Venetia Epler

            On Wednesday morning I reworked my translation of the third and some of the fourth verse of “Le petit Lauriston” by Boris Vian. 

            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. It’s not just the chords but also the correct French text that I have to find because Cy Strom didn’t give me a fully accurate transcription. I should have the last line worked out tomorrow and maybe some of the final scat parts. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar during song practice. My foot switch’s battery is low and before it goes totally down for some reason it causes the reverb to get really loud. So I had to avoid using the reverb during the session. I started recharging it when I was done. 

            I weighed 85.85 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since March 8. 

            Around midday I took my bathroom mirror over to the hardware store to find a better solution for hanging it than screwing a drywall anchor through the ring at the top. The guy showed me several options that would require screws but then he showed me picture hanging strips that are adhesive on one side and Velcro on the other that will hold five kilos, so I bought a package of eight. The instructions said to put four strips on the back of the thing being hanged, so I put them in four opposite places on the back of the round frame. Then I put one on the wall to correspond with the top strip and one for the bottom. When I pressed the mirror to them they clicked in place and felt very solid so I didn’t use the other two for the wall. It can be pulled off and reattached again when I fill the holes, when I sand, and when I paint, so I consider finding that solution a successful day. 

            I weighed 85.9 kilos before lunch, the same as on March 8. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 85.95 kilos at 18:18. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:26. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Seven Shades of Blues” I still couldn’t play the last 36 minutes of Wings of Desire without it immediately freezing. So I opened up a blank project and copied Wings of Desire there. It froze every few minutes but I kept closing and opening another blank project each time until I’d seen it all. There was nothing more I needed from that movie for my project but it was great to see it again. It’s one of my favourite films. I opened the Seven Shades of Blues project and just deleted the end part. The rest of the project doesn’t freeze so far so next time I’ll edit the clips I saved from Wings of Desire and insert them into the main timeline to fit with my line, “Man wants to be the angel that desires to be a man”. 

            I had a tomato, avocado, cucumber and scallion salad with lemon juice and a glass of Garden Cocktail while watching episodes 15 and 16 of The Adventures of Batman. 

            The first story begins with Bruce Wayne showing Dick Grayson a painting and telling him it’s a faithful rendering of the Trojan Horse. It’s an amazing trick to do a “faithful rendering” of something that no one has ever seen. I guess it’s faithful in the sense that one must take the rendering on faith. A life sized replica is being delivered to the Wayne Foundation but Bruce is worried about theft and so he decides that it should be guarded by Batman and Robin. Later the replica is arriving in Gotham Harbour on a freighter. Penguin is above, shooting umbrellas that dig into the horse. That’s just stupid. Why put dents in something you are stealing because of its value? Each umbrella opens and becomes a rocket that lifts the horse into the air. But Batman and Robin emerge from inside the horse on helicopter chairs. They snag the horse with bat ropes and pull it back down to the ship. Riddler leaves a message for Batman with Commissioner Gordon: It’s the first line of the song “Mairzy Doates” by Milton Drake, then Riddler adds, “Everyone knows a horse eats oats and where it’s stashed is jivey”. Batman and Robin find Riddler in the grain elevator where the horse is being hidden and from above turn on a faucet of grain to bury Riddler and his men. Penguin invites Batman and Robin to the Penguin’s Nest under a flag of truce. Penguin shows him his computer and that he has programmed all of Batman’s vital statistics together with those of all of his possible alter egos. A picture of Bruce Wayne appears on the screen. But Batman pushes a button on his utility belt and suddenly the picture turns to that of Commissioner Gordon, then Chief O’Hara, then the Joker and then Superman. Later Bruce gets an invitation to a birthday party for him and Batman since Bruce and Batman have the same birthday. If he doesn’t show up it will prove he’s Batman. I can’t see how that would prove anything. He could just ignore the invitation from a criminal. Also, how could anyone know Batman’s birthday? He wouldn’t have a birth certificate and he wouldn’t have told anybody his date of birth. The painting of the Trojan Horse slides sideways to reveal a different entrance to the Batcave and it’s a very long tunnel not going down from Wayne Manor but horizontally. Unless Wayne Manor is suddenly adjacent to a mountain that would be impossible. The narrator always says the Bat Cave is far beneath Wayne Manor. That’s why they use the Bat Poles to get there. The party is at Poke’s Pavilion in Gotham Park. The Riddler and the Penguin and their men are waiting at a table with a big cake in the middle. Bruce arrives and the Riddler’s men attack him. He fights them off easily, adding to the suspicion that he’s Batman. Penguin knocks Bruce out with Penguin gas. Then Batman and Robin arrive. Robin goes into action and beats both Riddler’s and Penguin’s men while Batman just stands there. Bruce suddenly jumps up and tackles Batman, sending them both off the edge of the pavilion. That’s odd behaviour that is not explained. Once no one can see them, Bruce switches to Batman and Alfred dons a Bruce Wayne mask. When Batman and “Bruce” return to the pavilion Robin is alone and Riddler and Penguin have escaped. Robin says Penguin said something about corralling the old Ulysses caper. Since Ulysses was the general who created the Trojan Horse, Batman concludes this party was a decoy so Riddler and Penguin could go after the Trojan Horse replica. Gordon arrives and urges them to stop the crooks or he’ll lose his pension. At the museum the guards are gassed to sleep and the Trojan Horse is clamped from a skylight and raised up by flying umbrella. But Batman has planted a homing transmitter in the horse and so they follow in the Batmobile. In a mountainous region the heroes attack. There is a short fight and Riddler is captured. Penguin flies away but from the Batmobile Robin fires a baterang by batapult that wraps up Penguin and pulls him down. 

            In the second story the circus comes to Gotham. There is a parade but the clown car is driven by Joker. Suddenly his men release the lions, tigers and elephants to terrorize the public. There is a National Guard tank in the parade. Penguin gasses the driver and takes control. Batman and Robin arrive and Batman says they have to take control of the leader of each group of animals. I don’t think that would really work with lions and tigers because they are not herd animals. But Batman uses a chair and a whip and gets the lions back into their cage. Robin rides the lead elephant and the rest fall in. Penguin’s tank is being followed by two circus penguins. Penguin and Joker use the tank to rob banks. Batman borrows a baby penguin from the circus to track the other two penguins that he knows followed Penguin. The penguin leads the heroes to the cave hideout. The tank comes out to confront the Batmobile and shoots a smoke bomb. The tank pushes the Batmobile over a cliff but the heroes activate a parachute to slow their descent. Batman climbs back up and stands before the tank. It rolls over him but he lies between the tracks. Batman climbs on the tank from behind and drops in a gas capsule. The villains have to leave the tank and they are captured. 

            Some of the backgrounds for these episodes were done by Venetia Epler, who sold her first painting on the street in Paris at the age of 7. She studied painting at Slades in London and stained glass at the London School of Arts and Crafts and the École de Louvre in Paris. She became a scenic artist for MGM. She did backgrounds on The Archie Show, Aquaman, and Charlotte’s Web. She illustrated the book Angels of the Bible. In 1972 she and her sister created a Life of Christ mosaic at the Christian Heritage Mausoleum in Covina Hills, California that is the western hemisphere’s largest religious mosaic. Her specialties were stained glass and ceramics. She and Daphne created windows for churches in California and England. She started a novelty company with her brother Richard creating hand painted jewellery and curios. But California banned the use of kilns on residential property and she had to turn to painting. Her portrait of Eisenhower hung in Nixon’s White House and is now in the Nixon Library.