I worked out the chords for the first two verses of “Les millionaires” by Serge Gainsbourg. There’s only one verse left plus the monologues and I don’t think I need chords for the monologues. If not I might have the song done tomorrow.
I weighed 89.65 kilos before breakfast, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the morning in over a year.
At around 9:30 I was watching an old episode of Last Week Tonight when Jacob stomped on the floor several times. My volume level was minus 14 and didn’t seem loud.
I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice for the first of two sessions.
I cleaned the warm mist humidifier that’s been working all week and set the other one going.
I was typing on my keyboard when Jacob started stomping again.
I weighed 90.35 kilos before lunch. I had four slices of baguette with peanut butter, five-year-old cheddar and a glass of iced tea.
In the afternoon I took a bike ride and ventured up Brock Avenue for the first time since before the storm. When I got to Bloor the bike lane was totally filled in with snow. I’ve never seen it that bad since they built the lane a few years ago. I turned around and rode home. I will definitely have to go downtown on Thursday because I’m having lunch with Brian Haddon at The Artful Dodger on Isabella. If the lane isn’t cleared by then I’ll have to ride on Bloor with the cars like I used to.
I weighed 90.1 kilos at 17:25.
I was caught up in my journal at 18:24.
I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then extracted to my hard drive side 1, tape 1 of what I think was my second Slamnation poetry slam, hosted by Cad Lowlife. The first Slamnation was at We’ave and it was hosted by Kevin Subliminal White Trash Pierce. Background music was provided by Tricia Postle and Peter Fruchter.
I put several photos in sub-folders in my solid state drive and deleted quite a few from my hard drive.
I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with tomato pesto, oven french fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore while watching season 1, episode 7 of Combat.
Lieutenant Hanley is the only survivor of a battle that was won by the Germans. There is no explanation why no one we recognize from his unit is there and they will be all alive in the next episode. German soldiers come to inspect and rob the bodies while Hanley plays dead. But he is discovered and taken prisoner.
He is interrogated for a while and then General Von Strelitz takes him into his custody. He is placed in the passenger’s side of a car with Strelitz in the back. After a while the driver is told to turn off the road. While holding up a map the general pulls out his gun and shoots the driver through it. Then he forces Hanley to change clothes with the driver. The driver’s body is dumped in a river and Hanley is told to drive.
He has to pose as the general’s captain. He must open doors for him, sit when he sits, and stand at attention when he stands. They go to an officer’s night club where a young woman comes out and sings in German. Strelitz writes a note and tells him to pass it to her. An SS officer named Colonel Kleist in plain clothes gets a phone call and then comes looking for Strelitz, only to find him gone.
Strelitz has Hanley drive to an abandoned house where they spend the night and Strelitz explains the situation. He was part of a movement called Operation Valkyrie and was involved in what came to be known as the 20 July plot by several German generals to assassinate Hitler and to liberate Germany from Nazism. The plot failed and Colonel Kleist is already on Strelitz’s tail. Strelitz and Hanley are going to meet the woman from the club at the train station and escape into Allied lines. Hanley asks how he knows he can trust his girlfriend and Strelitz reveals, “Because she is my daughter”.
The next day they leave the house but are confronted by armed French children who plan to assassinate them. A French priest intervenes and is accidentally shot. The children are upset and forget about Strelitz and Hanley.
They make it to the train and Maria meets them. Strelitz tells Maria what he has done and that he wants her to come with them. But she is certain that Germany will triumph and refuses to betray Hitler. She says she will turn him in and leaves. Kleist and his men have followed Maria to the station and she talks to them.
There is a cat and mouse game as they evade the soldiers and finally escape in a car but Strelitz is wounded. By the time Hanley reaches British lines Strelitz is dead.
Maria was played by Joyce Vanderveen, who was a child prodigy and at the age of nine conducted a children’s orchestra, as well as danced ballet and played violin at festivals. Anne Frank had clipped her picture from a magazine and had it pinned to the wall of her hiding place. When the Nazis invaded Amsterdam, Joyce and her mother escaped to Northern Holland. After the war they returned to Amsterdam. As a teenager she was a well known ballerina in the Royal Netherlands Ballet. She later joined the Monte Carlo Ballet in Paris. Joyce was not identified as the ballerina in Ann Frank’s picture until 1996. In the late 1950s a member of the Kennedy family arranged for her to come to the US on a special artist’s visa. Her first acting job was in the Live General Electric Theatre. She was given a contract with Universal and appeared in The Ten Commandments and The Singing Nun, as well as making guest appearances on several TV series like Combat and Peter Gunn. She became a dance teacher.
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