Christine Horn

            On Wednesday morning I ran through singing and playing “The Yellow Spiders”, my translation of “Les Araignées” (The Arachnids) by Boris Vian. I uploaded it to my Christian’s Translations blog to begin preparing it for publication. 

            I worked out the chords for the sixth and final verse of “Flashback” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in French and then I need to finish translating it. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it went out of tune during almost every song.

            I weighed 88.5 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I applied the final coat of primer to my bathroom lazy Susan and the bathroom metal rack. They will both need some touch ups on Friday but then I will move on to finishing priming the bathroom shelf brackets. 

            I weighed 88.65 kilos before lunch. 

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

            I weighed 88.85 kilos at 18:00. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 19:15. 

            I published the video I made for my song “Insisting On Angels”. I took some screen shots and then I uploaded the video to YouTube. As far as I know that’s the last of my studio recordings that didn’t have a video. Now I’ll go back to digitizing all my cassette tapes. 

            In the Movie Maker project for my “2024-10-07 Song Practice” I continued searching for the final take of “Je t’aime. Moi non plus” but I don’t think it’s in part A. So I’ll have to import part B.

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara sauce, tomato pesto, a chopped grass fed beef burger, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 3, episode 3 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. 

            Captain Marie Batel is not reacting well to the treatment to remove the Gorn from her body. It’s a long shot but there is a flower that grows only on the planet Kenfori that is said to have the ability to remove invasive molecules. The problem is that Kenfori is in the buffer zone between Federation and Klingon space and the Enterprise can’t officially go there. Pike opts to take a shuttle with just himself and M’Benga. On the planet there is only plant life. They make their way to an abandoned research station that would probably have in storage the chimera they are looking for. They find the skeleton of a Klingon that had been killed by having his body ripped open. That suggests it was done by an animal even though there are no animal life readings on the planet. They find the chimera inside the facility. Meanwhile the Enterprise detects a Klingon battle cruiser heading for Kenfori. A raider leaves the cruiser and descends to the planet where it destroys Pike and M’Benga’s shuttle. Three Klingons enter the facility. There is a firefight until the Klingons are attacked by zombies and Pike and M’Benga escape. One of the Klingons is killed. The zombies don’t register as life forms. On the Enterprise they know the Klingons have discovered Pike and M’Benga. Ortegas wants to enter the planet’s atmosphere at warp speed, which has rarely been done and Ortegas admits she has never done it. Una is acting captain and opts for approaching the planet at a fraction of impulse to safely avoid detection albeit getting there in four hours rather than right away. Ortegas is clearly unhappy with that decision. On the planet M’Benga figures out that it was the chimera that caused the dead colonists to become zombies. Pike learns to his shock that the chimera will be used to merge Marie’s human and Gorn DNA and that it’s the only way she will survive. Marie knew this but chose not to tell Pike. Pike and M’Benga are surrounded by zombies but the two remaining Klingons fight them off then force Pike and M’Benga to come with them. One of the Klingons is attacked by a zombie and the leader kills them both. They make their way to the roof where Pike activates force field emitters to keep the zombies out. The Klingon introduces herself as Bytha, the daughter of Rah, who M’Benga assassinated. Rah had shamed her family by collaborating with the Federation and it had been her intention to kill her father to restore honour. But now she must engage in ritual combat with her father’s killer. On the Enterprise Una orders Ortegas to reduce speed but Ortegas only partially complies, causing the Enterprise to be detected. While Una is trying to use diplomacy with the Klingons, Ortegas is insubordinate and argues with her choices. Now the Klingon cruiser moves on the Enterprise and Una has no choice but to go with Ortegas’ plan. Bytha and M’Benga engage in ritual combat and M’Benga eventually defeats her but he dishonours her by sparing her life. Bytha breaks open the force field to fight the zombies so she can have an honourable death. The Enterprise arrives out of warp just above the planet’s surface and beams Pike and M’Benga aboard. Una disciplines Ortegas for her actions. It’s fairly obvious that Ortega’s behaviour is the result of her having been bitten by a Gorn. 

            Bytha was played by Christine Horn, who attended the art focused Tri City High School in Atlanta. She was acting professionally while still in her teens. She made her feature film debut in Stomp the Yard in 2007. After performing in The Lion King on Broadway she moved to Hollywood. In addition to acting she created a successful coaching business called Hollywood Bound Actors. Because of this she has come to be known as “The Booking Magnet”. On TV she has played Black Diamond in Snowfall and Mabel in Black Mafia Family. She also has her own record company and music production company called Chocolate Superstar. She’s released two of her own albums: Walk With Me and Therapy.