Rudi Gernreich

            On Thursday morning I memorized the third verse of “Le petit Lauriston”. Each verse is harder than the other because more and more nasty gifts for the French Gestapo are added to the list. 

            I worked out the chords for the third and fourth verses and the first two and a half lines of the chorus of “La main du masseur” (The Hand of the Masseur) by Serge Gainsbourg. I think that once the chords for the chorus are established the next four verses and chorus will follow the same pattern as the first.

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar for the second of two sessions and it sounded good. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Kramer electric. I have to recharge my foot switch before then because it’s stopped lighting up and on the left switch that I use for reverb I get nothing right now. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I got caught up on my journal and then I searched to find out who I could vote for in Parkdale. In previous elections there were several non-mainstream party affiliated choices. I guess since this was a snap election the smaller potential candidates didn’t have time to prepare to run. There’s a homeless guy that ran last time and several times before but he wasn’t on the ballot so I decided there was no alternative but to vote Green. 

            I weighed 86.95 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon as I headed out for my bike ride I went to the Parkdale School to vote. I ran into my upstairs neighbour Sean. It was not only his first time voting in Canada but he’d never even voted when he came of age in Jamaica so I congratulated him. He said that as a social worker he has a responsibility to try to get rid of Doug Ford. I thought that Sean had moved out and gave his place to his brother but it turns out his brother is only there temporarily. Sean wants to buy a copy of my book and offered to do it by E-transfer but I said he can get it when he moves back in. 

            I rode to Ossington and Bloor and on the way home I stopped at Freshco. Their green grapes were super cheap but only five bags had firm ones. I also got a pack of raspberries, bananas, a rack of pork ribs, a jar of marinara sauce, and a jar of salsa. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos at 18:37. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:38. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I finished cutting and shuffling bits from the BBC documentary “When Hippies Ruled the World” sufficiently to have enough material to cover until the end of the instrumental. I started to look for video clips that could correspond to my line “Mom and dad want baby’s freedom”. Nothing turned up of interest and so next I’ll try “people pretending to be hippies in 60s TV and film”. 

            I had a potato with gravy and some pork ribs while watching season 3, episode 14 of Batman. 

            At a fashion function attended by Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara, real life fashion designer Rudi Gernreich is naming the ten best dressed women in Gotham City. When he finishes the list he says he has created a new category, that of the best dressed crime fightress in Gotham. The first annual Batty Award is presented to Batgirl. Gordon and O’Hara accept the award on Batgirl’s behalf. Suddenly Catwoman arrives and says it’s ridiculous because Batgirl can’t be the best anything when Catwoman is around (Catwoman seems to have become a version of the evil queen with Batgirl representing Snow White). Then she accuses the well-coiffed women at the table of knowing nothing about beauty. Catwoman throws a Bad hair bomb and causes every woman at the table to have permanently out of control tresses. The women scream in horror while Catwoman laughs and leaves. Somehow the bomb was gender specific and had no effect on the men at the table. Gordon calls Batman, and Barbara Gordon is in the office when he and Robin arrive. She suggests that they catch Catwoman by using Batgirl as bait. Batman advises her to leave the crimefighting to the men. Meanwhile in an abandoned loft in the fashion district, Catwoman has her headquarters where she makes plans to steal the single most valuable piece of clothing on Earth: the Golden Fleece. It’s a gown made of 24-karat gold cloth and it belongs to Queen Bess of Belgravia. There is no market for the gown but if they take it Queen Bess will pay a fortune to get it back. Catwoman sends a telegram to Commissioner Gordon outlining her plan. When Barbara learns of Catwoman’s scheme she changes to Batgirl and heads out on her Batgirl Cycle to stop her. Meanwhile in the showroom of Fashionation Magazine Rudi is giving a show of his own designs. Catwoman arrives to steal all the one-of-a-kind clothes so she will be the best dressed woman in the world. But Batman comes and tells her that where she’s going there are no fashion shows (But that’s not exactly true. There have been and continue to be fashion shows in some women’s prisons). While Batman and Robin are confronting Catwoman, her men catch them in a net. But Batgirl arrives and frees them. Catwoman runs into the models’ dressing room where Batman and Robin are afraid to go, but Batgirl isn’t. However, as soon as Batgirl steps in she is ambushed by Catwoman and rendered unconscious by her knockout spray. After waiting for a few minutes Batman and Robin close their eyes and comically venture into the forbidden dressing room. The models tell them that Catwoman kidnapped Batgirl and went out the back door. Batman and Robin stumble around with their eyes closed until the models let them know that they are fully clothed. Later Batgirl is tied up in Catwoman’s lair. Catwoman says that Batman and Robin are scheduled to meet Queen Bess at exactly 15:00 but she lets them know that at precise hour Batgirl will be killed in her hideout. Batgirl is tied to a table where a pattern cutter is set up to cut her body into the pattern of a pinafore. Meanwhile Batman figures out that Catwoman plans to steal the Golden Fleece. Catwoman calls Gordon’s office to tell Batman the address of her hideout so he can save Batgirl. Batman calls Alfred and tells him to disguise himself to go and save Batgirl while he and Robin deal with Catwoman at the Belgravian Embassy. At the Embassy Queen Bess is preparing for her guests when Catwoman arrives and knocks her out. At Catwoman’s hideout the blade is about to begin slicing into Batgirl’s head when Alfred rushes in disguised as a hippy and shuts off the machine. He frees Batgirl but tells her he did it because he’s the janitor there and didn’t want to have to clean up the mess if the blade had done its work. She tells him he looks familiar but he says he’s the world’s oldest hippy. Gordon and O’Hara arrive at the embassy and find Catwoman wearing the Golden Fleece while sitting on Queen Bess’s throne. Batman and Robin arrive and shortly after, so does Batgirl. Catwoman orders her men to attack and the final battle takes place, with Batgirl joining in. Of course the heroes win and Catwoman is arrested. 

