Martin Kosleck

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords for the second line of “Le temps passe” (Time Goes By) by Boris Vian. 

            I worked out the chords for the last verse of “L'homme de l'ombre” (The Man of the Shadows) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in French and then I need to find a less obscure translation for the final verse so that it’s more than just a love song to Gainsbourg’s record producer Philippe Lerichomme, who even the French barely remember. Songs and poems should be made timeless and not be weighed down by dates and names. 

            I weighed 85.95 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since January 22. 

            At noon I headed downtown to the Graduate School of Dentistry for my quarterly deep cleaning. Like last time it didn’t hurt enough for me to require freezing. Villi said there has been improvement and that I’ve been doing an excellent job with my cleaning. I asked if my gingivitis would ever be cured but Villi said I am way past gingivitis. I have periodontitis, which can only be controlled at my age and will never go away. I told her about the time one of the brushes came off from an interdental brush and got lodged between two teeth. I had to use another brush to push it out. She said that happened to a patient of hers and he wrote to the company in Switzerland to tell them, hoping they’d send him a free pack. But they only wrote back to say “Thanks for telling us”. My next appointment is for May 14 at which time she’ll book me a follow up with Dr. Xia. I learned that my Federal coverage isn’t renewed at the beginning of the year but a year from the last time I was covered and so I won’t get any free cleanings until next fall. I ran into Dr. Xia on my way out, dressed in civilian clothes with a baseball cap. We chatted for a while in the hallway and I told him about how my book launch was hijacked by anti-vaxxers. 

            I stopped at Freshco on the way home where the cherries were on sale so I got seven bags. I also bought a pack of raspberries, bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, three bags of skim milk, a pack of Full City Dark coffee, a jar of salsa, a pack of toilet paper and a pack of sponge towels. The cashier Jeremy (who really looks like a Jeremy) was wearing a Flash facemask. I asked if he was a fan. He said they are doing Frenzy Days for which the colour is red and that was the only red mask he had. He pointed out that he wasted his time because none of the other cashiers wore red. He said he used to watch the Flash TV show but didn’t see the movie. I told him it was an hour too long with too much time of Batman fighting Zod in his plane and other unnecessary exercises in tedium. 

            I was about to unlock my building when my former yoga student Moses came up with his walking ski poles. We chatted for about fifteen minutes and I showed him my book. 

            I weighed 85 kilos at 15:51. January 8 was the last time it was that low in the early afternoon. 

            I took a siesta and got up at 18:00. 

            I weighed 85.65 kilos at 18:14. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:14. 

            Although I’ve already cleaned my old warm mist humidifier the manual suggests disinfecting it as well and so I followed the instructions and added 1.9 litres of water with half a teaspoon of bleach to the water tank for twenty minutes. I poured the bleach solution into a stainless steel salad bowl and also soaked the heating unit and the other components. Tomorrow I’ll reassemble it and start cleaning the cool mist humidifier, which I suspect hasn’t been working properly for a few months. It seems to be a much simpler procedure for cleaning it but then I haven’t looked inside yet to see what needs to be cleaned. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I quickened the pace of my second rainbow wave animation and now I need to make more frames. I’ll try ten more and then look at it again. 

            I grilled three chicken legs in the oven but forgot to start them at 19:00. It didn’t make dinner very late though because I left them in the oven while I ate some grapes, then my potato with gravy and they were done by the time I was finished. I ate while watching season 2, episode 46 of Batman. 

