Alison de Vere

            On Tuesday I went to bed a little after 1:00 but didn’t sleep much because I was worried about my kitchen drain and wondering if I could go around the landlord and just hire a plumber to snake it on my own. 

            After yoga I memorized the chorus of “Au charme non plus” (The Charm is Gone) by Serge Gainsbourg and revised my translation. 

            I called a local plumber and asked if they could snake my drain without going through the landlord and he said “Absolutely”. I made an appointment for them to come between 9:00 and 11:00 tomorrow. I felt good about that decision because last time the landlord made me wait a month and played a blame game with me whenever the problem was discussed. I’ll use the bathroom sink until tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice and it went out of tune a lot. Tomorrow I begin a four session stretch of playing my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos before breakfast. 

            I put away my laundry from yesterday and then only had a bit of time to work on sanding the inside of my bathroom door. I’ve got about a third done. 

            I weighed 87.55 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at the Metro in the Annex to buy grapes. Only three bags were not too soft. On the way home another cyclist was riding on the wrong side and stopped just short of hitting me, then gave me a dirty look and said, “Jesus fucking Christ!” as if I had been in the wrong. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos at 17:52. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 18:51. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Vomit of the Star Eater” from October 8 to 10. On October 8 I played it on my Martin acoustic guitar and the take at 12:45 wasn’t bad and looked good. On October 9 and 10 I played it on my Kramer electric guitar. On October 9 the take at 15:30 sounded okay. On October 10 the take at 11:00 didn’t sound bad but a glitch at around 11:30 caused it to freeze. I tried different players and it froze in the same place every time. If I start the video after the point of freezing it finishes fine. That’s never happened before. 

            I managed to get in more than half an hour of practice at relearning how to play my song “Paranoiac Utopia”. I made some progress but I still can’t get through the whole song so I need more time since there are only eleven days left before my book launch.

            I roasted a sirloin tip and had a slice with a potato and gravy while watching season 3, episodes 2 and 3 of The Beatles cartoon series. 

            In story 1 of episode 2, The Beatles have accompanied an ornithologist named Miss Twitter and her assistant Dr. Miles on a field trip but the band just wants to relax under a tree. She’s found the green double breasted tropical worsted that can sing anything but Ringo just wants to eat it. Twitter is trying to catch the bird and Miles is trying too, even though he hates birds, because he’s in love with Twitter. The bird lands on his head and sings “You ain’t nothin but a hound dog, yeah yeah yeah”. While the bird is evading capture, The Beatles sing “And Your Bird Can Sing”. The bird builds a cage and lures Twitter into it and then Miles. The bird is trying to bring the two together romantically. Then the Beatles follow the bird away as it whistles the theme from The Bridge on the River Kwai. 

            The first singalong is to “Penny Lane”. The second singalong is to “Eleonor Rigby”, which both John and Paul claimed to have written the greater portion. George Martin agrees with Paul. “Ah look at all the lonely people” was George’s line. Ringo came up with “Writing the words to a sermon that no one will hear” and “Darning his socks”. The singalong presents the song with a series of photographs and the only animation is some bubbles going across the screen. 

            In story 2 of episode 2, the Beatles are in India but even there they are chased by screaming girls. They hide in a room that has a book called “How To Escape from Your Body” by Swami Rivers. They decide escaping from their bodies would be a good way to escape from their female fans so they go to see him. He has them lie down and repeat a mantra and then their astral forms rise from their bodies. But then their physical bodies begin walking away and so they chase them while singing “Got to Get You Into My Life”, which was written by Paul. He says it’s an ode to cannabis. Their bodies all walk off a cliff and reconnect with their astral forms on the way down, then they wake up still lying on the floor. 

            In story 1 of episode 3, The Beatles are enjoying a sunny day but Ringo says it won’t be for long because he’s a jinx. The go to Carney Island amusement park and it begins to rain. The workers at Carney Island all complain that Ringo brings rain to the park every weekend. They all begin to chase him. But the Beatles play “Good Day Sunshine” and cause the sun to return. Now even Ringo gets a girl and he’s happy. 

            The first singalong is to “Strawberry Fields Forever”. The second singalong is to “And Your Bird Can Sing”. 

            In story 2 of episode 3, The Beatles members are visiting each other to see their hobbies. Paul is painting a modern work called “White on White” that just looks like a blank canvas. George’s hobby is electronics and he has built a robot. But when Ringo shakes hands with it the robot falls apart. Ringo’s hobby is collecting but when the others see he has a girl in a cage they tell him he can’t do that because of the Magna Carta and they let her go. Ringo chases her with a butterfly net while “She’s Got a Ticket to Ride” is playing. He even chases her into outer space. She lands on a distant planet where she is captured by an alien version of Ringo with antennae. Then an alien girl begins chasing Ringo all over the planet. John’s hobby is keeping a diary about the hobbies of the other Beatles. 

            The background artist for “And Your Bird Can Sing” and “Good Day Sunshine” was Alison de Vere, who studied art at the Royal Academy. She worked as a background artist for Halas and Batchelor Studio starting in 1951 at a time when there were very few female animators in the world. She was a design director for Yellow Submarine, in which she made a cameo appearance. She wrote and directed the animated shorts Mr. Pascal, The Black Dog, Café Bar, and Psyche and Eros. She worked as an animator for the TV series The Animals of Farthing Wood.