Vitina

           Sunday was another hot day and since there was little possibility of rain I took my bike ride and finished exploring all of the streets south of St Clair between Warden and Pharmacy.

            My next-door neighbour, Benji told me that the landlord is going on vacation and that he’ll be taking out the garbage while he’s away. I asked him if he’s going to get a discount on his rent for his labours but he said, “I don’t want to put any pressure on him”.  I told him that I would ask for $60 off my rent for every month I was doing the job.

            The first story begins with a stag party. A stripper named Sherri Gay arrives who pins the groom, Al down and gives him a long kiss while the future brother in law, Jason takes a Polaroid. Al wants the picture back but Sherri puts it down her bra. After everyone leaves Sherri tells Al that he will have to pay to get the photo back and tells him to come and see her later with the money. Al calls Mike Hammer and asks him to get the Polaroid back but when he goes to her apartment he finds Sherri dead. He doesn’t suspect the groom because he finds the picture with her, which he would have taken with him. He finds out that Jason took the picture and goes to see him. He finds out that both the Jason and his wife Doris had different reasons for not wanting the wedding to take place and he has them both arrested. He calls Al to tell him but the number is disconnected. He realizes that when Al first called Mike it must have been from Sherri’s apartment and Al had to be the killer.

            Sherri Gay was played by Joan Tabor who did a lot of TV acting in the late 50s and early 60s.

            Doris was played by K.T. Stevens who was the daughter of Sam Wood, who directed Goodbye Mr. Chips and two Marx Brothers films.

            The second story has Hammer on vacation in Belgium and visiting the 1956 Brussels World Fair. He goes to register at the US Consulate and an elderly widow named Mrs. Putnam, also from the States, overhears that he’s a private investigator. She says she wants to hire him and he turns her down but agrees to meet her at her hotel, which is also his. She tells him that her sister married a Polish teacher before the war and were both put in a concentration camp where she had a daughter named Derna. Since then she’s been trying to track the girl down and six months ago heard from a woman named Maurina who says she was with the Mrs. Putnam’s sister when she died and has been raising the girl, who is now 14 and called Anna. A man named Roland came to see Mrs. Putnam and asked for $5000 to cover all the money they’d spent raising Derna and she is now suspicious. She will gladly pay if the girl is really her niece but wants to be sure. Mike does some checking with the police and then goes to see Maurina, who is a dancer at a show at the fair. He tells her that he found out that Anna really is her sister and was born in Brussels but she says that the real Anna died as a baby during the flu epidemic and since Anna was already registered with the government she just raised baby Derna as Anna. She says she can prove it and tells him to wait there but comes back with the cops and tells them Hammer is harassing her. He escapes and goes to where Anna lives. Anna believes she is Derna and wants to go and live with her aunt in America, although it was only a few months ago that she learned that she is the woman’s niece. Anna goes to put on a dress that she will wear to meet her aunt the next day and while she is in her room, Roland arrives to confront Hammer. Anna overhears their argument and runs out. There ensues an interesting fight because Roland is an expert in Belgian savate and so he does a lot of jumping and kicking to knock Hammer around until Hammer wraps a sheet around his legs and gets the advantage. Anna goes to the fair and confronts Maurina, who admits that she lied that she was Derna. She’d just wanted her to have a better life. Mrs. Putnam agrees to take care of her anyway.

             It’s pretty implausible that a 14 year old in Belgium would want to go and live with a stranger in the United States when she has a loving sister in Belgium but she seems happy to go.

Maurina was played by Vitina Marcus who was a guest star on a lot of 60s science fiction TV shows like Lost in Space, Time Tunnel and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Although she was half Sicilian and half Hungarian she was cast as in western shows like Gunsmoke as an indigenous American. She retired from acting in the late 60s and is now a real estate broker.

Anna was played by Cindy Carol who later starred in Gidget Goes to Rome. She’s retired now but sometimes works as a substitute teacher in Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Hobos

            When I went back to my place after my Saturday trip to the food bank, my landlord was mopping the stairs with some kind of aromaed ammonia. He gave me back the screwdriver he’d walked off with last week and there were two rent receipts under my door. He’d also removed my old refrigerator from the hallway, which is nice because it was in the way. After I put my food away I went back out and rode down to the No Frills at Jameson and King.

            I got more BC blueberries and cherries and a basket of Ontario nectarines. They had a great deal on chicken legs with the back attached for $2.20 a kilo and so I got two packages of four each for a little over $6.00. I got a small pack of sliced turkey and another of ham for $0.50 each. I picked up some cinnamon-raisin bread and a few other things. The dish brush that I’ve been using for years started falling apart and leaving behind bristles that looked like V-shaped fish bones, so I bought two new ones.

            I went to the liquor store to buy two cans of Creemore and the woman ahead of me had so many tattoos all over her face that at first she looked like a burn victim. She told the cashier that her dog had just beaten up someone else’s dog but he’d asked for it.

