Elizabeth Allen

            On Thursday morning I ran through singing and playing “L'araignée du soir” (The Spider of the Night) by Boris Vian. I revised my translation of the first verse. 

            I continued to work on memorizing the final verse of “Paris d’papa” (Papa’s Paris) by Serge Gainsbourg. I’m getting closer and should have it nailed down on Friday. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the last of two sessions and it went out of tune almost as much as it did before I got it fixed in the spring. Tomorrow I’ll begin a two session stretch of playing my electric guitars. 

            I weighed 87.45 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning since August 14. 

            Around midday I went over to the hardware store with my round mirror. I held it up to the cashier and asked her, “Have you seen this person?” I bought a tube of No More Nails to fix the break in the frame. I asked about filling the cracks and the floor walker said he’d use wood filler but I could probably use drywall compound if I really get it into the cracks. It seemed a waste to buy a whole container of wood filler for such a small job and so I think I’ll see if my drywall compound hasn’t dried up yet. I asked if I need to sand it but he said priming it should work. I’ve still got some primer so that should be fine. 

            I weighed 88.05 kilos before lunch and it made me feel like not having lunch. July 20 was the last time I strained the scale that much in the early afternoon. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Freshco. The grapes were very cheap but they were from the US and so I got two baskets of Canadian peaches instead. I also bought bananas, a leg of New Zealand lamb, a jug of orange juice, and two packs of Full City Dark coffee. 

            I weighed 87.4 kilos at 18:30. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:31. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the studio recording of my song “Paranoiac Utopia” I continued replacing the partitioned sections of the concert video with parts of the exact same duration from my August 22 video. I got to about 2:00 minutes into the song just past the point when the camera zooms out to show Csilla on stage with me as she plays the bongos. She’s shown for about 8.5 seconds and so I’ll have to replace her with clips from my August 22 video. There are about 2.5 minutes left in the song and 3.5 minutes left of the August 22 video. 

            I uploaded to YouTube the Kramer electric video of me playing “Élisa”. Tomorrow I’ll open my “2024-30-09 Song Practice” Movie Maker project and isolate the song “Coiffure by Eliza”, which should already be synchronized. I’ll create a “Coiffure by Eliza (Gibson)” project and prepare a video to upload to YouTube.

            I grilled four chicken legs and had one with a potato and gravy while watching episode 12 of Checkmate. 

            Don and Dr. Hyatt are called to the country estate of retired criminal attorney Emory Olivant. There are five additional guests and Emory informs Don and Hyatt that he is going to murder one those guests unless they can stop him. What they have in common is that they have all been accused of murder then defended and cleared by Emory. But Emory has discovered that one of these former clients was actually guilty and now he wants that one punished. He promises Don and Hyatt however to not kill the guilty party if they disapprove, once they know the circumstances. When Emory, Don and Hyatt join the guests, the housekeeper Mrs. Mercer cuts the phone line according to Emory’s wishes. Emory introduces the guests. The sexy little working class blonde is Millie Crowder who was accused of shooting her unfaithful lover; the boxer Harry Briggs was accused of strangling his manager; Victor Sando was accused of dissolving a partnership with a paper knife; the elegant and arrogant Cora Scott Leslie was accused of killing her sister with a bottle of sleeping pills in order to marry her rich brother in law; and Wilbur Fell was accused of blowing up his mother in law along with the passengers and crew of a transatlantic airliner. The limousines that brought the guests there have all been sent away and there is an 18 kilometer walk to the nearest transportation opportunity. Wilbur, who is drunk, demands the right to call his lawyer and then remembers that Emory is his lawyer. Emory pulls a gun and tells everyone they can’t leave. Don confronts him and takes the gun away but Emory shows the gun was not loaded. Hyatt suggests the guilty party simply confess since because of double jeopardy they can’t be convicted of the same crime for which they’ve already been tried. Emory says he has less than three months to live and so he can’t be punished for killing anyone. They all have dinner and then retire for drinks to Emory’s “Grey” museum where he keeps his crime memorabilia and torture antiques. He demonstrates a device that causes a gun to fire when a certain note is played on the violin. Emory says he has included in his will everyone in the room but the guilty party. All the guests decide to walk, and Emory dismisses Mrs. Mercer as well. After they have left Emory reveals to Don that he was bluffing about killing the guilty party. He says his purpose will be realized but won’t reveal what it is. He provides a car for Don and Hyatt that he’d kept hidden behind the greenhouse. He says he has already driven his victim close to death or suicide. Don and Hyatt drive away but double back. They find the door ajar and so one of the other guests has already returned. Don tackles Sando but he just came back to get some answers after having called the police. They read Emory’s will and find out who the killer is. Sando says the door was open when he came back and so that means someone else is already here. Wilbur enters Emory’s bedroom with a gun. Emory has engineered this as a means of committing suicide instead of dying slowly. But before Wilbur can shoot Emory, Don bursts in. Wilbur tries to escape and fires at Hyatt. The cops come in and shoor him. Emory is disappointed that he didn’t get to die but takes it well. 

            Cora was played by Elizabeth Allen, who married a baron in 1953 but divorced him in 1955. She was a model for the Ford agency and then performed with the Helen Hayes Repertory Company. She was the “Away we go” girl on The Jackie Gleason Show. She co-starred in Donovan’s Reef. She was a regular on Bracken’s World. She co-starred on The Paul Lynd Show and C.P.O Sharkey. She was nominated for Tony awards for The Gay Life and Do I Hear a Waltz? In the 70s she owned and operated her own dress shop in a mall in the San Fernando Valley.