Bob Kane

            On Thursday morning I finished memorizing “Sacha Distel et Jean-Pierre Cassel’s Song and Dance” by Serge Gainsbourg. Out of habit I searched for the chords even though I knew no one would have posted them. Tomorrow I’ll start working them out. The verses will be easy but the scat parts in between will be difficult. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the last of two sessions. Tomorrow I’ll begin a four session stretch of playing my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 86.95 kilos before breakfast. 

            I got an email from Allan Briesmaster answering my question about finding bookstores that will order from Ekstasis. He said bookstores just don’t order from small press publishers unless customers ask specifically for the book. He said some will sell them on consignment. 

            Around midday I installed the new doorknobs on my bathroom door. Everything fit fine except for the strike plate, which wouldn’t allow the door to fully close. I think the old one would work if it wasn’t bent out of shape. I’ll see if they sell them individually. 

            I weighed 86.75 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. I bought three bags of green grapes, a pack of raspberries, two bags of avocadoes, bananas, orange juice, soy milk, hair conditioner, two in one shampoo-conditioner, and some salsa that I thought for sure was entirely Mexican but it turns out Cholula is also US owned. It’s licensed by Jose Cuervo, which is still Mexican but owned by a US company. 

            I weighed 86.55 kilos at 19:00. 

            I made a lima bean and pea stew with the rest of my gravy, some marinara and some salsa. I had a bowl with a toasted slice of multigrain sandwich bread while watching the second third of Batman: The Movie from 1966. 

            Kitka, the reporter for the Moscow Bugle has just visited Bruce Wayne with some riddles that she says some unseen person slipped under her door. Bruce finds her very charming and invites her to go out with him that evening. Before their date Bruce changes to Batman and reads the riddles to Robin: “What has yellow skin and writes” Answer: A ball pointy banana. “What people are always in a hurry?” Answer: Russians. Batman concludes the only possible meaning is that Kitka is in danger. While Bruce takes Kitka out on the town, for her protection he wants Robin and Alfred to follow them in the Batmobile. Alfred has to drive the Batmobile because Robin doesn’t get his license until the beginning of the third season of the TV series. Bruce has a romantic dinner with Kitka, although he drinks milk from a sherry glass while she has champagne. They go to a night club where they dance as a chanteuse sings, the 18th Century love song “Plaisir d’amour”, which English listeners know as “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You”. They then take a romantic carriage ride through the park. Meanwhile Robin and Alfred follow and they somehow have a video view of the couple from positions where there wouldn’t be any cameras. But when Robin sees Bruce and Kitka being intimate he turns off the screen because some things have to be private, even for crimefighters. Robin calls Commissioner Gordon and asks him to flash the Bat Signal. He figures that if the Riddler and the rest of the super villains see it they will assume that Batman and Robin are headed for Gordon’s office, leaving the crooks overconfident enough to make their move. While snuggling up to Bruce, Kitka sends the signal in Morse code to Riddler, Penguin, and Joker. Bruce escorts Kitka home and he comes in for cocoa. They kiss and this is the only time that this version of Bruce ever kisses Catwoman. The villains travel across the sky on the Penguin’s rocket umbrellas. Bruce recites for Kitka the first stanza of “To One in Paradise” by Edgar Allen Poe. They are on the couch and it looks like they are about to kiss again when the villains arrive through Kitka’s balcony door. Bruce takes them all on as if he were Batman until he’s finally overwhelmed. Robin and Alfred do not see this because Robin has turned off the video in modesty. Catwoman continues to pretend to be Kitka and she and Bruce are both abducted. When they get to their hideout Kitka changes to Catwoman. Bruce is still unconscious and the criminals don’t understand why Batman has not yet come to Bruce’s rescue so he can fall into Joker’s trap of being catapulted through the window and out to sea to be caught in the embrace of the Penguin’s exploding octopus. When Bruce wakes he demands to see Kitka and keeps trying to fight even though his hands are tied behind him. Catwoman says to blindfold Bruce and they lead him to a bedroom where Catwoman has changed back to Kitka and also has her hands tied behind her. They throw Bruce into the bugged room and listen in from outside. Bruce tries to reach for a radio transmitter up his sleeve but he is caught. He breaks free of his bonds and again fights the villains. He enters Kitka’s room to rescue her but she is gone. He jumps to the window and climbs through it onto the roof, then he jumps into the harbour. Bruce makes it home and tells Gordon he escaped with Batman’s help. Penguin hatches a new plan. He uses Commadore Schmidlapp’s invention of an instant whiskey maker as a dehydrating weapon. Five of his henchmen are reduced to dust and then swept into separate containers. Batman and Robin return to the hideout, which is abandoned except for a bomb with a lit fuse. There are a few comical minutes of Batman running around with the bomb and waiting for a safe place to hurl it but everywhere he goes there are innocents, including some ducks on the water. Finally he finds a section of water to toss it at the last minute. Penguin pretending to be Schmidlapp approaches Batman and Robin. They know he’s Penguin and he knows they know. If they can identify him without a doubt they can arrest him. They give him Bat Gas and take him to the Batcave where he uses water to rehydrate his five thugs but he uses hard water which causes each one to pop like a balloon. All five men cease to exist. Penguin is gassed again but awakened on the drive back to Gotham. In a remote area Penguin gasses them long enough to steal the Batmobile. But Batman and Robin had taken anti Penguin gas pills and knew Penguin was going to escape. They have the Bat Cycle camouflaged nearby and then they follow to learn of the villains’ new hideout. They drive to the Bat Copter. Meanwhile the villains are on Penguin’s submarine, while the copter tracks the Batmobile. I stopped watching for the night at this point. There’s half an hour left. 

            Batman was created by Bob Kane, who was high school friends in the Bronx with Will Eisner, who would later create the Spirit. He studied art at the Cooper Union in Manhattan. He first wanted to be an animator but after two years at Fleischer left to become a comic book artist. He drew and inked the serial Hiram Hick. He then began working for his friend Eisner. He worked on Peter Pupp, Ginger Snap, Oscar the Gumshoe, Professor Doolittle, and Rusty and His Pals. In 1939 Superman was a comic sensation and Kane was looking for his own character when he came up with Batman, based on a combination of Zorro, Leonardo da Vinci’s ornithopter with its bat wings, and the 1930 film Bat Whispers which features a shadowy bat costumed villain. Bill Finger became the writer of the series and without credit contributed much to the character. Batman was originally blond with a red costume. Bill Finger suggested the grey and black costume that became the standard. In the 60s Kane returned to animation and created the TV series Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. When he retired from comics he became a fine art painter, even though he had others finish his work for him. He was hired as a consultant for the Batman movies of the 1990s. He recommended Jack Nicholson as the Joker. He considered Val Kilmer’s Batman to be the best one of any of the films in his lifetime.