            In this third and final season Catwoman is played by the great Eartha Kitt. I love Eartha Kitt but she did not make a great Catwoman. She just didn’t have the comic timing of Julie Newmar and the writers made her entirely sinister to a disturbing degree. Newmar’s Catwoman is also a murderer but she’s funny while being one. Also conspicuously absent is the sexual attraction that underscores the relationship between Newmar’s Catwoman and Adam West’s Batman. Obviously it’s because Eartha Kitt is black and the racist producers thought the racist audience would be turned off my an interracial romance. 

            Rudi Gernreich played himself. He spent much of his childhood in the dress shop of his aunt and uncle in Austria, making sketches. When the Nazis took over Austria, Rudi’s mother escaped with him to the States. He learned about anatomy in his first job, which was washing corpses to prepare them for autopsies. He joined Lester Horton’s modern dance company as both a dancer and designer. He said dancing made him aware of how clothing works in motion. He started his own line of clothing in 1951. In 1952 he introduced the first swim suit without a built in bra. In 1964 he created the monokini, the first topless swimsuit. In 1966 his designs were featured in the first fashion video: Basic Black. He broke fashion’s unwritten rule and began selling his name designs to chain stores. He designed the Moonbase Alpha costumes for the TV series Space 1999. He was a pioneer at using plastic and vinyl in clothing. He invented the transparent bra and the thong. He was also a gourmet cook.

February 28, 1995: Cad had us over to his place at Beaconsfield and Queen

Thirty years ago today

            On Tuesday it was the day before my annual fast. I posed at Northern Secondary School again. That night I hosted my Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy writers open stage and afterwards a few of us, including Mary Milne and Raven, went over to Paul Goldberg’s place at Beaconsfield and Queen. He actually cooked for us as I recall.

Stacey Gregg

            On Wednesday morning I worked out the chords for the second verse of “La main du masseur” (The Hand of the Masseur) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. It only needed a couple of tunings. 

            I weighed 86.55 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I brought in the stepladder from the deck and finished filling the bathroom ceiling. Next I’ll do all the high parts of the walls that require a stepladder to reach. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before lunch. I had whole wheat saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. On O’Hara I dropped into a pothole that was hidden by a puddle. There was some snow that had been knocked from the banks that was slippery when I rode over it. I decided to only go as far as Ossington and Bloor. Tomorrow since I’ll be taking the time to vote before my ride I’ll probably only go that far as well. Maybe Friday I’ll make it downtown for the first time since the storm. I stopped at Freshco on the way home to take advantage of the last day of the No Frills sale of grapes at $4.14 a kilo and so I did a price match on seven bags of green grapes. Leaving the supermarket there was a woman with a two wheeled shopping cart and a little dog. She gave the dog a command and it jumped into the cart so she could wheel it away. 