            For lunch I had one of the sandwiches that my upstairs neighbour David gave me. It was roast beef with fried onions but I added a tomato, some cucumber, cheese and a dill pickle.

            That afternoon I took a bike ride. I don’t know if it was the hottest day so far this year but it sure felt like it. There were thin clouds filtering the sun so that I was casting the ghost of a shadow on the road in front of me.

            At Pape I waited at the light and on the diagonal corner I saw a man in a red bandana with a full grey beard that kind of looked like he might be a retired biker, waiting to cross at the other side. He had a cane in his left hand and he looked extremely unsteady. When the light changed I continued east but I looked back to see that as he began to cross he seemed like he was going to fall over with every step. He would lean heavily on the cane and then swing his forward as far as he could, but then when he tried to catch up with his left, the leg quivered and threatened to buckle. I didn't see if he made it because I had to look ahead and move on.

            I went north on Warden and about halfway between Danforth Rd and St Clair a car slowed down and the driver with the baseball cap and the goatee called out “Gary?” I thought that the guy might be trying to pick me up. Whatever his reasons, I wasn’t Gary so I shook my head and continued on. A minute later he was beside me again and this time said something that might have been "Rono lease". I said, “What?" He repeated, “Toronto police! We’re looking for a guy that looks something like you. Do you have any i.d. on you?” I sighed and took my bike over to lean it against a wall, took off my backpack and dug out my wallet while he pulled over. Whoever Gary was and whatever he’d allegedly done it couldn't have been violent. The cop didn't get out of his car at all and didn't seem worried that I was going to pull a gun out of my backpack and blow his head off.

            I showed him my U of T student card. “Is this where you work?” "Yeah ... No, I’m a student there.” "Awesome! What are you taking?" "English". He didn't respond to that, so I assume it wasn’t his best subject when he was in special ed. “Have you ever been in trouble with the law?” “Of course!” “What kind of stuff?” “When I was 18 some cops planted drugs on me.” “Really!” It’s always the same incredulous response when I tell a cop about what they did to me in 1973. Just once I’d like to hear something like, “That’s horrible! I’m so sorry that happened to you! We’re not all like that!” But their disbelieving reaction proves they are complicit and strongly suggests that they are indeed all like that. He asked for another piece of i.d. and so I showed him my health card.

            He showed me on his phone the picture of the guy they were looking for. I had to admit there was a resemblance but the other guy wasn’t good looking like I am. It was kind of a blonde caveman face, wider than mine and punched in the middle with a big forehead and a similar hairline and length to mine.

            Finally he handed me my identification back, said, “Thanks bud” and drove away.

            I continued up to St Clair, turned right and went south on Elfreda because I’d been distracted and missed Santamonica so I doubled back on the side streets to Clapperton and went south, exploring the streets that ran west to Santamonica. Then I went down Birchmount to Danforth Rd. There are a lot of auto body shops along Danforth Rd and I stopped to take pictures of a mural on the side of one of them.

            I took Danforth to Bloor, Bloor to Ossington and Ossington to Queen and then went home.

            I made two eggs and toast with a can of Creemore for dinner. Just as I was about to sit down to eat, my upstairs neighbour, David knocked on my door to give me a 200 ml bottle of Appleton Jamaican rum. He reminded me again as he does every time he sees me that he’s going to bring the battery for the Sony camera he’d given me. I had asked him a few months ago if he had a charger for the battery and so he took the battery to see if he had a charger. He found out that he didn’t have a charger but never brought back the battery. This time he said he’d bring it down in half an hour but he didn’t. I’m not complaining because it’s not urgent but it is interesting how David does things.

            A group of men and a couple of boys formed a circle in the Dollarama parking lot and were dancing and singing what sounded like an African song while using a big cooler as a drum.

I watched the last episode that I had of The Man Behind the Badge. A hobo that was also an addict was robbing young couples at gunpoint and then hitting the girls if they were pretty. A cop that used to pose as a hobo in a comedy act on Vaudeville goes undercover as a hobo and an addict. He goes to the hobo village near the freight tracks and hangs out till he catches the guy.

I returned to watching the final season of the late 50s Mike Hammer TV series starring Darren McGavin. Episode 29 was about a gambling den, owned by married couple, Doris and Bruce, which has hired a disgraced former private investigator named Murphy as a collector. Murphy is brutal and nasty and Doris hates him. It looks like Murph plans to take over and Doris doesn’t like the way Murph tries to force himself on one of her steerer girls. She tells Bruce that either Murph goes or she does. One gambler with a lot of debts is a businessman named Redmond and Murphy begins to shake him down. He comes to his office and slaps him around and then takes the contents of his wallet. Redmond calls Bruce and threatens to call the police, which he doesn’t want because his gambling den is illegal. Redmond goes missing and his wife goes to ask Hammer to track him down. Hammer gets the description of the tough guy who’d come to Redmond’s office from his secretary and he figures it must be Murphy. He tracks Murphy down and they have a fistfight. They seem to enjoy themselves but Hammer wins. He finds out about Doris and Bruce and goes to see them but they’ve moved their game to an unknown location. Meanwhile Paul Redmond turns up dead in a boxcar. The prime suspect is of course Murphy. Hammer comes back to his office and finds Murphy there saying that he’s innocent and he’s sure Bruce Green killed Redmond. The cops have located Green but have no reason to bring him in. Hammer and Murphy go to get a confession from him. Murphy beats it out of him, which I guess is legal on fifties television. One of Hammer’s last lines is not bad, "It was only a little after ten in the morning but it felt like midnight the day after tomorrow."
            The actor that played Ellen Redmond was uncredited, but she was an attractive woman.