            This was part two of the usual double story with a cliffhanger halfway through. Batman and Robin have been tricked into standing on top of a giant cake that they thought had been baked in their honour but was iced with pink quicksand that was five meters deep. We join them as they are now up to their hips. The obvious escape would have been for Batman to throw his batrope to the roof of the nearby building so they could simply pull themselves up and out of danger. This however does not cross Batman’s mind. When they are chest deep Batman remembers that he read that the specific gravity of quicksand approximates that of water and if they remain calm and motionless they shouldn’t sink further than their lower lips. They stop sinking and then use their experimental heel and toe bat rockets that we’ve never heard of until now. Batman counts down and at zero they press the rocket trigger on each of their utility belts. They blast out of the cake and one can see the cables that are pulling them up. This is actually not how quicksand works. Batman and Robin had plenty of time to lean back with their arms spread, kick up their feet to distribute their weight and float on top of the quicksand as one can do on water. While floating on quicksand on one’s back one can actually gently swim to safety. Meanwhile Riddler and his gang have stolen another million dollars meant for Batman’s charity to help the poor. He leaves behind another riddle: “When is an eagle’s nest blessed best?” Robin answers that Riddler is after a nest egg. Batman says that the only eagle’s nest outside of the zoo is the Aerie Nightclub on top of the Gotham City State Building. Commissioner Gordon says it is frequented by the elite of Gotham who would be ripe for an aquiline attack. Batman zeroes in on the word “aquiline”, meaning “of or like an eagle”. It has its root in the Latin word “aquila”. They realize now that Anthony Aquila the exiled dictator from South America now lives as a multimillionaire in Gotham and is rumoured to keep $1 million in his safe. Batman and Robin head for Aquila’s penthouse where the Riddler and his crew are already opening Aquila’s safe. Batman and Robin arrive before Riddler can leave with the money. He has his two thugs attack while he tries to get away but they make short work of his henchmen and then block his way. Riddler however calmly informs them that they are going to let him leave. He has Aquila inside of a puzzle trap with a time bomb inside a box that is also inside the puzzle. So they let Riddler walk away while they solve the puzzle but why wouldn’t they hold them there since he would help them solve it once he knew he was about to die otherwise. Robin says that some of the Medieval puzzle cages were designed so that all the intersecting rods were dependent on the axis of only one supporting rod. Disengaging that one rod unlocks the cage. Robin finds and pulls the rod and the cage falls apart. Batman opens the box to find there is no bomb. Meanwhile Riddler pays the $3 million to Professor Charm for the demolecularizer which is the size of pencil flashlight. It has the power to make anything simply disappear and it can be recharged in any electrical outlet. Batman and Robin are called to Marshal Coley Park and told to keep an eye on Coley’s statue. The Riddler is disguised as a maintenance worker sweeping the park. He secretly operates the demolecularizer and the statue vanishes. Riddler delivers an ultimatum that unless Gotham is declared an open city with no laws against crime in three hours he will also cause police headquarters to disappear. After that he will keep disintegrating buildings until his demands are met. The message closes with another riddle, which happens to be the riddle of the Sphynx that we’ve all known since grade school. Robin figures it out but there is no mention of its famous history. The Riddler added to the riddle “If you intend to follow me add the answer to the other three”. Batman selects the key words from each of the first three riddles: page, banquet, eagle’s nest and man. He says the letter P is the 16th letter of the alphabet. Using numerical positions in the alphabet as a common denominator they add the number 2 for banquet, 5 for eagles and 13 for man. The total is 36. There are 36 inches in a yard, which is three feet. Who has three feet? No one or no man. Batman remembers the upcoming opening of a puzzle factory called No Man (We know that is Riddler’s hideout). The Bat Computer gives them the address. Batman asks Gordon to deliver four 50 kilo sacks of sodium dichloride to the Bat Copter. Meanwhile Riddler has hidden the demolecularizer in Gordon’s office in an outlet behind Gordon’s couch. If Gordon capitulates Riddler will tell him how to deactivate the trigger by turning off the wall switch. Why would he leave the demolecularizer just to be used for this crime when there is so much power in keeping it. Even if not used for criminal purposes one could make millions from it. Batman and Robin arrive at Riddler’s lair and climb the wall. Riddler is watching on TV just before the police building is to be disintegrated but at that moment lightning strikes the building and it doesn’t disappear. Batman and Robin come in through the window and tell him they caused the lightning with cloud seeding and the bolt knocked out the power so the demolecularizer wouldn’t work. Riddler activates a trap door but they jump and hang on to an overhead bar. The final fight takes place. The Riddler and his men are captured. Anna Gram tries to get away but Chief O’Hara grabs her. She’s a handful and kicks Robin in the shin before she’s arrested. Professor Charm voluntarily returns the $3 million in charity money that he got from Riddler. He says he couldn’t live thinking about the hungry children. Batman tells him that when he gets out of prison he will have a job as a researcher at the Gotham Science Institute. 

            Professor Charm was played by Martin Kosleck, whose parents were Russian Jews in Germany. His film debut was in Der Fahnenträger von Sedan (The Standard Bearer of Sedan) in 1927. As an actor in German films he often spoke out against Nazism until Josef Goebbels ordered his arrest. He escaped just as the SS was closing in on him and went to Britain. The next year he arrived in New York and made his way to Hollywood. His first US film was Fashions of 1934. He played Goebbels in five movies as well as other Nazi officers in many more films. He co-starred in The Hitler Gang, The Frozen Ghost, The Mummy’s Curse, and House of Horrors. He became a renowned portrait painter when he retired from acting.