            I weighed 86.95 kilos at 18:11. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:22. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I cut and shuffled various clips from the BBC documentary “When Hippies Ruled the World” to fit with the instrumental. I needed just a few seconds more when I stopped for the night. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of my Gibson electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on September 20. The take at 32:00 was okay but I hit some wrong chords in the end. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, oven fries, parmesan and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 3, episode 13 of Batman. 

            After rescuing Robin from the Londinium Bridge, Batman learns from him that Batgirl is in the dungeon at Ffogg Place. Robin drives the Batmobile while Batman rides there in the cab that Alfred borrowed from his cousin. Meanwhile Batgirl has recovered from the paralyzing gas and finds herself standing chained to the stone wall. Ffogg and Penelope visit her and discuss that she will have to die. He tosses lethal fog pellets down the stairs before leaving the dungeon. Robin parks near the gates of Ffogg Place and finds Batgirl’s suitcase. He begins to open it but stops, frowns and puts it down. He then climbs the wall of Ffogg Place. While crossing the lawn he steps into a very visible trip wire attached to the door of the killer beehive that even has a sign that says it’s the trip wire for the killer beehive. He falls on the lawn and a very fake looking bee lands on his gloved hand. Prudence squats beside him and tells him that it’s the queen bee. She happily reminds him that if it stings him he will die. Meanwhile Alfred’s cab pulls up behind the Batmobile, and Batman also discovers Batgirl’s suitcase. He begins to open it and then stops himself. He says that by opening the suitcase he might learn Batgirl’s identity. But Alfred adds, “And thus destroy the anonymity so precious to her”. Batman gives the case to Alfred and then climbs the wall of Ffogg place. Ffogg and Penelope return to the dungeon and are surprised that Batgirl isn’t dead. He says his fog pellets must be stale. Penelope says she had the girls make a fresh batch in chemistry class and so they go to get them. Batman enters the cricket pavilion and finds the door to the dungeon. Lord Ffogg pushes him down the stairs. Penelope throws down the fresh poison fog pellets. Prudence brings a stunned Robin to Ffogg and Penelope announcing that the killer bee stung Robin. She is told to take him upstairs to die. Meanwhile in the dungeon Batman is spraying the can of anti lethal fog that he always keeps in his utility belt (If everything he says he always keeps in his utility belt was really there he would need to have freight train wrapped around his waist). Then from the same belt he takes a file to begin freeing Batgirl. Meanwhile Robin reveals to Prudence and the students that he had one African death bee antidote pill that he popped in his mouth and is fine now. But the girls have their hands all over him and won’t let him leave the dorm, so he jumps out of the window. Ffogg and Penelope are on their way with their gang to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of Londinium and then the pair plan on escaping to Argentuela, which has no extradition treaty. Meanwhile Batman and Batgirl can’t break through the door of the dungeon. There is a grating high up on the ceiling but all Batgirl has is a Batrope with no Baterang. Batman teaches Batgirl the Indian fakir command “Roosi sita rako” and as they recite it the end of the rope levitates up to the grating through the power of concentration and yoga. Then they climb it and escape. Robin meets them just after they climb out and asks Batman if he has a fakir tick to beat Ffogg to the Tower. Ffogg, Penelope and the girls arrive at the Tower and are about to take the Crown Jewels when it is revealed that the two Beefeaters on guard are Batman and Robin. Robin says they got there by holy incantation. Ffogg calls for his thugs and the final fight takes place. Ffogg, Penelope, Prudence and the girls try to escape but Batgirl blocks their way holding a poleaxe. Ffogg starts to use his fog pipe but the smoke goes in reverse because Batman uses his Pipe of Fog Bat Reverser (His devices get sillier and sillier in this final season). The cops arrive and arrest the crooks. Batgirl disappears and soon after arrives as Barbara to say she just saw Batgirl drive away on her Batgirl cycle. Back in the States the president on the phone invites Batman for a barbecue in Texas. One assumes this is the Texan President Lindon Johnson. Then they hear at Commissioner Gordon’s office that Catwoman has just stolen the new police mini skirt uniforms. They try to catch her but she hisses and scratches the air at them then laughs and escapes into the elevator before they can grab her. We don’t really see much of her but this is the first appearance of the great Eartha Kitt as Catwoman. So that’s who they will be facing next episode. 