Doris was played by Dorothy Green, who guest starred on a lot of TV series in the 50s and was on The Young and the Restless for four years in the 70s.

The Wine-up Across from the Line-up

            Saturday morning when I got up it was so muggy that during yoga three oil companies tried to float rigs on my sweat. I flipped over before they could start drilling.

            It cooled down and dried up a bit during song practice but it felt like it was going to be a hot day so I wore sandals to the food bank. There was a steady stream of cars heading east along Queen and I couldn’t cut across to 1499 as I usually do, so I went to the lights at Sorauren and pushed the button to cross. I assume the increased flow of traffic was of people headed for the Caribana parade.

            The last person in the food bank line had marked their spot with a recyclable shopping bag that looked like the kind sold at Freshco. A young woman came shortly after me and as she positioned her cart I made sure she knew that I was ahead of her. She left her cart there and moved to the other side of the sidewalk. I told her she was wise not to stand close to the building and she agreed, saying that she learned her lesson last time she was there. That was the time when a pigeon dropped a stream of shit all along the line and she'd gotten pooped on a bit as well.

            Across the street near the corner were two young women wearing matching peach coloured costumes with similarly hued plumage at the back. Our door person Marlina approached them with her phone and they gladly posed for her. A few minutes later a car pulled up and they removed their feathery tails to put them in the back, get in and drive to the parade.

            Shortly after that a group of four young women, also dressed for Caribana but not in matching garb, except that they all wore gold hoop earrings large enough to pitch a baseball through, were hanging around and taking shots of one another with their phones. In one pose, a young lady with a particularly generous derriere began to wine in profile while another girl stood behind her. They eventually crossed the street and walked down Beatty.

            A group that looked like they just got off a bus came walking east on Queen. They consisted of a mixture of middle-aged African Americans and some elderly people of East Indian descent. One woman who sounded like she was from Buffalo asked the woman whose cart was behind me in line whether the parade would be going by there. She shook her head and they continued on.

            The large and talkative Tammy and the frightfully skinny and almost as chatty Brenda were smoking together on the steps of 1501 Queen. Brenda mentioned something about someone looking like a drug addict. Tammy said, "No offense but you look like a drug addict.” Brenda laughed and responded, “I am a drug addict! I’m addicted to pot." Tammy said, “I look like I smoke pot.” Brenda assured her, "I eat all the time!” and suggested that she just has a different metabolism.

            I read another page and a half of Flaubert’s "The Legend of St Julian the Hospitaler". The whole section just described the young Julian's love of hunting and how cruel he was to the animals that he brought down, such as just cutting off a living bird’s legs and indifferently riding away. A lot of stories of saints are like that because if they set them up as having begun as bad guys it gives their enlightenment more impact.

            When the line started moving, the two people that were ahead of me, still hadn’t come to move their cart and bag, so I moved them ahead by pushing the cart and kicking the bag. After a couple of moves they both came to claim their places.

            From the shelves I got a tube of Pringles; a tin each of chickpeas, tuna and spicy refried beans; and a package of five peanut butter fudge bars, but I didn’t realize until later that they were Atkins diet bars containing sucralose, so I won’t open the package and I’ll return them to the food bank next time. The Atkins people tend to suppress the fact that Atkins had several heart attacks leading up to his death from a blood clot in his brain. His wife refused to allow an autopsy.

            They only had the kind of cereal that is served hot, so I didn’t take any. Generally I tend not to even eat hot cereal in the wintertime because it’s too mushy.

            I didn’t take any soup or pasta either.

            At Angie’s dairy and meat station, I think she gave me extra yogourt because I turned down the milk. I also got a pack of four single servings of cottage cheese and the usual three eggs. In addition to the usual meat offerings there was a bag of chicken fingers and a pack of frozen, sliced honey-maple ham.

            Sylvia gave me two red potatoes, two carrots, a green pepper, four Roma tomatoes, a seedless cucumber and a cantaloupe. She didn’t offer me any of the kale and I didn't ask because it was yellowing.

            The bread being offered were just several crusty white loaves, so I didn’t bother.

