On Thursday morning I continued working on my translation of the fourth verse of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. In trying to find out what he meant by “Une Chandelleu Verteu” (a green candle) I discovered that it’s a reference to Alfred Jarry’s absurdist play Ubu Roi. The light from his green candle is the light of what he calls pataphysics, the light of the science of exceptions, or the light of the science of imaginary solutions, or light on the fact that every event in the universe is extraordinary. In later life Jarry began behaving more and more like the characters in his plays and often used the oath, “By my green candlestick!” At least once he painted his face green and rode through Paris on his bicycle in praise of absinth. He used a revolver to take target practice and when a neighbour complained that her children might be killed he reassured her that if they were he would help her make new ones.
I worked out the chords for all but the last line of the final verse of “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg. All that’s left are the scat parts, which I might work out tomorrow.
I played my Kramer electric guitar during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time. Tomorrow I begin a two session stretch of playing my Martin acoustic guitar, which will go out of tune a lot. I’m hoping in another week or so the heat will go off and it will be humid outside and inside so I can carry my guitar to a luthier who can fix it.
I weighed 86.25 kilos before breakfast.
Around midday I worked a little more on editing a video of the third appearance of Batgirl on the Batman TV series.
I weighed 86.85 kilos before lunch.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. I bought six bags of red grapes, two packs of raspberries, three bags of avocadoes, three individual avocadoes, bananas, and a bunch of scallions.
I weighed 86.5 kilos at 18:45.
I was caught up on my journal at 20:00.
In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song Seven Shades of Blues I edited out most of the clips of the trapeze artist. I only kept the parts when she is horizontal on the trapeze and swinging towards the viewer while wearing the angel wings. Some of the later parts froze while I was editing and so I had to restart a couple of times.
I had a tomato, avocado, cucumber, and scallion salad with lemon juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episodes 17 and 18 of The Adventures of Batman.
In the first story the world’s most impregnable bank vault is robbed during the 32 seconds every day that the security system is shut down to reset the combination. A dirigible inserts a tube into the wall and the money is sucked out. The Penguin is responsible. Batman says the crime is Penguin’s style but he must have had help with such precision planning. We see that he’s right when the Penguin enters a cave containing a super computer and its creator. The computer planned Penguin’s crime. Penguin pays the professor to let him use his inventions. His latest is an electromagnetic ray. Penguin asks the computer to plan a robbery utilizing the ray and including all of Batman’s likely counter measures. So Penguin uses the ray gun to lift an armoured car high in the air and shake the money and the guard out. The driver sends a distress message and Batman is called. They see the Penguin and ready their baterangs but the ray knocks them from their hands. Then Penguin starts to fly away in his upside down umbrella Robin uses the Batapult to shoot himself up to grab him but when he’s back on the ground they see it’s only a dummy. Meanwhile across town, Penguin is in his dirigible robbing a safe from a high rise office building. The Bat Computer determines that Penguin must be using a computer. The next day Penguin learns that Batman is bringing all his computer tapes and cards to police headquarters for a lecture. Penguin asks the professor’s computer what it could do with Batman’s computer records. The machine says there is nothing it couldn’t do. Penguin uses a smoke screen and infra red glasses to rob Batman’s computer records during the lecture. But the professor’s computer warns Penguin he’s been tricked by one of Batman’s microcircuit punch cards and tells him to switch to channel X. Penguin tells his computer to feed Batman information that leads him to the sulphur pits. Batman and Robin go to the sulphur pits and collapse from the fumes. But professor Billingsley rescues them for his own purposes and takes them back to his lab. He programs his computer with their brainwaves so it can predict every thought that enters their minds. Batman and Robin are released in the marsh without knowing what happened. Penguin sends hunters to shoot them down but Batman and Robin ambush two of them. Penguin’s computer anticipates the ambush. It knows the heroes now have a communicator and so different signals will be used. Meanwhile at Wayne Manor, Alfred is worried because his employer and friend has not returned. He decides to use the Bat Computer to find out what to do. Batman and Robin come across a crocodile nest and aren’t surprised to see crocodiles in America. Batman saves Robin by lodging a baterang in the croc’s mouth, then ropes it and suspends it by its tail. They are attacked by hunters but defeat them. Meanwhile Alfred learns that Batman has gone to the marshlands and so he heads there in the Bat Boat. Batman and Robin infiltrate the cave where Penguin is with the computer. But Billingley shoots them with his new paralyzing ray, then Penguin shoots them with it again and opens up a vat of acid in front of them. The computer says Batman’s secret identity is recorded in its memory bank. So Penguin asks “Who is Batman?” It says “Batman’s secret identity is B…B…B…I have been tricked with a self destruct card”. The computer is about to explode. Penguin escapes while Batman and Robin escort Billingsley free of the blast. Despite the loss of his life’s work the professor thinks Batman’s trick of planting the self destruct card for Penguin to steal was brilliant. From the Bat Copter they see that Alfred has captured Penguin. Nobody seems concerned that Billingsley sees Bruce Wayne’s butler working for Batman.
In the second story, at the annual Halloween ball a valuable painting is to be auctioned for charity. Commissioner Gordon is officiating while wearing a Scarecrow costume. Gordon is called away to a phone call but Batgirl follows him and sees him being attacked. She manages to kick one of the thugs but is gassed and captured by the real Scarecrow. I was beginning to think that this series was only going to use Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, and Freeze or combinations of those for the whole series but after 18 episodes they’ve brought in Scarecrow. His men kidnap Batgirl while Scarecrow pretends to be Gordon and steals the painting. Later we find that Scarecrow has taken Batgirl’s belt so she can’t call Batman. Scarecrow and his men rob the Farmers Market but Batman and Robin are waiting and take out his men. But Scarecrow knocks some crates down on the heroes and he and his crew escape. Batgirl is being held in the loft of a barn. She startles a hanging bat to make it fly and as her guards see the shadow of its wings she shouts “Get em Batman”. They are startled and fall from the loft. Batgirl runs from the barn and jumps onto a riding mower. They capture her again but it turns out she wasn’t trying to escape but wrote “SOS” in the grass. Batman and Robin see it from the Bat Copter. They land and enter the barn. Scarecrow is about to catch them in a net when Batgirl kicks over a bail of hay and they jump out of the way. There is a fight and even though Batgirl is tied up she joins in. She is untied and tries to help by giving Batman some eggs to throw but they are Scarecrow’s gas eggs and they are all knocked out. Batman and Batgirl are locked in a shed while Robin is tied to a conveyor belt moving towards a thresher. Batman uses junk that’s been stored in the shed to make a makeshift crossbow and arrow on a rope, which he shoots and jams the thresher. The machinery pulling back on the rope tears the door off the shed and they escape. They take out Scarecrow’s men. Scarecrow tries to escape in a balloon but Batman throws a pitchfork and pierces the balloon, causing it to plummet into the trees where Scarecrow is dangling like a scarecrow.
Some of the backgrounds were done by Anne Guenther, who was only the second woman in ten years to work as a background artist at Disney when she started her career in 1956 as an inker on Sleeping Beauty. She worked on the Fresh Up Freddie 7-Up commercials. She worked for Hanna-Barbera and Filmation. Her first TV work was on the Fantastic Four animated series. In the 70s she worked for Disney again. She did backgrounds for Robin Hood in 1973, then Winnie the Pooh and the Mad Tiger, and The Adventures of Bernard and Bianca. She was a voting member of the Academy.
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