            The student criminal Rosamond was played by Stacey Gregg, who co-starred with Richard Gere in the first London production of Grease in 1973. She has done a lot of work as an English dubbing voice actor such as in the Spanish TV series The Fruitties, and the French series The Twins of Destiny. She also dubbed major parts in several anime films such as Odin, Project A-Ko, and X.

February 27, 1995: I posed half a day at Northern

Thirty years ago today

            On Monday I posed for half a day at Northern Secondary School.

Lyn Peters

            On Tuesday morning I worked out the chords for the intro and the first verse of “La main du masseur” (The Hand of the Masseur) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar for the last of two sessions. It was out of tune most of the time but I enjoyed singing my songs. I did the best version yet of “Paranoiac Utopia”. 

            I weighed 87 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I cleaned the old warm mist humidifier. I didn’t have to shut it down first or start up the new one because the humidity has been naturally high all day. The old one is more difficult to clean and there are some unreachable areas that have some accumulation but I got most of it. This time I used 4.5 cups of vinegar. I didn’t bother to disinfect it with a bleach solution because I figured the water was hot enough. 

            I fell asleep last night for two hours at the computer and fell behind on my journal, so I spent some time before lunch getting caught up. 

            I weighed 86.7 kilos before lunch.

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. The Bloor bike lane was clear but it was raining and so I only went as far as Ossington and Bloor. 

            I weighed 86.5 kilos at 17:40, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening since February 12. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:20. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I continued cutting and shuffling clips from the BBC documentary “When Hippies Ruled the World”. I think I’ve established the video up to the beginning of the instrumental. Next I have to figure out which clips to add to the instrumental. 

            I finished reviewing the song practice video of my Gibson electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” from September 19. The take at 41:15 didn’t sound horrible but I did miss a beat. I started reviewing September 20 but had to stop for supper and so the take at 19:45 is where I left off. 

            I made a new batch of gravy with a combination of chicken and pork drippings. It turned out a bit thick and so I’ll need to add some liquid later. I had some with a potato and some pork ribs while watching season 3, episode 12 of Batman. 

