Nina Wayne

            On Friday morning I memorized the second verse of “On fait des rêves” (We Keep Dreaming) by Boris Vian. That verse is repeated later after a repetition of the first verse and so that’s about half the song. 

            I struggled with working out the chords for “Quoi toi moi t’aimer tu rêves” (What You Love of Me is Just a Dream) by Serge Gainsbourg. The extract on Apple Music only plays the two middle verses and choruses and I can’t stop and go back to hear one part over and over until I figure it out. So far each verse and chorus has slightly different chords because I hear them differently every time. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice for the second session of four. This time I didn’t use any of the amp simulators and just played it clean through my audio interface. 

            I weighed 87.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I sanded another section of my bathroom ceiling. There’s just one session of overhead sanding left and I’ll probably do that on Sunday. I’ll be glad when that’s over. Then I’d better give my floors a sweep and a mop before continuing with the walls. Also before starting the front bathroom wall I’ll take a break from sanding and start spending my late mornings and middays shopping for an effects pedal. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos before lunch, which is the heaviest I’ve been at Midday since May 8. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride but it was raining lightly enough to make me feel damp so I only rode as far as Bloor and Dovercourt. The rain let up after I got home and so I probably could have made it downtown and back without getting wet. 

            I weighed 87.8 kilos at 16:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:30. 

            I compared the song practice videos of my performances of “La bas c’est natural” from August 19 and August 29. The guitar sounds better on August 19, plus that session is already synchronized in Movie Maker. I compared September 4 to August 19 and I think the light is more interesting and the guitar beefier on August 19. I compared September 14 to August 19 and saw that September 14 doesn’t look as good. So August 19 will be the electric version of “La bas c’est natural” that I’ll upload to YouTube. I compared my electric performances of “Kenya” on August 14 and August 20. I think August 20 looks better and the guitar sounds heavier. I compared August 24 to August 20 and I think August 20 looks and sounds better. There are three more takes to compare. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Angeline” I synchronized the concert video of me singing “and since I can’t see the bottom” with the studio audio. Then it goes out of synch for “with this tiny flash…” so I added another clip of Mickey Dolenz falling from the Golden Gate Bridge in the movie Head. Then I synchronized the concert video with the audio for the lines “…light beam, I’ll just resign myself to falling Angeline”. But I extend my singing of the name “Angeline” longer in concert and so next time I’ll have to cut the extension and add another clip of Mickey falling. That leads to the instrumental, which probably won’t need any outside clips inserted to replace the concert video, especially when Brian Haddon is shown playing the keyboard. When the instrumental is over, if the final verse needs outside video segments I’ll return to finding clips of Greta Garbo to fit the lyrics. For the final chorus I’ll use the psychedelic clips of Mickey Dolenz sinking underwater in Head. 

            I finished scanning the third to the last box of slides. These were mostly outdoor shots of the playing field behind the house where my daughter was born and lived with her mother and grandparents. There were also street shots and pictures of random people. There was one shot of my friend Tom Smarda busking.

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken breast while watching season 2, episodes 29 and 30 of Bewitched. 

            In the first story Samantha learns that Darrin’s new client is an author named Reitmeier who claims to be an expert on witches and a debunker of witchcraft. Samantha has heard of him and doesn’t like what she has heard, but she thinks it would be amusing to attend his lecture. At one point she gets so mad at the things he says that she hexes him to stumble and crash dramatically on stage. He recites an incantation that he says would make witches disappear if they existed. Samantha suddenly becomes invisible. Later she reappears but she keeps vanishing. She calls for help from her mother Endora. After the lecture there is a little get together at Darrin’s place with guests Larry, Louise, Mr. Andrews, and Andora. Reitmeier is supposed to be there but he calls to cancel without mentioning that he’s hooked up with a very attractive groupie named Beverly. He wants to take Beverly out and asks where she wants to go. Endora makes her say “Morning Glory Circle” and so they end up at Darrin’s house anyway. Endora and Samantha try to get him to re-recite his incantation because once Endora hears the spell she can reverse it. But Reitmeier refuses to give away what will be for sale in his book. Then Endora disappears too even though Reitmeier has said nothing. They wonder if he’s really a warlock and so they give him the test by fire of a drink that only a warlock can handle: tomato juice with cayenne and hot sauce. Reitmeier chokes on the drink, proving he’s not a warlock. Then Endora wonders if he has a talisman of some sort. Samantha asks him about his ring and he says it was given him by a mystic who lived at the headwaters of the Nile. That would be in Uganda. Endora causes him to take off his ring and for it to slip onto the floor. Samantha and Endora take it to the kitchen and destroy it, then Samantha makes a copy and gives it back to him. 

            Beverly was played by Nina Wayne, who as a teenager skated with the Ice Capades. She then became a dancer. Her first TV appearance was on The Tonight Show in October of 1964. She co-starred in the movie Luv, based on the hit play by Murray Schisgal. She co-starred in the sitcom Camp Runamuck. She was married for nine years to John Drew Barrymore. 

            

            

            

           

             The 30th episode is the beginning of a two part story. The owner of a baby food company wants to hire McMann and Tate to do his advertizing. But his executive in charge of advertizing says he’ll make a decision in ten days. He hires a private investigator named Charlie Leach to look into Darrin. Darrin comes up cleaner than Mickey mouse but he is told to also investigate Samantha. He talks with Harriet Kravitz who is Abner’s sister. She is taking care of the house while he and Gladys are away. Since Alice Pearce who played the original Gladys has died, one assumes that they’ve written Harriet in while they look for a new Gladys. Harriet has heard all of Gladys’s stories about the strange goings on around Samantha and she’s witnessed some of them herself. She tells it all to Charlie but at first he doesn’t believe her. However he witnesses some levitation while spying on Samantha over the back yard fence. When he comes in under the pretence of taking a survey and starts obviously snooping, Samantha causes a rocking chair to go wild under him. Then when she sees him snooping around Tabatha’s baby carriage she causes it to jump up and down on top of him. Later she finds him in the garage and warns him to back off. He tells her he isn’t scared and so she makes him appear on the ledge of a high rise where he has to spend the night. He decides to blackmail Samantha and reveals to her that he knows she’s a witch and threatens to expose her if she doesn’t make him rich. This is continued in the next episode.