Phyllis Douglas

            On Friday morning my stomach told me I should lay off the chili peppers for a while. 

            I worked out the chords for the third verse of “Le temps passe” (Time Goes By) by Boris Vian. 

            I ran through singing and playing “L'homme de l'ombre” (The Man of the Shadows) by Serge Gainsbourg. Then I reworked my translation of the third verse, removing the reference to Gainsbourg’s record producer Philippe Lerichomme, in order to render the meaning more universal. I ran through singing my translation and then uploaded the song to my Christian’s Translations blog to prepare it for publication. I should have it posted tomorrow. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice and it does not seem to have been affected by the day the humidifier broke down. It stayed in tune and sounded good. 

            I weighed 85.85 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I went upstairs to water the aloe vera that I gave David two years ago from a little shoot I cut from mine. It’s enormous now. I also flushed his kitchen drain. I flushed mine as well. I reassembled my old warm mist dehumidifier. I disassembled my cool mist dehumidifier and saw that unlike the warm mist one that was caked with rock hard sludge, the cool mist was clean inside except for the filter, which was brown, bent and smelly. I wiped the base and the tank with vinegar, rinsed it and then disinfected it with a bleach solution. I replaced the filter, reassembled it, turned it back on and almost immediately it was humidifying whereas it had really been just blowing air for the last few months. 

            I weighed 86.05 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. It was a dreary, dark and damp ride. 

            I weighed 85.25 kilos at 18:16. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:05. 

            I made three more frames for the second phase of my rainbow wave animation project. I’ll do another seven before uploading them to my “Seven Shades of Blues” Movie Maker project. 

            I reviewed the song practice videos of my performances of “Annie C’s Aniseed Suckers” and “Les Sucettes” from October 8 to 13. On October 8 and 12 I played my Martin acoustic guitar and the final take wasn’t bad and it looked good. But on October 12 part A of that day’s video is corrupted. On October 10 I played it on my Kramer electric guitar and the take at 19:15 didn’t sound bad. On October 9 I played “Les Sucettes” on my Kramer and the take at 24:30 sounded okay. On October 11 and 13 I played it on the Martin. On October 11 the take at 14:30 had some wrong chords. On October 13 the take at 25:30 was okay.

            I had a potato with gravy and chicken leg while watching season 2, episode 47 of Batman. 

            This story begins with Commissioner Gordon hearing continuous haunting maniacal laughter in his office that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere. He recognizes it as the laugh of the Joker and calls Batman. He finds that the laughter comes from a tiny loud speaker in his cufflink. Somehow Joker also slipped an induction receiver antenna in the form of a long tube wrapped around Gordon’s waist a few times and then running down his right trouser leg. Give me a break. Gordon remembers that an odd looking person bumped into him in the subway that morning. I doubt if a police commissioner would ride the subway to work when he probably has a police officer to act as a chauffeur. At the same time deliberately fake counterfeit money is being distributed by a Gotham bank. Batman and Robin go there and the manager says the only new employee is a teller named Mr. Glee. The heroes determine from Glee’s colouration and manner that it is a robot. Batman pulls on Glee’s nose and the top of his head blows open before he collapses on the floor. Batman and Robin put Glee in the trunk of the Batmobile and head for the Batcave. The Joker has placed a tracer on Glee and so he and his assistant Josie Miller follow in the Joker Mobile. But the Batmobile has equipment that detects tracers and they activate the Bat Deflector which causes the tracer signal to lure Joker to a decoy location where he finds a tiny model of the Batcave. Meanwhile Batman and Robin’s analysis of Mr. Glee has revealed no clues until Alfred with his extensive knowledge of clothing intervenes. He says the sleeve of Glee’s jacket has been pressed by uncommon pressure. There are also traces of multicoloured spots that have been frequently but clumsily sponged. Batman takes a sample of the cloth to analyze and finds that the spots are minute traces of printers ink that came from the clothing being pressed in Joker’s printing press. The types of colours match those used in printing comic books. He finds that the most recently acquired comic book company is Penthouse Publishers, sold to a Mr. Whiteface. They need proof that Whiteface is the Joker and that he’s counterfeiting and so Bruce Wayne goes to visit the company, claiming that he is desperate and financially ruined because of bad speculation. He says he needs someone to make counterfeit money for him to balance his accounts or he will go to jail. Wayne says that if Whiteface could do that for him he would appoint him vice chairman of the Gotham National Bank and he shows him the appointing document. He says he will give him the document if he proves he can make the money by running off a sample. Joker decides to do it and starts making the money when Robin comes through the window to arrest him. Is Robin old enough to be a duly appointed deputy of the law? I doubt if he can arrest people. But apparently even a child can make a citizens arrest. Joker orders his two robots to attack and at first they don’t do that well against Robin until Joker turns up their strength and one of them knocks Robin out. Next we see Robin tied to a conveyor and about to be stamped in a comic book press. Joker has his robots force Bruce Wayne’s hand on the lever of the press so he will be the one to murder Robin. That’s the cliffhanger. 

            Josie Miller was played by Phyllis Douglas, also known as Phyllis Hodges Boyce, who at the age of two played Bonnie Blue Butler in Gone With the Wind. Her first credited film role was at the age of 9 in Canon City. She appeared in two episodes of Star Trek: The Galileo Seven in 1967 and The Way of Eden in 1969. After retiring from acting she was a real estate broker for 33 years. She had a large collection of antique tea pots.