            At the end of the last episode a knockout fog bomb had been planted in the Batmobile by one of Lord Marmaduke Ffogg’s thugs and it went off, engulfing Batman and Robin. The beginning of episode 12 doesn’t even show them escaping. We only hear Batman explain that they used their Bat Extinguisher. That doesn’t explain anything since there was no fire to extinguish. Commissioner Gordon, Batman and Robin are at Superintendent Watson’s office when Barbara Gordon enters with a package that Watson’s secretary told her was for Batman. It begins to smoke and inside the box are three silver bells. There is a pub by the docks called The Three Bells. There’s a ship leaving that dock today with a cargo of mod materials from the fashion district. Later Barbara returns to Ffogg Place where she is told that Ffogg and Penelope will have to leave her with Lady Prudence while they go into Londinium. Batman and Robin arrive on the docks but Batman tells Robin he’s not old enough to enter the tavern so he has to mwait by the Batmobile. Inside Batman approaches Ffogg and three of his thugs. They attack him and after the usual fight, Batman is subdued. Meanwhile Penelope and her four students approach Robin. When he sees them he grabs an axe and cuts the rope that was holding the ship to the dock so they can’t steal the cargo. The girls overwhelm Robin and since he won’t fight females they pick him up and carry him away. Meanwhile Barbara again rendezvous with Alfred as he brings the Bat Suitcase containing her costume. She says she’s going to investigate Lord Ffogg’s cricket pavilion because it’s the only place Prudence didn’t show her. Alfred leaves and Barbara changes to Batgirl behind a bush. In the cricket pavilion she finds all of the items that Ffogg and Penelope have stolen so far. But Prudence sees Batgirl through the window and turns on a gauge marked “paralyzing gas”, which fills the pavilion and renders Batgirl motionless. Meanwhile back at the pub, Batman is tied to a chair and Ffogg attaches a device to his cowl that will reverse the recollection centre and wipe his memory. Once Batman is blank, they leave him alone. Perhaps hours later when the pub is empty Batman gets free of his bonds and wanders outside. Alfred comes running up to him after tracking him with the Bat Tracker and finds that Batman doesn’t know him and or even himself. Alfred puts him in the Batmobile and drives him to the temporary Batcave where he happened to pack the Recollection Cycle Bat Restorer for their trip. Headphones are placed on Batman and the machine is switched on causing Batman to immediately regain his memory. Alfred tells him that Batgirl has discovered that Ffogg Place holds a school for girl crooks. Batman wants to know about Alfred’s association with Batgirl but Alfred asks him to respect that he can’t reveal the details. Back at Ffogg Place Batgirl and Robin are taken to the dungeon. Marmaduke calls Penelope and is surprised to hear that there is also a Batgirl. Penelope tells him that bats come in both sexes. Ffogg tells her he has other plans for Robin. Meanwhile the Bat Computer produces only the word “winch” in the search for Robin. Alfred says that the most prominent winch in Londinium is in the Winch Room of the Tower Bridge. It operates the mechanism that raises the arms of the bridge to let ships through. Robin is bound by the rope of the winch and he will be crushed as the winch tightens to pull up the arms of the bridge as a ship approaches. Batman and Alfred arrive at the bridge and Batman uses the anti mechanical Bat Ray from the Batmobile glove compartment to render the mechanism useless. He then finds the winch room and unwinds the winch to free Robin. Ffogg and his men arrive and the usual fight takes place. Batman and Robin are able to take out Ffogg’s men but Ffogg lights his fog pipe and Batman and Robin are engulfed. Meanwhile Batgirl is still paralyzed and now is bound with her arms apart to the stone wall of the dungeon. 

            Lady Prudence is played by Lyn Peters, who studied cooking at Le Cordon Bleu. She was a top model in London. She co-starred in Grave of the Vampire. She played Emily Neal, a parody of Emma Peel on Get Smart. She was married to TV star of Naked City and 12:00 O’Clock High, Paul Burke. After she retired from acting she founded Custom Catering and had a very successful business with famous clients, such as Frank Sinatra.

February 26, 1995: I posed for the Toronto School of Art

Thirty years ago today 

            On Sunday I posed at the Toronto School of Art and got paid in cash.

Glynis Johns

            After yoga when I opened up the doc that holds Book 4 of the new set of poems I’m working on, it came through in the old format like I wanted it to. I thought that I would have to set the old template for each document but every doc I opened up was in the old, editable format. So I guess changing it for one document changed it for them all, which is a relief and saves a lot of work. 

            I finished transcribing the set of chords for “La main du masseur” (The Hand of the Masseur) by Serge Gainsbourg that I found in La boîte à chansons (Song Box). I searched for more but none had been posted so I worked out the chords for the first line and part of the second. The chords for the first two lines are also the chords for the intro times two. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. The B string still has the problem of going chronically out tune. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since November 28. 

            I looked up local bookstores and called a couple on Roncesvalles to convince them to order my book Paranoiac Utopia from Ekstasis Editions. Both stores said that Ekstasis is too small a publisher to be on their list. That’s three dead ends so far. I emailed Richard Olafson to ask him to send me a list of Toronto publishers that have actually ordered books from Ekstasis. 

            I weighed 86.75 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and this time went as far as Ossington and Bloor, although the Bloor bike lane is either totally blocked or an obstacle course with a path through that’s about the width of a bicycle tire. On the way home I stopped at Freshco to take advantage of the fact that I could still do a price match on grapes with the No Frills price of $4.14 a kilo. Plus they had better grapes at Freshco. I also got a pack of raspberries, some Canadian honey and some spoon sized shredded wheat. 

