Inga Neilsen

            On Thursday morning I started applying Michel Fedrizzi’s melody to the full text of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian, since Fedrizzi only used about a third of the poem. I’ve done the first four verses and the first chorus. 

            In my “Les millionaires” Movie Maker project I’ve almost finished synchronizing the images in my photo-video with the rhythm and the meaning of the lyrics. I should have it finished tomorrow. 

            I weighed 87.2 kilos before breakfast. I had to skip song practice because I had an appointment with my gastroenterologist at Mount Sinai. 

            I didn’t have to wait long before I was called by the nurse. She said that my CT scan wasn’t as clear as it should have been because of inadequate preparation on my part. I guess I should have started taking the Pico Salax in the morning instead the early afternoon. But I had an appointment to get my teeth cleaned and I didn’t want to start shitting in the hygienist’s chair. Nonetheless they saw it well enough to tell that there was no evidence of cancer. Dr. Croitoru came in and told me they found nothing to be concerned about and even the polyp they removed during my colonoscopy was only an inflammatory polyp, which means it’s not the kind that develops into cancer. They removed it for analysis but if I had never gotten the colonoscopy it wouldn’t have mattered. 

            I weighed 86.9 kilos at 13:20, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since December 16. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back stopped at Freshco where the grapes were all too soft so I didn't buy any. I got two packs of raspberries, some bananas, bacon, hot Genoa salami, half a ham, an Atlantic salmon fillet, eggs, two packs of Full City Dark coffee, a box of spoon sized shredded wheat, and a jar of salsa. 

            I weighed 88.4 kilos at 16:25, the same as last Thursday evening. 

            A few days ago I posted a poem on Facebook and my friend Nick Cushing ran it through an AI program called Suno to make it into a song. I already wrote a melody for it but it’s interesting to hear it done by a robot folksinger. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:52. 

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity and then exported to my hard drive various recordings of my band Christian and the Lions and sometimes just me performing at Fat Albert’s. We did “Angeline” a couple of times, “Megaphor” at least twice, “I Saw My Reflection in an Open Wound”, “Wives of the Prophets”, and “Spool of the Moon”. I sang a couple of Leonard Cohen covers as well. 

            I deleted several images from my hard drive. 

            I heated most of the rest of the chili I made a few days ago and had it on top of oven fries while watching season 2, episode 14 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            A woman in the audience asks if she can give Lyle Waggoner a hug. He hugs her then asks her name and she says, “Tiffany Waggoner”. He asks, “Are we related?” and she says, “I’m your sister”.

            Tim Conway’s wife, mother and mother in law were in the audience and either nervously of intentionally he referred to both older women as his mothers in law. 

            The VIP interview is with fried chicken magnate Colonel Flanders. He says he’s produced a chicken with eight legs but could never catch it. He bred another chicken that was two meters tall but it kept putting him in the bucket. 

            Tim Conway does a stand-up routine but is afraid the audience will laugh at him and so he takes the microphone into the dressing room and does it from there. Then he keeps calling Carol up mid-joke to ask her how the audience is reacting. In the end he does a performance of “Strangers in the Night” without singing. 

            The “Carol and Sis” sketch has Chrissie out on a date with an older guy who is about to leave for the Viet Nam War. It’s after 1:00 but Chrissie hasn’t gotten back yet. Carol is worried and keeps waking Roger up. Chrissie comes home and worries Carol more when she tells her they didn’t go to the movie but went to his place to listen to the stereo. She says they might get married when he gets back. Roger is not worried by any of this until Chrissie says that when they get married they’ll move in with them. 

            Vicki does a song and dance with the Ernie Flatt dancers, singing “American Boys” by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent, which was a minor hit for Petula Clark.

            Carol and Tim play a couple about to get married who have decided to paint their apartment themselves and save $200, which would be $2000 now. But they not only make a mess but continuously injure one another in slapstick moments. Carol gets a bucket stuck on her head and so they have to go to the hospital. Carol doesn’t want to be seen that way so Tim puts her wedding veil over the bucket.

            There’s a parody of The Night They Raided Minsky’s. Tim Conway does a magic act and thinks the crowd is going wild over it but there is a burlesque dancer performing behind him. 

            Harvey is a con man and Vicki is his girl. He sells Tim Conway a magic carnation that will make Vicki kiss him. He buys it but she slaps his face. Harvey tells him he’s doing it wrong and sells the carnation to him twice more with the same result. 

            The burlesque dancers can’t do their act because the star Autumn Levy keeps fainting. Carol is told she has to fill her place, even though she’s not a dancer, especially not a burlesque dancer. Harvey and the dancers sing "Take Ten Terrific Girls (but only nine costumes)" by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams from The Night They Raided Minsky’s. Carol is wearing a nude coloured body suit so she looks somewhat naked. 

            Autumn Levy was played by Inga Neilsen, who was tall and awkward as a child and so she began taking ballet lessons at the American School of Dance to learn poise. She showed a natural talent for dance and earned a scholarship. She made her film debut in Scaramouche at the age of 12. She became a showgirl in Vegas and was named Showgirl of the Year four times. She was often cast in movies and TV shows for much shorter comedians to ogle. She played Gymnasia in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum. She appeared many times on The Carol Burnett Show from 1969 to 1973 to serve as a comical contrast to the plainness that was part of Carol’s schtick.