Also in Christian’s Translations I published “When the Word ‘Love’ Swells”, my translation of “Tandem” by Serge Gainsbourg and posted the lyrics on Facebook. There is one song left in my project to translate all of Serge Gainsbourg’s songs from 1958 to 1991 when he died. But there is a handful of songs I skipped because I couldn’t find the lyrics and so I’ll go back through the list and see if there are any of those that have French lyrics posted now, and then I’ll translate and learn them. I memorized the first two verses of his last song, “La main du masseur” (literally “The Hand of the Masseur” but it’s a comedy song that I’ll probably call “My Sister’s Masseurs”).
I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the first of two sessions. It’s not a joy to play when it’s always going out of tune.
I weighed 86.4 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since January 9.
Around midday I dragged the step ladder in from the deck but it was covered in tons of snow. I laid it down in the hallway to clean the snow off before taking it into my apartment. I made big snowballs and threw them in the sink. There was still quite a bit of snow on it when I carried it in and set it up in the bathroom. I mopped up the rest of the snow in the hall. I climbed the ladder with a putty knife and a tub of drywall compound but because of all the time dealing with the snow I only had time to fill about 1/6 of the ceiling. I’ll probably have more time on Sunday.
I weighed 86.65 kilos before lunch.
In the afternoon I started trying to take a bike ride but just a few meters of pedaling up the still not fully cleared O’Hara Avenue convinced me to turn around. Instead I just rode along Queen to Freshco and that was treacherous enough. Their green grapes were very cheap and so I got seven bags. I also bought a pack of raspberries, some bananas, a boneless bottom sirloin steak, an inside round steak, a box of spoon sized shredded wheat, and a big can of Nabob Traditional coffee because they’re Canadian.
As I was unlocking my bike a guy approached me and said he used to play drums for my band. I asked if he was Barzin and he confirmed he was. I reminded him that he’d stopped playing with me because he was offended by my lyrics. He was surprised and said, “What an asshole I must have been!” We spent about fifteen minutes trying to find each other on Facebook or YouTube with our phones until I finally found him on Facebook and we “Friended”.
I weighed 86.55 kilos at 18:00.
I was caught up on my journal at 19:18.
I converted the Rainbow Family Gathering documentary to WMV but it took a long time. While waiting I searched for photos of Yvonne Craig.
I reviewed the song practice video of my electric performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on September 2. There were lots of takes and I hadn’t gotten to a completed take by the time supper was ready, which was thirty minutes into the video. I should have it done tomorrow.
I had a potato with gravy and my last chicken leg while watching the third season premier of Batman.
This is the first story in the Batman series that is not a two parter. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson have invited Commissioner Gordon and Chief O’Hara to the opera and Gordon has arranged for his daughter Barbara to come along as well because the Marriage of Figaro is her favourite. Bruce Wayne hasn’t seen Barbara since she left for college four years ago. We heard Barbara mentioned twice in season 2 as being away at college and that she would be graduating soon. Now we finally meet her as a new librarian at the Gotham City Library. She leaves work and arrives in her building but in the elevator a portal opens above her and the Penguin greets her. Then she is grabbed under each arm by the crooked handles of two umbrellas and pulled up. Gordon, O’Hara and then Bruce and Dick arrive at Barbara’s apartment only to find she does not answer and the evening paper is still outside of her door. Gordon uses the hidden key and inside her place it is clear that she did not come home. But in the apartment next door we see that Penguin and his finks have Barbara bound and gagged. Penguin calls Barbara’s apartment and Gordon answers. Penguin says he’s going to make Barbara the happiest girl alive and tells him to look in the Society section of the evening paper, then hangs up. In the paper they find an announcement that Penguin is going to marry Barbara Gordon. Meanwhile Penguin tells Barbara that if she doesn’t marry him he will have her father killed. She agrees to marry him and so Penguin has his men go out to grab a minister. He tells her that in the next room is a wedding gown and instructs her to go there and put it on. The