            I weighed 87 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:23. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I continued to cut and shuffle the clips I’d made from the BBC documentary “When Hippies Ruled the World”. I might have enough video to make it through the instrumental, but then I think I’ll have to look for something else to import. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of my Gibson electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” from September 19 but there were lots of retakes in that session and so I left off for supper at 41:15. 

            I had a potato with the last of my gravy and three pork ribs while watching season 3, episode 11 of Batman. 

            In Chuckingham Palace, in Londinium, the capital of the Old World, Lord Marmaduke Ffogg and his sister Lady Penelope Peasoup steal the queen’s collection of antique snuff boxes under the cover of artificial fog created by Ffogg’s Sherlock Holmes style calabash pipe (Apparently the books never described Holmes’s pipe but in theatrical representations it’s become traditional for him to smoke a calabash because of the visual effect of the dramatic curve). For some reason the recent thefts in Londinium of priceless possessions of the aristocracy have become an international incident, stumping Ireland Yard, and so the US president has asked Commissioner Gordon to call Batman. Gordon himself is already scheduled to go to Londinium for a Police Commissioners conference. He’s invited his daughter Barbara to come along but she finds the idea of being in the Londinium fog distasteful until she hears that Batman and Robin will be going and then changes her mind. Barbara and her father set sail for Londinium on a cruise ship and are surprised that Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are also aboard. Alfred is also with them and an enormous crate is also loaded onto the ship. Bruce tells Barbara that he wants Dick to continue his studies while he’s there and so they have brought along his desk, his biological specimens, and a thousand works of literature. What they really have with them is the Batmobile and the Bat Computer. Meanwhile Ffogg and Peasoup steal Lady Easterland’s collection of jewelled Easter eggs. They are working their way up to stealing the Crown Jewels from the Tower of Londinium. When they get to the Old World (England is not mentioned), Bruce rents a country manor and in the former dungeon sets up a temporary Batcave. Later Batman and Robin meet Superintendent Watson at Ireland Yard. Barbara and Gordon are also there. When Batman and Robin hear about the fog trademark of the thefts they start throwing back and forth different words for fog and mention “aftergrass”. Aftergrass is grass that grows after a crop has been harvested but Bruce talks of it as if it’s something that would be cultivated in itself. I don’t think one would have a lawn of aftergrass but Watson says Ffogg House has the finest aftergrass in the world. Batman wants to visit Ffogg Place. Ffogg and Peasoup also run a girls finishing school. When Ffogg hears Batman and Robin are coming he tells his butler to dig two graves just in case. Batman, Robin, Barbara and Watson visit Ffogg Place where Ffogg always wears a fake cast on his foot, pretending to be immobilized by gout in order to throw off the police. The visitors meet Ffogg’s daughter Lady Prudence and her charges, the student boarders: Duchess, Kit, Daisy, and Rosamond. The daily students are on holiday. When Penelope hears Barbara is a college graduate she offers her to join the faculty. Prudence shows Robin around while Barbara makes a phone call to Alfred and puts an anti bugging device on the phone which is a good idea because Ffogg and several others do try to listen. Prudence tells Robin the school is greeby. It’s supposed to be a finishing school but it’s really a school for shoplifting. Penelope shows Batman a beehive containing Ffogg’s African death bees. One sting and you’re finished. Penelope says Barbara told her she might be interested in joining the faculty for a short while. She explains to Ffogg that with Gordon’s daughter nearby and because of her connection to Batman, if Batman and Robin get too close they will have a hostage. Barbara meets Alfred on a country road where he has driven a taxicab that he borrowed from his cousin. He’s brought Barbara a suitcase with her yellow bat symbol on it and containing her Batgirl costume. Alfred drives away and Barbara goes behind some bushes to change. The Batmobile heads back to Londinium but comes up against a roadblock. They are confronted by Ffogg’s butler, footman, chauffeur and two other members of Ffogg’s staff out of uniform and carrying clubs. The fight begins and then Batgirl steps out from the bushes to join in. She uses a bit of Yvonne Craig’s ballet skills between her kicks. While the heroes are distracted by the fight, one of the thugs places something inside of the Batmobile. When they get back to the temporary Batcave the bomb goes off clouding them with what may be poison fog. 

