Isabel Cooley

            On Saturday morning I published on my Christian’s Translations blog “Slavic Soul”, my translation of “L'âme slave” by Boris Vian. I’ll post the lyrics on my Boris Vian Facebook fan page and on my personal page tomorrow. 

            I also published “The Prettiest Belle Around”, my translation of “La plus jolie fille du monde” by Serge Gainsbourg and posted the lyrics on Facebook. I searched for the next Gainsbourg song that I hadn’t been able to translate and found in my 1969 Gainsbourg file “Rêves et caravelles” (Dreams and Caravels). I memorized the chorus and the first verse. There is only one line left that is new but I wasn’t sure of one of the words and so I ran the audio through Vizard and got a transcript. I took a screen shot of that and I’ll transcribe it tomorrow. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the third of four sessions. It went out of tune only a couple of times. 

            I weighed 86.25 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since May 31. 

            Around midday I took my bike down to the street to lock it while I went back for my trailer. There was a couple that thought my trailer was cool. I’ve gotten that a lot since I bought it two years ago. They were very interested in where I got it and how it hitched to my bike. They even stood there watching as I rode away. 

            I went down to No Frills where I bought five bags of red grapes, three packs of Mexican raspberries, some bananas, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, two containers of skyr, a bag of Miss Vickie’s original chips and another of the barbecue flavour. 

            I would normally have gone to Freedom Mobile first to pay for my phone service at this time of the month but I forgot and so I went there after the supermarket. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos at 14:00. I had saltines with five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea. 

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

            I weighed 86.3 kilos at 17:45. 

            I was caught up with my journal at 18:30. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the Christian and the Lions studio recording of Brian Haddon’s song “The Ballad of My Chest Cavity” I cut out some of the video of the alveoli until the concert video was back in sync with the studio audio. They stayed lined up until about halfway through the second chorus. I added a short clip from the 1937 cartoon “Swing Monkey Swing” and then shaved that until the video and audio were back in sync for “When just one whiff of that beautiful air…” Tomorrow I’ll figure out what to do next. 

            I compared the song practice videos of my electric performances of “Leave the Naïve Alone” on October 4 and 6. I played the Gibson on October 4 and the Kramer on October 6. I think the Gibson sounds better to some degree but it’s a bit rattly. The October 4 video looks a little better but I already have the October 6 practice as a project in Movie Maker so I’m tempted to publish videos of both performances. I compared October 10 to October 6 and I think that October 6 is slightly better. So I think I’ll publish videos of both October 4 with the Gibson and October 6 with the Kramer. The first song I’ll work on in Movie Maker is the acoustic take of “Laisse tomber les filles” from September 5. I had that stored on my external hard drive and so I copied it back to my main hard drive, otherwise it wouldn’t work in Movie Maker. 

            I sliced some back bacon and grilled the slices. I had two chopped up on a multigrain sandwich bread pizza with marinara sauce, basil pesto, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 2, episode 13 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            In the hallway of Holmes High School some bullies are making fun of Henry for being a poet. The biggest one tries to grab Henry’s books to see a poem, then Henry punches him once in the face and once in the stomach but it has no effect. The guy grabs Henry and swings him over for Johnny to hold as he is about to punch him when Chet breaks up the fight. Henry picks up his books then Chet finds a poem on the floor and hands it to him but Henry says it isn’t his. Later Chet catches Johnny going through his papers in his office and he knows the poem is his. Johnny doesn’t want word to get out to his tough friends that he writes poetry. Chet shows Johnny some poems that he wrote when he was younger and Johnny likes one in particular: “Like to the clear in highest sphere where all imperial glory shines / Of self same colour is her hair whether unfolded or in twines / It is the fair Rosemary / Her eyes are sapphire set in snow / refining heaven with every wink / and the gods do tremble when they glow / I do tremble when I think / oh that Rosemary were mine”. This is “Beauty” by Thomas Lodge. Johnny likes the poem and accidentally takes it with him. Chet didn’t have a chance to tell him that he didn’t write it but merely copied it because it expressed his feelings. Later Mr. Halperin finds the poem had been left behind in his Math class and reads it mockingly in the cafeteria, thinking it’s a bad student poem. Miss Richards who runs the student paper thinks it’s very good and intends to publish it. Since Johnny thinks the poem is Chet’s, Chet is afraid that upon reading it in the paper he will tell everyone it is Chet’s poem. Chet goes to Richards’s office and feigns an accident to distract her while he retrieves the poem. Later Johnny tells Chet he inspired him to admit publicly that he writes poetry and he submits two poems to the student paper. Chet decides to confess to Miss Richards that he took the poem, then he gives her the manuscript of his poems and says she can publish them if she wants and she does.

            Henry was played by a 19 year old Mark Hamill. 

            Miss Richards was played by Isabel Cooley, who appeared on Broadway in Anna Lucasta, and toured Europe with the play. Sometimes she played the lead and sometimes a supporting role as she did in the film version. She played Charmian, a servant to Cleopatra in the film starring Elizabeth Taylor. On her way back to the States from Italy after shooting Cleopatra she got busted with possession of 250 grams of hashish. There is no record of her having been sentenced to prison and so chances are she got off. She appeared in I Passed for White. She made many guest appearances on television shows such as The Bill Cosby Show and Hogan’s Heroes.