            Outside on the traffic signal box in front of the food bank someone has pasted a poster with a black and white copy of the picture of a young man wearing a t-shirt with the message “Art is Dumb". The original colour version of the same photo can be found online and it's an ad for No Fun Press, which is a Toronto dealer of clothing, bags, hats and pins that are printed with irreverent messages. For instance they sell socks that say, “Eat shit" and a cuddle teddy bear wearing a t-shirt with the message "Fuck off" among other items. Their slogan is "Negativity is our specialty". 

Mary Beth Hughes

            I was dealing with some people that were in a Jesus/Bird of paradise cult. They believed the bird lived in their hearts. I didn’t trust them. That’s all I remember from the dream other than that there were two middle-aged white people that I met from the cult. They were very clean cut and there was one man and one woman, possibly a married couple.

            My upstairs neighbour, David knocked on my door and gave me a bag of burgers and other sandwiches on Kaiser buns wrapped in foil. He said he’d just got back from a three-week visit to his childhood home in Ethiopia. He said his 92-year-old mother is getting senile and talks to him as if he still lives in Africa. I asked why he doesn’t bring her to Canada but he answered that she’s too old.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride. There was a very aggressive rider on the Bloor bike lane. I passed her when there was a space between the posts that line the lane but couldn’t manage to slip in before they were close together again. She said something as she went ahead but I couldn’t make it out. I was just about to pass her again when she went through a red light.

            I rode north on Warden to Mack Avenue but only took it as far as Danforth Rd because I’ve already explored the other side. I went back to Warden and continued north. I didn’t turn right on Bamblett Dr or Bell Estate Rd because the dwellings were all identical, new and lifeless. My next right turn was St Clair. The first street that ran off St Clair was Santamonica Blvd, which first took a sharp turn west before going south and then made a half circle around several shorter streets before going briefly north and ending at Newland. I took Newland to Birchmount, went south to Danforth Rd and then followed that southwest to Danforth Avenue and then west towards home.

            I stopped at the Bank of Montreal just before Yonge just in case it was still open because I wanted to check with them about the investigation into whether or not the money that I’d left in the machine two weeks ago had been rolled back in. They were closed and so I just took out $300 and didn't forget it this time.

            Yonge Street and Queen Street had a lot of people that looked like they were up from the States for Caribana this weekend. I don't know how I could tell they were Buffalonians but I could.

            I stopped at Freshco on my way home where they had Canadian cherries and blueberries from B.C. and more Ontario peaches. I also bought a tomato, some yogourt and a jug of half lemonade and half ice tea.

            I had ribs for dinner and watched two more episodes of The Man Behind the Badge.

            In the first story an undercover cop is investigating a crooked gambling establishment in Salt Lake City whose clientele is mostly mine workers at a local site. The cop is posing as one of the gambling miners. We are told that the cop is one of three miners that hang out together but he isn’t revealed till the end. Unfortunately the download was incomplete and so I didn't see the last few seconds when his identity would have been revealed. Rose, the manager of the gambling den was played by Mary Beth Hughes, who acted in a lot of B movies.

            The second story was about a Bureau of Securities agent trying to track down a conman who was selling fake oil stocks to naïve middle-aged country women. He was so charming that one woman that had gotten bilked still wanted to marry him even after he was in jail.

            

My Mother's Been Stealing Equipment from My Dreams

            A version of my mother when she was a young woman, with neck-length wavy blonde hair had just stolen a valuable piece of electronic equipment from me and was running away with it. I gave chase and kept shouting “Now!" to spur myself on but as I ran, both my mobility and my voice were being held back by the fact that I was sleeping while my mother, being a dream being, had no such limitations and so I couldn’t catch her. 

            I spent a lot of time working on my review of Tuesday night’s Shab-e She’r.

            I had babaganoush and celery sticks for lunch.

            In the late afternoon I took a bike ride. Twice on the way east I saw cars treat the bike lane as if it was a right turn lane.

            I don’t know if it’s my new axel or not but for some reason I’ve been getting to Danforth and Warden a lot faster than I got to Danforth and Pharmacy. I rode north on Warden and turned right on Danforth Rd. I turned right again on Scotia and turned left on Milne but the street was so quiet that I didn’t bother to make a proper left turn but rather just went toward the middle. Suddenly a car coming the other way screeched to a halt. If he’d hit me it would have been my fault but I think the young driver was going way too fast on a residential street if his car screeched to a halt.

            I realized shortly after that incident that I’d already traveled on Milne on my last ride and so I went back to Danforth Road and took that to Mack, which I followed to Pharmacy, then turned around and returned to Danforth Rd and went along it to Pharmacy again. Except for a few old working class houses near Warden Ave, Danforth Rd and Mack Ave are pretty much all industrial but there are a surprising number of evangelical churches in that and other industrial areas, like the Shouters church on Mack. I guess there’s not much chance of disturbing the neighbours with raucous church services when your neighbours are an auto detailer and a poker club.

