Angela Clarke

            On Saturday morning I finished translating “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in English and then I’ll start collecting images for the photo video. 

            I weighed 89.2 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and there were about five times out of twenty songs that it was still in tune when I finished a song. 

            In the early afternoon I went to No Frills where the grapes were very cheap but I had to pick through all of the bags to find three that were firm enough. I also got three bags of cherries, two packs of raspberries, a pack of five-year-old cheddar, a rack of pork ribs without noticing they were from the US, garbage bags, a jar of tomato pesto, three bags of skim milk, a box of spoon sized shredded wheat, a jug of iced tea, a jug of orange juice, a bag of frozen wedge french fries, and a bag of Miss Vickie’s chips.

            It was bitterly cold outside. 

            I weighed 89.9 kilos at 14:45. I had the rest of my baguette with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar, and a glass of iced tea. 

            I took a siesta from 15:30 to 17:15 and it was too late for a bike ride. 

            I weighed 89.95 kilos at 17:35. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:25. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and extracted to my hard drive side 1, tape 1 of my third annual Slamnation poetry slam. It was hosted again by Cad Lowlife and my co-judge was Michelle Ferman. I always picked my co-judge from one of the winners of the previous slam and so that answers yesterday’s question as to who won. I had only brought two tapes on which to record the slam that year and since there were so many stage hogs I didn’t get the finale on tape. Michelle would be a logical choice because she is (hopefully not was) a fine poet. 

           The previous year I’d had Tricia Postle on the hurdy-gurdy and Peter Fruchter on the Baroque clarinet playing background music for the poets. This year I did double duty and while acting as a judge I also fiddled with my Kramer electric to lay down sonic wallpaper for the readers. Listening to recordings of the two years I was surprised to find that my accompaniment sounded better than that of Tricia and Peter even though they are better musicians than I. It was a little more sensitive to moods of the poetry being spoken. 

            I put some more photos into sub-folders in my SSD and deleted a lot of images from my hard drive. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, oven french fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a beer while watching season 1, episode 13 of Combat.

            Paul Villers of K Company has not seen his French father Dr. Emile Villers for 17 years since he separated from Paul’s mother in the US and returned to France. Now K company is in Paul’s father’s village and he is searching for him. He finds him in his house where Paul’s Aunt Clair also lives. Saunders gives Paul permission to stay for dinner and get reacquainted with his father. While he is there the French Resistance barges in and arrests Emile. They accuse him of collaborating with the Germans but Emile says he only treated a German captain for his stomach problem. The French leader Henri Fouquet says after Emile has met with the German captain members of the Maquis have died. He assures Paul his father will get a fair trial but if found guilty he will be shot. Saunders tells Paul they are not allowed to intervene. 

            A few days later Saunders has a reconnaissance mission into town and takes Paul with him. They also are supposed to meet with Fouquet but learn from his wife that he has been killed. On leaving the house they are attacked by Germans and Saunders is wounded. Paul takes him to his father who shelters them in a storage room and treats Saunders there. A patient arrives and says the Germans have searched every house. Since they haven’t searched the doctor’s house Paul becomes suspicious that his father is a collaborator. Emile admits the Germans give him extra food and gasoline because he is a doctor. 

            Paul and Saunders are getting ready to leave when the German captain arrives. While hiding in the back room the captain speaks of information Emile has provided in the past. After the captain leaves, Paul confronts his father and he admits he did what was needed to survive. Paul leaves in disgust but outside the house they are confronted by German soldiers. Emile steps out and shoots the Germans but is also shot and killed. Clair drives Paul and Saunders to near their command post. She tells Paul his father wanted to stay alive to see his son. 

            Clair was played by Angela Clarke, who didn’t make her film debut until the age of 37 in Her Sister’s Secret. Her first credited appearance was in The Undercover Man in 1949. She co-starred in Mrs. Mike. Her film career came to a halt in the mid 50s when two people ratted her out as a communist to the House Un-American Activities Committee. She admitted to the committee that she had been a member of the Communist Party from 1942 to 1949 but she refused to give them any names and so she was blacklisted. She didn’t work in films again until 1962. She made her TV debut on the premier episode of Ben Casey in 1961. She had many guest appearances on popular shows after that. She had a recurring character in three episodes of St. Elsewhere.