Helene Winston

                         

            On Wednesday morning I ran through singing and playing “Unzipped”, my translation of “Hey Mister Zippo” by Serge Gainsbourg. Then I uploaded it to Christian’s Translations and began preparing it for publication on the blog. 

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

            I weighed 87.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I filled out my 2024 census online. I think last time they didn’t provide a space for someone to name their own gender but now there is a box one can write in. I made a note to tell them that last time so maybe they read it. 

            I worked on getting caught up on my journal. On Tuesday night I was too exhausted after my day of struggling with finding a way to secure my amplifier to my bike trailer and so I kept falling asleep while trying to write. 

            I weighed 88.1 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

            My Ontario photo id arrived in the mail. It’s a horrible picture. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            When I got home I took some self portraits with my old Kodak camera and my new Sony so I could see the difference. I’m getting a haircut on Thursday so I thought I’d take some shots before and after. I took some with the self timer on the Kodak but didn’t have time to figure out the self timer on the Sony. I did shoot a video though. 

            Dirty mirror selfie with the Kodak:

             

            
             Dirty mirror selfie with the new Sony:

            I weighed 86.9 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal just before 20:00. 

            I reviewed the videos of my song practice performances of “Kenya” and “La bas c’est natural” from August 16 and 17. I played “Kenya” with my Martin acoustic guitar on August 16 and the take at 4:45 in Part B was pretty good and looked good but there was traffic noise. I played “La bas c’est natural” on August 17 with my Kramer electric guitar and the take at 24:00 wasn’t bad but there was a lot of traffic noise. 

            I made pizza on naan with Basilica sauce and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episodes 9 and 10 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story a psychiatrist named Dr. Passmore comes to Samantha and Darrin’s house because he wants Darrin to volunteer to do an ad campaign for a US Civil War Centennial commemoration. Samantha tells Passmore that Darrin would be happy to do it. Darrin is not happy about it but since Samantha gave her word he doesn’t feel he can back out. Passmore wants someone to write a play for the event and so in a mild act of revenge, Darrin volunteers Samantha. Samantha writes a first draft but Darrin tells her she needs to flesh out her characters. She decides to do this by making the characters appear before her. But once they have manifested in the flesh, whenever Samantha’s mind wanders toward the play they reappear at the most inopportune times. First there is Captain Corcoran, a Confederate officer with his horse. The next character is of a First Nation because Samantha wants someone neutral to the conflict. The captain asks for a love interest and so Samantha conjures up Violet, a northern lady. The characters appear to her in the middle of the night to share their ideas about how the play should go. They keep appearing and it’s driving her and Darrin nuts. She tells them to go away but the Native character tells her they are homeless until they have a plot to live in. They’ve been trying to tell her how to finish but she hasn’t been listening. He tells her to write down what they’ve come up with. The aboriginal character tells the captain the war is over and the south has capitulated. The captain shoots himself in the head. Violet thinks the indigenous man killed her lover and she shoots him. Violet declares that she will dedicate herself to the growth of a nation. The Native says the band plays The Battle Hymn of the Republic and that’s the end. Then the characters disappear. The play is a success but now someone from the ladies league wants Samantha to write a Vaudeville show. Suddenly two men appear in matching straw hats and striped coats dancing while singing “Piano Roll Blues”. 

            In the second story Darrin has fallen asleep on his drawing board. Samantha thinks he looks like a little boy and wonders what he was like. Endora says that’s easy enough to find out and transforms him. The boy version of Darrin is played by Billy Mumy of Lost in Space fame and he gives a pretty good performance as Darrin. It’s not until he is about to shave that he sees he’s been transformed. She changes him back but later at the office she makes him a kid again just before the client Mr. Harding walks in. Darrin stands and starts giving his presentation until he notices he is looking up to his audience. Darrin storms out and tries to call Samantha but he has to borrow a dime from a matronly woman in the hall. Samantha changes him back over the phone. Larry and Mr. Harding think that the boy was planted by Darrin as part of his campaign to advertize Harding’s ship models and they love it. Harding wants a meeting with both Darrin and the boy. On the way in as the boy, Darrin is confronted by two boys the same age. They take the ship from Darrin and play monkey in the middle. Then they get bored and say the ship is a lousy toy. Darrin follows them and hangs upside down with them in the playground until they tell him why it’s a boring toy. It’s because after the model is built it is not functional and doesn’t even float. Darrin doesn’t think he needs the boy now for his meeting with Harding, but Harding insists. Darrin has no alternative but to stop being mature when he changes into the boy. So the next time the boy acts juvenile and squirts Larry and Harding with a squirt gun, then kicks Harding. Then the boy runs into Darrin’s office. Adult Darrin comes out and makes Harding listen to his new ideas. 

            The matronly woman in the hall was played by Canadian actor Helene Winston, who first performed onstage at Theatre 77 in Winnipeg. She played Rachel Lynde in the 1956 film Anne of Green Gables. She made her Broadway debut in Milk and Honey. She appeared Mez Smith, one of the leaders of the elite underground society Downunder in A Boy and His Dog, which is one of my favourite films. She co-starred in the Canadian sitcom King of Kensington as Gladys King, Larry King’s mother. She became a poet and wrote From Sleeping Libido to Geriatric Erotica.