            There were a lot of young women looking pretty in their summer dresses along Danforth, Bloor, Yonge and Queen.

            When I got home I put a rack of ribs in the oven.

            The trick of wrapping my peaches in a cloth bag on the kitchen table has so far worked like a charm. The fruit flies can’t get at them but they’ve ripened nicely.

            Before getting ready for bed I walked into the bathroom and saw two cockroaches for the first time in a few months. One was an adult in the bathtub and one was a baby along the rim. I killed them both. What are ya gonna do? I live above a donut shop in Parkdale. It seems one can only hold the pests at bay but never permanently get rid of them. It could be that the two of them had just come because they were attracted to the gel poison and would have died anyway.

            I had a few ribs while watching some episodes of The Man Behind the Badge. This 50s show’s premise was the reenactment of true stories about people other than the police that work for justice. The first story was about a district attorney but the download was too incomplete to see much of it. The second story was about an immigration agent that goes under cover in Mexico to smash a ring that is making phony US passports. The bodyguard for the agent was played by Hollywood tough guy, Claude Akens.

            The third story was about a detective investigating robberies of small stores and restaurants by two men in Halloween masks. Claude Akins played one of the bad guys, the one with the violent tendencies that wasn’t satisfied with just making the robberies but had to rough up the victims too. It turned out that the other guy was a Christian missionary who ran a shelter on skid row.

            

Wyatt Earp

           On Wednesday, August 1 I paid my rent online, and by email reminded my landlord that he’d walked off with my screwdriver on Saturday and that he'd forgotten to give me a receipt for my July rent.

            I rode to Freedom Mobile to pay for my August phone service but there was only one clerk working both windows and there were a few people ahead of me. On the left a guy was getting a new phone but with him was a late middle-aged guy in a wheelchair. Except for his grey and white sneakers he was all in black, including his baseball cap and around his neck was an ornate silver cross about the size of an index finger crossed by a pinky. The wheelchair bound man seemed to know a lot about smartphones and their components, so much so that the clerk actually asked his opinion about iphones. He said he wouldn’t touch an iphone because he likes to customize his phones and Apple doesn’t allow for customization. When his friend got his phone he advised him to take it home and charge it fully, let it cycle down to zero and repeat that a couple of times to train the battery to last longer.

            My phone service is $28.25 after tax but I only had $30.00 and the clerk didn’t have change. He asked if I would take $1.00 back and come back later on to get the $0.75. I hesitated and then tiredly said okay, but then he shrugged and gave me back a Toonie and told me not to worry about it.

            I pedaled down to Freshco where I got two three-liter plastic baskets of Ontario peaches. The grapes were all from the States and so I got a small pack of Mexican raspberries. I bought another rack of frozen pork ribs, some four-year-old cheddar and some yogourt. The clean-cut guy behind me at the checkout counter looked at my peaches and exclaimed, “Peaches! It's exciting!" He threw me off for a second but I said, “Yeah, it's about time." "Totally!" he added. Peaches are nice and delicious but I wouldn’t call them exciting.

            When I got home I wrapped the two packs of peaches in cloth bags in hopes that precaution would curb the fruit flies that were all over the last bunch of peaches that I had. Putting them in the fridge is not an option because they don’t ripen properly.

            I had a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich with mayonnaise for lunch.

            I decided not to take a bike ride that afternoon because there was a 40% chance of rain at around 19:00 when I’d be on my way home.

            Instead I just worked on my journal.

            Outside my window an Ethiopian guy that I used to see a lot in the food bank line-up but who now just hangs around outside the donut shop drinking beer, was very drunk and verbally attacking a butch looking East Asian woman in a white baseball cap, a white shirt and white shorts. She was hanging out with some of the other neighbourhood regulars, including an Ethiopian woman that’s also always hanging around and drinking but who never seems to get drunk. The Ethiopian guy was saying to the East Asian woman, “You a lesbian! If I had a knife I’d cut your face!” The Ethiopian woman was urging him to be respectful. Another woman who looked like she was from Africa was walking by with her two children and also told him to show respect. A young man who was hanging out with the women threatened to punch him in the mouth and he backed off.

            I went out to buy a can of beer and stopped to look at a striking image on the streetcar shelter of a woman on her left side with her back exposed and what looked like a braided wound running diagonally from her left shoulder to her right hip with red fringes that resemble cuts hanging down. It was an ad for an exhibition by Rebecca Belmore at the AGO. As I was standing there a woman that was walking by said to me, "It's really great!”

            I watched the first and fourth episodes of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

            In the premier, Earp arrives at Ellsworth, Kansas in 1873, fresh from hunting Buffalo on the Great Plains. The sheriff of the town had sent for him, hoping he would replace him as sheriff. He is reluctant but takes the job when his friend is gunned down. He also meets a teenaged Bat Masterson, who becomes Robin to Earp’s Batman.
            There is no record of Wyatt Earp ever having been a marshal in Ellsworth, Kansas or even having been involved with the place in any way. His name is not on any hotel ledger. After his first wife’s death in Missouri from typhoid, from 1870 to 1872 he was arrested for once for stealing a horse and three times for running and being found in a brothel. Bat Masterson would have been 19 in 1873.