minister’s office that Penguin’s henchmen find happens to be that of the minister of the Wayne butler, Alfred’s church and Alfred is with him discussing plans for a charity fundraising church supper. When Penguin’s men burst in and ask for the preacher, Alfred immediately stands and claims that it is himself. One of them ties up the real minister and while they are taking Alfred away he presses a button inside his belt buckle that sends an emergency signal to Batman. Alfred is locked in the room where Barbara has been sent, to help her prepare for the wedding ceremony. Inside he sees a motionless figure in a wedding gown seated in the chair. He calls to it but is answered by Barbara who is standing on the window ledge. She urges him not to reveal her secret and steps out of his sight on the ledge. She walks the ledge to her own apartment where in her bedroom she presses a button under her dressing table causing the wall to which it is attached to turn, revealing another dressing table, on which sits a long red haired wig and near which hangs a blue and yellow suit, topped by a purple cowl. Meanwhile as Penguin prepares for his nuptials, Batman and Robin arrive. Then through another window jumps a masked woman in a form-fitting blue costume, with a yellow cape and a yellow bat emblem on the chest. She introduces herself as Batgirl. Penguin has his men attack and Batgirl’s manner of fighting never involves using her fists. If she fights with her hands it’s while holding objects that she uses to strike her adversaries but mostly she jumps onto elevated places like on top of furniture and kicks. Together the three beat Penguin and his men. Then while Batman is trying to unlock the door to free Alfred, Batgirl slips away. But while Batman and Robin are focused on the door, Penguin recovers and gasses them with his umbrella. Penguin revives his men and tells them to put Batman, Robin, Alfred, and Barbara in bags, then throw them off the balcony into the cushioned back of his truck below. They bag the dummy in the wedding dress without realizing that it’s not Barbara. Batgirl watches from the ledge as they toss the bodies over and then jump themselves to drive away. Batgirl returns to her secret lair in Barbara’s apartment and opens a secret freight elevator in which waits her Batgirl Cycle. She emerges in the alley after a part of the brick wall drops open like a drawbridge and she follows the Penguin on her bike. Later in Penguin’s other hideout, Batman and Robin are suspended over a giant boiling cauldron. Penguin is about to free what he thinks is Barbara from her bag when Batgirl breaks through the door at the top of the stairs and tells the Penguin he may find himself in hot water. He asks how she found him and she says she adores weddings. He has his men attack her and she continues her straight legged kicking style of combat. Meanwhile Alfred boxes and knocks out Penguin in the old bare knuckle underhanded style of the London prize ring. Then he frees Batman and Robin. After Batman and Robin join the fight, Batgirl steps away from it to confront Alfred about not being a minister. He explains why he did it and she understands. She insists that he must swear never to reveal her secret to anyone or else she will be useless as a crimefighter. He gives his word. While Batman and Robin are mopping up the Penguin and his men, Batgirl changes back to Barbara, dons the wedding gown and gets into the bag. Later, Dick Grayson finally gets his drivers license and since it is also his birthday, Bruce has waiting for him a 1967 red Plymouth Barracuda convertible. This is the first episode of the series that is not part of a double or triple story. But at the end Gordon gets a call from Riddler who asks him, “When is a jet stream like a daffodil?”
Batgirl-Barbara Gordon was played for the very first time on screen by Yvonne Craig, who in her teens was a dancer for three years with Denham’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Her roommate was Carol Burnett. She left in 1957 over a casting dispute. She moved to LA to continue dancing but got cast in movies instead. Her film debut was a co-starring role in The Young Land. She co-starred in seven Women From Hell, and Mars Needs Women. She dated Elvis Presley and appeared in a couple of his movies. She played the Orion slave Marta in the Star Trek episode “Whom Gods Destroy” in which she did a dance that she choreographed herself. In 1973 she played Batgirl in a public service announcement about equal pay for women. In later life, as so many Hollywood actors seem to do, she became a real estate agent. Her autobiography was titled From Ballet to the Batcave and Beyond.
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