            Penelope Peasoup is played by the legendary actor and amazingly gorgeous Glynis Johns. She joined the London Ballet School at the age of 5 and by the age of 11 had a degree as a dancing instructor. She made her stage acting debut at the age of 8 in Judgement Day. She made her film debut in South Riding at the age of 14. She starred in Miranda, The Weak and the Wicked, Mad About Men, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Third Time Lucky, Josephine and Men, Loser Takes All, All Mine to Give, The Spider’s Web, She co-starred in Frieda, The Halfway House (co-starring with her father Mervyn Johns), The Court Jester, No Highway in the Sky, The Chapman Report, Perfect Strangers, This Man is Mine, Dear Mr. Prohack, State Secret, The Card, Personal Affair, The Seekers, The Beachcomber, Shake Hands With the Devil, Papa’s Delicate Condition, Don’t Just Stand There, Lock Up Your Daughters, The Vault of Horror, and Zelly and Me. She made her television debut in the 1953 production of Little Women. She starred in the short-lived sitcom Glynis in 1963. She co-starred in the sitcom Coming of Age. The songs “Sister Suffragette” and “Send in the Clowns” were written specifically for her voice. She won a Tony for A Little Night Music. One would have thought that she might have received a damehood in her 100 year life but she died last year without one. Her image is on the cover of Led Zeppelin II.

February 25, 1995: My daughter still didn't want to spend the night at my place

Thirty years ago today

            On Saturday I don’t know for sure what I did because when I wrote this I was eight months behind on this diary. I assume I saw my daughter either up in Scarborough or somewhere her mother was shopping. She still didn’t want to stay overnight at my place.

Sivi Alberg

            On Sunday morning I had to start Word in Safe Mode and it looks like that’s what I’ll have to do from now on. It only takes a few seconds and then I have Word open all day usually anyway. It seems that I can only revert to the old template by copying old text into a new document but after its saved it seems to revert back to the corrupted template. Maybe a solution will come to me in the future but for now I’m stuck. The only problem with Safe Mode so far is that I can’t add words to the dictionary. I would have to leave Safe Mode and work in the old template to do that. Maybe some time I’ll try it. Safe Mode also doesn’t seem to remember where I left off and so I have to scroll and search to find the last place I was writing. 

            I memorized the second verse of “Le petit Lauriston”.

            I finished memorizing “La main du masseur” (The Hand of the Masseur) by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords and found a set in La boîte à chansons (Song Box). I started transcribing them and I’ll finish tomorrow. 

            I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and it stayed in tune. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar and it won’t stay in tune. 

            I weighed 86.4 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I brought in from the deck the now snow and ice-free stepladder and I filled the cracks, holes and depressions of the northwest quarter of my bathroom ceiling. I should have the ceiling done on Wednesday and then I’ll start on the parts of the walls that can only be reached with a stepladder. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before lunch. I had whole wheat saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride and made it up to Bloor for the first time in about a week. I would have gone further but the Bloor bike lane was all plugged up with snow. Maybe they just won’t even bother to clear it from now on since Doug Ford is going to rip up the bike lanes in a week or so and then he’ll be bowling for cyclists in his limo. I went home along Brock, the way I came. 

            I weighed 87.35 kilos at 17:45. 

            I might have found a way to convert my old documents to the old template. I opened the Normalold.dot template, then in this journal went to File/Options.Add-Ins/Templates/Normalold and clicked for that to be the template. I’ll find out if it works tomorrow, otherwise I’ll just keep working in Safe Mode. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:38. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I continued shuffling the order of clips from the BBC documentary “When Hippies Ruled the World” to arrange them according to how they fit with my lyrics. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my electric performances of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on September 17 and 18. On both days I played it on my Gibson Studio electric guitar. On September 17 the take at 1:00 in part B sounded okay but there were off chords at the end. On September 18 I hit some wrong chords at the end. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, parmesan, oven fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 3, episode 10 of Batman. 