            In the fourth episode, Earp is still in Ellsworth in 1874 and has to break up a war between cowboys that are former Confederate soldiers and the authorities in Kansas. Meanwhile Earp is offered the job of marshal of Wichita, Kansas. At the end of the story he accepts the job and sends Bat Masterson to Topeka, Kansas to finish school.

            Earp actually arrived in Wichita in 1974 where his wife opened a brothel. Earp did join the police force in 1875 and earned a good reputation but he got fired after getting into a fistfight with a politician. He immediately moved to Dodge City where he became an assistant marshal.  It was in Dodge that he met a 22-year-old Bat Masterson for the first time who was also a deputy. Masterson, though five years younger than Earp was probably the more experienced fighter. Earp is apparently accurately portrayed as a non-drinker but he certainly didn’t mind selling booze to others. He was a hardcore gambler and he loved to make a buck with every chance he could so he was a pimp, a saloon owner, a mine owner and tried his hand at every money making scheme that existed in those days. He was also a successful lawman though when he wasn’t in trouble with the law. 

Laughing at Death with Sir Riel

            I’ve been using the same gig-bag for my acoustic guitars for thirty years. For the last two decades it’s been falling apart and so from time to time I sew it up to keep it functional but I’ve been worrying lately about it falling apart while I’m riding my bike. My upstairs neighbour David has given me a few low-end electric guitars over the last couple of years and some of them have gig-bags, but they are the thinner ones that won’t fit an acoustic guitar. A few months ago though he gave me a First Act electric guitar in a gig-bag that looked like it might fit my Oscar Schmitt. I didn’t try it right away because I wasn’t playing anywhere but on the evening of Tuesday July 31st I planned to play a song on the Shab-e She’r open stage and so I tried the gig-bag on my guitar before leaving and found that it fit. The only problem was that I still wanted to wear my backpack but the gig-bag wouldn’t fit on top of it. I loosened the shoulder straps on the gig-bag though, as far as they would go and that worked.

            On my way by bike to the St Stephen in the Fields Church the neck of my guitar was pushing against my neck and forcing it slightly forward to an uncomfortable degree. After a while though I found that I could shift the gig-bag to the right so that it almost cleared my neck, making the rest of my ride a lot more comfortable.

            When I walked into the church, a handsome tall man with a prematurely white short beard was telling Bänoo Zan that he’d heard about Shab-e She’r from George Elliot Clarke and thought he'd check it out. I told Bänoo that I’d run into George a couple of weeks ago in the east end and I’d mentioned to him that Beatriz Hausner would be featuring at Shab-e She'r on July 31^st and he said he might come. Bänoo told me though that Giovanna Riccio informed her that she and George were going to a festival in Niagara.

            I went to my usual front row aisle seat and tuned my guitar, and then I put it on my guitar stand next the cathedra chair on the right side of the chancel, which serves as the Shab-e She’r stage. It was very hot in the church so I could expect it to go out of tune later.

            It looked like I was going to be the only musician there that night. My friend Tom Smarda was probably up on Manitoulin Island as usual this time of year and Tom Hamilton the violinist wasn’t there either.

            Beatriz Hausner arrived and I got up to give her a hug. I first met Beatriz through her mother, Susana Wald, back in the mid-80s when I used to work for Susana as a model at Sheridan College. Beatriz wasn’t much more than a teenager then and there was no indication at that time that she would become a surrealist poet like her stepfather, Ludwig Zeller. But surrounded by artists throughout her childhood it would have been hard to stop it from rubbing off on her consciousness.

            I went to use the washroom and took the first one before the auditorium but couldn’t see any way to lock the door. Sure enough, someone started opening the door while I was peeing.

            A woman came up to tell me she recognized me as a model that she’d drawn at OCAD when she was a student there in the early 90s. We chatted a bit about some of the teachers that she'd had and I told her which few are still there. She said she was there with her husband, who was going to read on the open stage, but I never did look to see which of the poets she was married to.

            The event began just after 19:00, and began with the native land acknowledgement. Since Laboni Islam, who initiated the land acknowledgement for Shab-e She'r and knows it by heart was away, Bänoo read the text. Bänoo added that in the first year of Shab-e She’r, when they only had one feature a month, she featured two indigenous writers.

            Bänoo held up the notebook on which she’d written down the names of those who'd signed up for the open mic and informed us that it contains the names of all the open mikers since the reading series began in November of 2012.

