplified for song practice tomorrow. I closed down Amplitube and found the guitar was still playing through the interface. I don’t know if it always would have or if it was somehow a residual effect from Amplitube. I guess I’ll find out in the morning. 

            I weighed 87 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:15. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Kenya” and “La bas c’est natural” from September 1 to 7. I played “Kenya” on my Martin acoustic guitar on September 1 and 7. On September 1 the take at 25:00 was pretty good and looked good. On September 7 the take at 7:00 in part B was pretty good but I fumbled my strumming at one point. On September 3 and 5 I played it on my Kramer electric and on September 3 the take at 13:00 in part B wasn’t bad. It’s already in Movie Maker. On September 5 the take at 6:00 in part B was okay. I played “La bas c’est natural” on the Kramer on September 4 and the take at 3:30 in part B was one of the best of those played with the electric, plus it looked good. On September 6 I played it on the Martin and the take at 4:00 in part B was pretty good, plus this is in Movie Maker. On September 2 nothing past “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” got recorded. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Angeline” I imported the clip from the movie Head of Mickey Dolenz falling in slow motion from the Golden Gate Bridge. I copied it to the end of the timeline and began editing out everything but Dolenz falling. Once he hits the water the colours go psychedelic as he falls underwater as well. Some mermaids come to try and drag him down but I’ll cut that out as well because the chorus is about falling and not being dragged. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce, a sliced hot Italian sausage, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episodes 18 and 19 of Bewitched. 

            When the first story begins Samantha is already in labour and on the way to the hospital. The phone rings when she is on her way out the door and it is her cousin Serena. This is the first appearance of Serena on the series and she is also played by Elizabeth Montgomery. She has black hair, dark sultry clothing and a somewhat darker personality. That’s not to say that she’s evil but her ethical boundaries are more blurred than those of Samantha. She’s really like a younger version of Samantha’s mother Endora.

            After the intro a few hours have passed as Darrin paces in the waiting room. Samantha’s mother Endora appears before Darrin to inform him that he is the father of a baby girl. Darrin and Endora have a rare bonding moment. Darrin goes to see Samantha and their daughter under the watchful eye of the very strict Nurse Kelton. Endora wants the baby to be called Tabatha and says she’ll call her that whatever she is named. She fills the room with flowers but has a clash with Kelton who says too many flowers use up the oxygen in the room. I don’t think flowers or any plants use up oxygen and the leaves of plants actually produce it. Endora vanishes and then Serena arrives. It looks like they haven’t seen each other since they were much younger which could have been centuries. She offers to get the baby a Centaur but Samantha tells her to get a rattle instead. Serena also fills the room with flowers. Samantha warns her she’ll get in trouble with Nurse Kelton but Serena informs her that she’s turned Kelton into a frog and has her in her purse. Samantha makes her change her back. She does so and Kelton immediately complains about the flowers. Serena makes the flowers vanish and Kelton begins to doubt her own sanity. Then Serena disappears, which adds to Kelton’s fears. 

            Meanwhile Darrin and Endora are watching the baby through the nursery window. She says she’ll grow up to look just like Samantha. Darrin asks how she knows and Endora offers to turn her into a young lady for a few minutes to prove it. He warns her not to. Endora reminds him to call his parents about the baby. When he leaves she enters the nursery and takes the baby to her mother who was only allowed to hold her daughter for a minute because of those strange and illogical hospital rules of that era. I doubt if they do it that way anymore. Then Darrin meets Serena at the nursery and when he sees his daughter is missing he thinks that Endora has acted on her suggestion and turned the baby into a young woman. Serena does not know who Darrin is and thinks he’s trying to pick her up as he follows her to the toy store, confronts her and tells her he’s her father. She sends him back to the nursery. He goes to the toy store and chases Serena again. She dresses him like a Blackfoot chief in a war bonnet and doeskin and then disappears. Then Endora appears and when Darrin confronts her she sends him back to the nursery. Nurse Kelton says, “You’re not really here are you?” and Darrin confirms he’s not. He goes to Samantha’s room where he sees Serena and a baby. He asks who the baby is. Serena gags him, puts him in a straight jacket and disappears. Then Kelton walks in and happily tells the fourth wall, “Not there!” Later Darrin explains to Kelton that he’s a practical joker. Darrin decides he owes it to Endora to call his daughter Tabatha. 

            Nurse Kelton was played by the great Eve Arden, who quit school at 16 to join a stock company. Her film debut was in Song of Love. She appeared on Broadway four times in the late 1930s. She co-starred in Having Wonderful Time and Anatomy of a Murder. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her supporting role in Mildred Pierce. Her success on the screen led to her becoming a radio star in Our Miss Brooks in 1948. She was voted the top radio comedienne in the late 1940s. The show’s success led to it becoming a hit TV sitcom in which she also starred for four years and then it was also a movie. The Eve Arden Show in 1957 was a failure but ten years later she co-starred in The Mothers in Law, which ran for two seasons. 

            

            

            

            

            In the second story Darrin wakes up to hear the baby crying and goes to feed her. Meanwhile Samantha is half asleep in bed and makes the bottle float to the baby. Darrin follows it and thinks he now knows that Tabatha really is a witch. Samantha sets him straight and then Gladys and Abner Kravitz arrive to give the baby the gift of a stock certificate for one share of stock. The stock is Poughkeepsie Woollens and Abner says it is safe because it hasn’t lost or gained in twenty years. They got it through Gladys’s cousin Julius Cushman. Next by a strange coincidence Poughkeepsie Woollens stock goes up six points for the first time in twenty years. Darrin thinks Tabatha might have caused this to happen and so he tries an experiment. He holds the financial page in front of her and buys whatever stock she points at. He buys Nelson Aerodynamics which also hasn’t gone up in years, but it does now. Julius calls Gladys to tell her that Darrin must have some inside information. Gladys goes over to snoop. She already suspects Samantha of voodoo and when she finds the financial section in the nursery she draws the same conclusions as Darrin about the baby. She gets Tabatha to pick a stock. They sell Poughkeepsie Woollens to buy the new stock, then it drops and they lose everything. Darrin thinks Tabatha’s picks only work if she stands to profit and so he buys the same stock as Gladys in Tabatha’s name and this time it gains. Darrin talks with Julius and hears the logical reasons why all of those stocks went up. Now he admits he was wrong about Tabatha.