Barbara Rush

            On Tuesday morning on my Christian’s Translations blog I published “My Sister’s masseurs”, my translation of “La main du masseur” by Serge Gainsbourg. That officially completes my ten year long project of translating all of the songs of Serge Gainsbourg from 1958 to 1990. But there are probably a handful of songs I couldn’t translate because the French lyrics weren’t available so now I’ll go back over the list to see if I can find and translate them. After that there will still be the rest of his crazy novella that I’ve already partly translated. 

            I weighed 87.15 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since February 24. 

            Around midday I cleaned the newer warm mist humidifier and found that putting in four cups of vinegar instead of three to soak worked like a dream. 

            I weighed 87.3 kilos before lunch. That’s the most I’ve tipped the scales in the early afternoon since February 19. 

            I didn’t have the old humidifier on for most of the day but I filled it up just before going out for a bike ride. It seemed to take a long time to fill. I turned it on but it wasn’t heating up. Then I noticed it was leaking through the vent of the back tank. Water is not supposed to be poured into that tank. I dumped out the tank and mopped up the spillage. That was why it took so long to fill, because it was filling the back tank as well. I’m not really sure why it did that but I dumped out the water, then filled the front tank again and turned it on and everything was fine. 

            I double checked one more time that the seat level on the new bike is the same as the Raleigh by comparing how my feet touch the floor at the balls of my feet. Because of my humidifier emergency I didn’t get away soon enough for a bike ride downtown. I only rode as far as Ossington and Bloor. With the new higher handlebar and seat levels I’m riding much more comfortably now. I stopped at Freshco where the green grapes are still very cheap and firm and so I bought eight bags. 

            I weighed 87.1 kilos at 18:21. February 23 was the last time I hulked out that much in the evening. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:33. I continued to search for videos of adult reactions to hippies in the 60s. I think I’ll type “generation gap” next. Or “Here we come walking down the street / Get the funniest looks from everyone we meet”. 

            I reviewed the song practice video of my acoustic performance of “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” on September 25 and the take at 28:00 wasn’t bad. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching season 3, episode 19 of Batman. 

            At a civic luncheon in Commissioner Gordon’s honour, Mayor Linseed arrives to reluctantly tell Gordon he’s fired. He announces that feminist activist Nora Clavicle is the new police commissioner. Nora immediately makes the mayor’s wife Millie Linseed the new police chief. Later Mayor Linseed tells Bruce that his wife forced his decision by refusing to cook or clean until he gave the job to Nora. I saw Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman having lunch by himself in a Chinese restaurant so Linseed could have done that. As mayor I’m sure he also could have afforded to have someone do his laundry. During her first day as commissioner, Nora uses the Batphone one last time to tell Batman the city no longer needs his services and then she cuts the line. Batman and Robin decide to take a Batmobile ride around Gotham anyway. Alfred tells Batman, “We men are counting on you”. Batgirl also takes her Batgirl Cycle out on patrol. Meanwhile Chief Millie fires every man on the police force and replaces each one with a woman. But when Nora is alone with her henchwomen Evelina and Angelina she tells them to proceed with Operation Ransack while she moves forward with Operation Disaster Insurance. She tells her girls to set a trap for Batman, Robin, and Batgirl by committing a crime and so they rob a bank. The manager tries to get the cops on guard to stop the theft but the one in the bank is too busy applying her makeup and the two outside are occupied with swapping recipes. He asks another who says she’s not going to wreck her new Givenchy shoes chasing after some thieves. He calls the emergency police line but the operator tells all cars that there is a sale at Arbech’s. Batman, Robin and Batgirl head for the bank. Batman uses the portable Bat Computer to somehow trace the thieves to a knitting needle warehouse. But when they arrive, Nora jumps out to grab Batgirl and threatens to pierce her jugular unless Batman and Robin surrender. The three heroes are then tied into a Siamese human knot with only their bodies intertwined and no ropes. Supposedly the slightest move will only draw the human knot tighter to crush their bones. While it looks pretty intimate it appears easy to get out of. Batgirl has her right arm around Batman’s neck, Batman has his left arm around her neck, Batgirl’s left arm is under his arm and between Batman’s left knee and Robin’s neck, Batman’s right arm is stretched out to the right side of Robin’s neck where his wrist is reaching around behind Robin’s neck where his fingers join the bent back left hand of Batgirl on the left side of Robin’s neck, Batgirl’s right thigh is on top of Batman’s right thigh but under his left leg where Robin’s left arm is between Batman’s right leg and Batgirl’s right leg but then his forearm is wedged between Batman’s left leg and both of Batgirl’s legs because her left leg is under Batman’s left leg then on top of her own right leg and wedged against Robin’s left shoulder with the toe of her boot against the left side of Robin’s chin, Batman’s left hand is on top of his own left leg but his fingers seem to be caught where his leg meets with Batgirl’s legs. There are all kinds of ways that they could just let go. While they are caught, Nora tells Batman that at sunset she is going to destroy Gotham for the $10 million insurance policy that she took out on the city. She then leaves them to begin the disaster. Outside the warehouse Nora and her cronies unpack and wind hundreds of mechanical mice and then release them to run around Gotham. each one is a time bomb set to go off half an hour after sunset. That gives them time to spread so widely that every building will be destroyed when they explode. Meanwhile Batgirl is getting cramps in her legs but Batman says that’s good because the involuntary muscular contractions in her legs may relieve the tension in Robin’s lower lumbar. Then if Batman wiggles his ears and Robin bends the fourth finger on his left hand, that is the formula for escaping from the Siamese human knot that Batman suddenly just recalled. It works and they escape. They find two police officers standing on the base of a light pole and screaming because they see a mechanical mouse. Batman picks up the mouse and sees that it’s a bomb. They deduce that there must be hundreds of them and of course they can’t grab them all. Robin calls Chief Millie to have her mobilize her forces to catch the mice but she answers the phone while standing in fear on her desk while another officer is on a chair because a mouse is on the floor, then they both faint. It’s pretty ridiculous and insulting to women but my mother was also afraid of mice. Batgirl says you can’t get policewomen to catch mice. Batman gives Batgirl and Robin each a flute and then plays a melody on his own. He tells them each to play that same melody and to split to the east and west parts of Gotham while he takes midtown then to make their way to the docks as they play. The mice somehow respond to the playing and as the trio converges on the docks the mechanical mice all leap into the water to be neutralized. Batman determined that their guidance system was built around high frequency radar and so he selected the precise combination of required notes that would cause the homing mechanisms to zero in on the sound and follow it. But that doesn’t make sense because there is no reason for the mice to have homing mechanisms since their purpose is to wander aimlessly before exploding. They don’t have a home. Then a truck backs up with Nora, Angelina and Evelina tied up in the back and Alfred guarding them with the point of an umbrella. From out of the cab emerges Gordon and O’Hara. Later Gordon gets a call from Penguin who asks if he’s heard of the lethal Lygerian fruit flu and then hangs up. 

            Nora was played by Barbara Rush who studied at the Pasadena Playhouse. Her film debut was in Molly. She married actor Jeffrey Hunter and they were together for five years. She co-starred in When World’s Collide, Quebec, It Came From Outer Space (for which she won a Golden Globe), The Young Philadelphians, Robin and the Seven Hoods, and Bigger Than Life. On TV she played the mother of The Bionic Woman. She co-starred in the soap opera Flamingo Road. She played Grandma Camden on 7th Heaven.