            The first open stage performer was Saher Lalani, who told us that her mother, Dr Fatima Hashamali had been a paediatrician for some of the world’s poorest children in Pakistan, Tanzania and Kenya and that her poem, “Maternal Love” was a tribute to her mother. She said it was appropriate to read it that night because it was the week of her own birthday – “Painfully she carried me in her womb / Stroked her belly to calming tunes … Worked the nights as paediatrician on call … Her heart yearned to hold me … in prayer asked for a healthy baby … Whispering to her belly, she talked to me … Abruptly she had to leave work / The labour pain … The physical process of giving birth / forever sealed her motherly love.”

            John Nyman said that despite being an atheist he loves the church setting for Shab-e She’r and what it represents in terms of dedication. His poem was called “Holy of Holies” – “The family praying softly at the table knows best …. They are eating at McDonalds … Meat smells of Earth’s first secret … This place is famous … The refugees from Syria … just wished they’d been taken to McDonalds … 3-D printed people … overstocked with fraudulent rewards cards … Glad to think that this is really heaven / instead of 100 billion served.”

            Bänoo informed us that Shab-e She’r would not be taking place in August. That works out fine for me because it will give me time to get some things done before school starts.

            Lida Nosrati said that she’s agnostic but still struck by the church space.

            Personally I’ve always thought that the Church of St Stephen in the Fields from the outside is one of the most beautiful churches in Toronto, but on the inside it’s just a brick barn with arches, crosses and some slightly pleasant stained glass. It’s a good size for a poetry reading though and the chancel works well as a stage.

            From Lida’s poem – “The scar on my wrist … Ma’am, please listen to the question … What marks the beginning of time for you … I notice that unlike other official documents yours bears the name of your mother … Occupation and country of origin … You would do anything … Once when you crossed from one country into another … Love sickness is not listed among those for which you will be quarantined at the border.”

             Nick Micelli read “From the Cell to the Sun” – “Into the deep / the guts of the beast … The beckoning chasm calls at the brink … with dank, oppressive blue surrounding … persistent, assertive, demanding … Why do I stand in my small, puny plan … There was never a dragon to keep me …”

            Bahar Ebrahimi, the volunteer behind the desk that night, read a poem about refugee children – “Where am I mommy? Why am I here? The sea threw me out … This foamy milk tastes so salty, mommy … Why am I here?”

            It was time for the first feature, Teddy Syrette, also known as Ozhawa Aanung Kwe and Yellow Star Woman. They are a gender-fluid person and work as a two-spirit indigenous-queer advocate.

            Teddy told us that Yellowstar Woman is their Anishnaabe name. They said that Sault Ste Marie refers to itself as the friendliest city in Algoma, but Sault Ste Marie is the only city in Algoma.

            Teddy’s first poem was "Beasts" - "Large objects both big and shiny … wondering how they move … Children laugh and watch ... these beasts land, park and anchor ... disappear."

            Teddy shared, “For the longest time I didn't know I was Native". They had a friend that was Italian and since he was dark and also ate pasta, Teddy said to their mother, “Mom, I’m Italian!” to which she answered, “No, you’re foolish … and you’re Native!"

            From “Lost" - "With a smile full of sunshine ... our shadows danced within your candlelight ... The bites of the snake that bit you were felt by others … We cried and held each other … Your exit was abrupt … sweet candlestick man.”

            Teddy told us, “Sometimes people suck at their good intentions … If you don't see my colour you don't see my experience ... I don't hear stupid."

            From “Places" - "Do you ever find yourself surrounded by strangers? Look around … You don’t know who they are ... I'm Native so I don't trust anyone ... The logical ones are usually the first ones killed or vanished ... The end of the world creates more division or exclusivity … Evil people from all walks of life will vie for dominance … Holding hands and speaking of chance … Chaos and loss can drive us together as much as pull us apart ... Each minute that passes only matters if you did something in that minute.”

            From “200 Words or Less” – “Teddy Syrette … The non-fiction pieces of work include income tax returns … Today they enjoy writing … poetry and polyamory … Enough words to make an impact … Listening to CBC Radio where folk discuss responsible gun laws in Canada … Live from your bedroom … the spotlight is focused only on centre stage … I try to be funny … Snorts are the best … Anyways I love laughing. When I meet another funny person I lose my wits because not everyone is funny … Trying to think of a joke to put into a bio that matters to the audience … Humour has gotten me to where I am today … Who am I in 200 words or less?”

            Teddy told us that when their father was in the hospital, when they went to see him he asked, “Teddy, do you want me to round up all the nurses?” “Why?” “So you can teach them about the Gays!”

            From a story about Teddy’s father’s death – “‘Pop, I’m here to see you … Our visit was shortly after Toronto Pride …” Teddy relates how the Gay Pride parade came on TV while their father and some old ladies were watching – “‘My son is probably walking in that parade!’ The ladies stood up. ‘Where?’ ‘There he is walking beside the prime minister of Canada! In the purple dress!’ The old ladies all sat down.”

            “‘I was outside having my morning smoke. It was a bit raining. I saw a worm. I tried to pick it up and I fell over.’ ‘Why did you try to pick it up?’ ‘I was going to try to scare the nurses.’”

