Marilyn Horne

            On Wednesday morning I finished working out the chords for Michel Fedrizzi’s adaptation of “Ballade de la chnoufe” (Ballad of the Snuff) by Boris Vian. But the original text is almost three times longer and so now I want to apply that melody to the full poem. 

            In my “Les millionaires” Movie Maker project I continued synchronizing the images in my photo-video with the rhythm and the meaning of the lyrics. I’m about five-sixths of the way through the song so I might have it finished tomorrow. 

            I weighed 87.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin acoustic during song practice for the third of four sessions and it went out of tune during all but one song. 

            I finished painting the second coat of “blue bliss” on the bathroom door frame. I don’t think it will need a third coat. On Friday I’ll put the second coat on the door. 

            I weighed 88.55 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back to buy seven bags of red grapes. I did a price match with No Frills at $3.90 a kilo. Priscilla the cashier tipped me that the grapes at the Real Canadian Super Store will be cheap starting tomorrow and so I can do another price match then. 

            I weighed 87.45 kilos at 18:35. 

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

            I recorded from cassette tape through audio interface to Audacity a performance of Christian and the Lions at Fat Albert’s of my songs “Seven Veils of Armour” and “I Saw My Reflection in an Open Wound” featuring Yehudah Cullman on cello, Tom Smarda on Stratocaster and Steve Lowe on acoustic guitar. There are also two solo performances by Tom of his songs “You’re Always Yourself in Your Head” and “This is My Prayer”. This digitization came through clean, though I had to first shut down Bit Torrent so it wasn’t a memory drain on Audacity. Tomorrow I’ll record side 2. 

            I created folders for some photos in my SSD and changed the names of several images in my hard drive. 

            I heated a bag of frozen samosas and had them with sweet chili sauce and a glass of Creemore while watching season 2, episode 12 of The Carol Burnett Show. 

            During the audience warm-up Carol says she brushes her teeth six times a day and hasn’t had a cavity in ten years. 

            A woman asks about the two weapons on stage. Carol tells her they are shotgun mics so , “You can relax and uncross your legs”. 

            In the first sketch Harvey Korman plays the president of the US in a kind of video greeting card with his wife, two daughters, and son in law. They are trying so hard to look authentic that they come across as fake. To try to show they aren’t racist they introduce their maid Minerva. 

            Eileen Farrell sings “Kiss Him Now” by Jerry Herman from the musical Dear World. 

            In the second skit Carol plays a journalist who’s come to interview Hugh Handsome the movie star. She is cool and aloof until she meets him and then she continuously faints during the interview. He says he has the same effect on himself and swooned twice earlier while shaving. After she leaves he can get comfortable. He goes behind a screen, removes his elevator shoes, the padding, his hairpiece, and the girdle. He comes from behind the screen and he’s Bob Hope. Carol tells everyone to watch Bob’s special on Thursday night and Bob says, “And uncross your legs”. 

            Marilyn Horne sings Urbain's aria ("Non, non, non") from Giacomo Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots. 

            Carol, Eileen, and Marilyn play an operatic version of The Three Little Pigs (but not made up to look like pigs) while Harvey plays the wolf also as human and more like a silent movie villain. 

            Carol, Eileen, and Marilyn (done up to look a lot like Mae West in She Done Him Wrong) sing “Hey Big Spender” by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields from the musical Sweet Charity. Then the whole cast and the guests sing “What Child is This?” by William Chatterton Dix to the tune of “Greensleeves”; “Here We Come a Wassailing”; “Good King Wenceslas” by John Mason Neale; “God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen”; and “Angels We Have Heard On High” by James Chadwick. 

            Marilyn Horne at the age of 13 joined the Roger Wagner Chorale. In high school she was part of the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church Choir of Long Beach, which often performed in Hollywood films. In 1954 at the age of 20 she dubbed Dorothy Dandridge’s singing voice in Carmen Jones. Igor Stravinsky invited her to perform at the 1956 Venice Festival. She sang with the Gelsenkirchen Opera for three years. She debuted at the Royal Opera House in 1964 and La Scala in 1969 where she received a seven minute mid-act ovation. She debuted at The Met in 1970. She sang “Simple Gifts” at Bill Clinton’s inauguration. She teaches voice at the Music Academy of the West.