Marion Thompson

            On Monday morning I finished memorizing “On fait des rêves” (We Keep Dreaming) by Boris Vian. I did a quick search for the chords but nothing turned up. Sometimes I find a set on France Tabs when I search “accords” so I’ll try that tomorrow. Otherwise I’ll work them out. 

            I published “What You Love of Me is Just a Dream”, my translation of “Quoi toi moi t’aimer tu rêves” by Serge Gainsbourg on my Christian’s Translations blog. I memorized the first verse of his song “China Doll”. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. 

            I weighed 88.3 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since May 6. 

            Around midday I swept and mopped my floors. Tomorrow if it’s not raining I’ll start shopping for an effects pedal. 

            I weighed 87.7 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I went to the Beer Store at Bathurst and College. It’s the only one downtown that’s open on Victoria Day and I was surprised that the line-up wasn’t longer. I bought a twelve pack of Creemore. 

            When I got home I noticed the area above my ankles was all puffed up because my socks had cut off the circulation. It took a while in my bare feet for the swelling to go down. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos at 17:15. I was caught up on my journal at 18:05. 

            In the Movie Maker project for “La bas c’est natural (acoustic) I synchronized the video with the Audacity recording. I cut out the songs that come after in that session and added a fade to black at the end of the song. There’s traffic noise picked up by the camera microphone but I kept some of the camera audio just to keep it from sounding too cold. I converted it to grey scale and added the “threshold” effect, which with the addition of grey scale gives the video extreme contrast. I’ll publish the video tomorrow and probably upload it to YouTube. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Angeline” I synchronized the concert video with the studio audio at the beginning of the third verse. It was easy to do because the video was only slightly behind so I only had to cut some of it. Then the video and audio were perfectly in synch for the next six lines. That concert at the old 360 Club is closer in timing to the studio recording than the Riot Gallery concert. After those six lines the video jumps ahead of the audio and so I need to find an appropriate Greta Garbo clip to push it back. I started searching for something from a movie showing her restless in bed but so far I couldn’t find anything. 

            I scanned about a quarter of my penultimate box of slides. They are all shots of my reflection in some kind of elongating surface on the street. They look pretty interesting. I’m wearing my long winter coat so I’m assuming this is late 1991 or early 1992. 

            I had a potato with gravy, a chicken breast and a beer while watching season 2, episodes 35 and 36 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Samantha and Endora go for lunch at the place where Darrin and Samantha used to always go when they were dating. When they arrive they see Darrin having lunch with a beautiful blonde woman. Samantha trusts her husband and assumes this is the client he said he needed to have lunch with. It is and her name is Toni Devlin. Darrin made it clear upon meeting her that he is happily married. That night Toni comes to Darrin and Samantha’s house to discuss some things about the advertizing campaign. While she’s waiting for Darrin on the couch Endora turns her into a cat. Meanwhile the private investigator Charlie Leach is back watching and listening. Endora has gone away and while Samantha is breaking the news about Toni to Darrin, Charlie comes in the other room and steals the cat. Samantha and Darrin see the door open and assume the cat wandered off. Toni is supposed to chair the board meeting tomorrow. Then Charlie comes to tell them he has the cat but Samantha needs to conjure a million dollars before he returns the feline. Samantha tells him her powers aren’t strong enough to materialize a million all at once but she makes him a money tree. Its fruit is hundred dollar bills but there are only ten of them. Samantha explains that it grows more every 24 hours. He says he’ll return the cat after 24 hours. The next morning while Charlie is feeding the cat Samantha turns him into a mouse. After a terrifying chase until Toni almost eats him, she changes him back but threatens to do it again if he doesn’t return Toni. He brings her back and now the problem is finding Endora. Samantha flies all over the world until she finally finds her in Tibet having tea with the Lord High Lama. She calls long distance and changes Toni back over the phone. The next day there is no new money on Charlie’s tree and even the $1000 he picked the day before has turned to leaves. 

            Toni was played by Marion Thompson, who auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera at 16. She studied acting with Stella Adler in New York. Her first screen appearance was an uncredited role in The Pleasure of His Company in 1961 and then a credited role in The Phantom Planet the same year. In 1965 she appeared as a love interest on Dr. Kildare but then the show was canceled. She made guest appearances on several TV series, including playing Medusa on Land of the Lost. She was co-founder of the Gemini Theatre Projects that produced and performed Uncle Vanya and The Master Builder. She sang and played guitar at The Troubadour and other clubs. She is now an award winning jewellery designer. 

            In the second story Endora tempts Samantha to wonder if Darrin would have still married her if he’d known beforehand that she is a witch. She didn’t tell him until their wedding night. So Endora offers to send her back in time so she can tell him before his proposal. She tells him and he runs away. Back in the present Samantha is very upset but Darrin tells her she didn’t wait to find out what happened next because he’s sure he would have come back after his initial shock. Samantha tells her mother to send them back. We find Darrin at work, thinking about Samantha and how much he loves her. He tells his boss Larry that Samantha is a witch and she appears before him to prove it. Larry sees this as a way of getting rich. Later Darrin calls Samantha and asks her to come over. She does and he tells her he loves her. He starts to propose but then Larry comes in with his plans to use Samantha to get rich. Samantha thinks that Darrin is in on those plans and so now they are back in the present. Darrin demands to go back to prove he loves her and so they go. Larry is still there and now Darrin throws him out for trying to take advantage of Samantha. Darrin returns to his proposal but then Endora appears and says meeting his mother in law before his proposal would be the real acid test. He keeps trying to kiss Samantha and Endora keeps sending him out of the room but he persists in returning over and over. Finally he gets so angry that Endora disappears and then he shouts his proposal, which Samantha accepts.