            The upcoming World Surfing Championship will be taking place at Gotham Point and Skip Parker has a good chance of winning. He is currently on a date with Barbara Gordon on the beach while the Joker arrives in his Jokermobile and parks near the Hang Five club. On his hot dog radio, he contacts his moll Undine who is inside the Hang Five. The owner Hot Dog Harrigan is working on a surf board when Joker’s men grab him and lock him in a trash can outside. Joker tells Undine to fetch Skip Parker and so she goes to where Barbara and Skip are on the beach to tell him he has a phone call. But Joker has rigged the payphone so that Skip gets a mouthful of knockout gas. Then Skip is taken to the Jokermobile to be transported to the closed down Ten Toes Surfboard Shop. But Barbara sees Skip’s abduction by the Joker and calls her father Commissioner Gordon, who calls Batman. Batman and Robin take the Batcopter to Gotham Point. Meanwhile Gordon and Chief O’Hara arrive undercover as a couple of conspicuous looking cops trying to look like surfers. Gordon says most surfers are called either Duke, Skip, Rabbit or Buzzy and so O’Hara is Duke and Gordon is Buzzy. They sit at the Hang Five while surfers dance to the jukebox. Batman and Robin arrive and someone says, “Dig the gremmies”. Robin explains to Batman that a gremmie is a beach bum, similar to a hodad or a wannabe surfer. Meanwhile at the Ten Toes Surfboard Shop, Skip is strapped to a chair and hooked up to the Joker’s Surfing Experience and Ability Transfermeter. All of his surfing ability, knowhow and all his youthful energy is sucked from Skip and transferred to the Joker. The drained of knowledge and energy Skip is now tossed into a bin under a workbench. Joker plans to use Skips ability to win the World Championship. This he says will cause all surfers to follow him and do his bidding so he can conquer Gotham and then the world. Back in the Batcave the Bat Computer produces an image of two bare feet. Batman deduces that Joker’s hideout must be at the Ten Toes Surfboard Shop and heads there. Joker knows Batman is coming and has poisonous sea urchin spines ready for him and Robin. Batman and Robin crash through the window and are hit with the spines. Batman and Robin are tied to workbenches and Joker has them processed into pre-shaped blanks, they will be covered in fiberglass, laminated with resin, polished, and then given paraffin rubdowns as they will be trapped inside of surfboards. But as Joker’s men put on the finishing touches the surfboards begin to smoke and then they explode. Batman and Robin emerge unscathed even though the surfboards they were contained in were a tenth the thickness of their bodies. If they had really been inside of them their bodies would have been crushed. Batman says he used the Bat Ray in his utility belt to burn his way out but that doesn’t explain how Robin’s surfboard was also burning from the inside. Joker’s men run away. Batman and Robin find and free Skip. Batman finds Joker and challenges him to a surf-off in the World Championships. Batman and Joker put on their baggy swim trunks on top of their costumes and head for the beach. Barbara arrives and goes with Skip to watch the competition. While they are out there on the wave a shark approaches but Batman has a can of shark repellent in his utility belt. They hit the beach and Joker thinks he has won but the judges say the points go to Batman. Hotdog is freed from the garbage can. Joker and his gang run away. Dick runs into one locker room and Barbara into another and both emerge at the same time as Batgirl and Robin. The final fight takes place at the Hang Five with Batman, Batgirl and Robin against the Joker and his gang. The Joker is defeated and Gordon and O’Hara take him away after the Joker’s machine is switched to reverse the transfer and give Skip back his abilities. Meanwhile a few thousand kilometers away in Londinium two middle aged British crooks are stealing priceless snuff boxes. We’ll learn who they are in the next episode. 

            Undine was played by Sivi Alberg in her first onscreen acting role. She was Miss Sweden of 1964. In 1967 she won the Hollywood Star of Tomorrow award. Her film debut was in The Killing of Sister George. She was a trained cosmetologist and dermatologist. 

            

            After closing down my journal before bed I tried re-opening it out of Safe Mode to see if the solution I’d thought I’d found worked but it didn’t. I couldn’t even get the old template to show up in add-ins at all and when I tried to the window disappeared. Then I tried adding my journal to the Template window and then the old template showed up. I selected it and then tried opening my journal. It worked but the View was in a different format. I switched it to Printing View and it was the way I like it. I tried the same thing with the first doc I planned to open up the next day and that worked too.