            “‘Have I been a good dad?’ ‘You’re the best.’ ‘Okay.’”

            “The night before he passed he laid in bed with no shirt on. I looked over at my mom and said, ‘I must get the hair on my chest from your side of the family’.”

            “After he died I began to giggle … ‘Can I say something?’ ‘What?’ ‘I’m really gonna miss his smile. Do you think I can take his teeth?’ ‘Why?’ ‘So I can make a necklace out of them.’”

            “He only listened to Abba … Nothing besides Abba … Non stop Abba …” Teddy related how their sister would not have been able to handle having nothing but Abba played at their father’s funeral and so they compromised with just “Fernando” and one other song. “He was a character and you should’ve met him.”

            Teddy said that when they lost their father they also parted ways with their partner.

            From “The Grievey Train” – “All aboard … A lot of passengers on board didn’t know they had tickets either … You are not alone … Get over it … We are so sorry for your loss … They’ve never asked for your condolences in the first place … What is your own mortality going to look like … You’re right, our child doesn’t look like you … You are the father … You do your best not to forget the sound of your lost loved one’s laughter … There are those who carry with them a pocket of tickets … When you board this locomotive of loss and laughter you get your own seating arrangement … Karen Carpenter died of anorexia … You wanna go for ice cream? … The rage car … Maybe they heard about you before your father passed away and thought you could connect … Keep your circle small … Stop meeting new people because they’re just gonna die on you anyway … We board this train for different reasons … Until we each reach our final destination treat every day like it is your last … You have a purpose. So live it.”

            Teddy’s final story was about coming out to their family – “I didn’t know what it meant to be Gay growing up … I told my sister … She said ‘Don’t do anything Gay around the boys’ ‘I won’t’ … I told my mother … She said ‘Oh my god! Are you sure it’s not a phase? I don’t know how to support you! Don’t tell your dad! He’ll have a heart attack!’ … I went up to help my father fix my grandmother’s pipe in her house on the reserve … I saw my grandmother’s alcohol cabinet … I just wanted to taste everything … ‘Dad, I love you!’ ‘You’re drunk. I’ll take you home’ I thought it was a good time to come out to my dad … ‘Dad I’m having sex with someone’ ‘Is it Lorna?’ “It’s Darren.’ ‘Are you dying?’ ‘Dad, I think you’re thinking of HIV.’ ‘Oh well, you’ll always be my son and I’ll always love you. Whatever you do, don’t tell your mother, cause she’ll have a heart attack!’

            Teddy Syrette is not really a poet and their prose is not strongly creative but some of their wordplay is nice and they are a good storyteller with a great sense of humour. The tale of how they revealed that they were Gay to their mother and father is the funniest coming-out story I’ve ever heard and could make a great play if they reworked it into that format.

            We took a break. I went to use the washroom again and again someone started opening the door before I was finished. An older woman was waiting when I came out and asked if the washroom was for women and men. I told her yes but warned her that there was no lock. I told her that there were two washrooms on the other side of the door leading to the auditorium and so that’s where she went.

            I went up to the chancel to re-tune my guitar and then I went through my song one more time. My fingers felt stiff and a little sore because of some of the chords and the quick changes. I was hoping that I wouldn’t fumble the chords too much when it was my turn.

            Bänoo invited Sydney White to open for the second feature. She read two poems. The first was called “A Reporter at the Happy Hour” – “Children beaten … their mothers degraded … A story is a story … Don’t let the bastards come up smelling like a rose … Don’t count on justice … Nothing now can make me cry … except a kind word.”

            Sydney’s second poem was "The Coincidence Theory" - "Fact is now declared theory ... This new conspiracy is to replace evidence with fiction … I am a coincidence theorist and as such I know that there are none.”

            The human mind is actually geared towards finding connections that aren’t there. We could not learn language without finding coincidences. Every word for a thing that we learn can be linked up by associative thinking to countless other things. It probably has its roots in times before language when we were just animals scoping out our surroundings, our predators and our prey. The ability to create connections between things is what helped our species to learn to think, but it also holds us back from reasoning.  Hence, for example, the conspiracy theory that several people that were critical of the Clintons and died were killed by their henchmen. The Clintons know hundreds of people. A certain percentage disagrees with them because of the nature of US politics. A natural percentage would die over the years of knowing the Clintons. Associative thinking can and does connect all of those factors into a conspiracy of murder if the desire is there to do so.

            Bänoo introduced Beatriz Hausner, who said it was interesting to read at an altar. She informed us that the Church of St Stephen in the Fields is an important building in Toronto because it had the same architect as the Ontario Parliament buildings. Actually Thomas Fuller didn’t design the Ontario Parliament buildings but rather some of the original Parliament Hill government buildings in Ottawa.

            She added that the church was a locus of the CBC but I didn’t catch what she meant by that.

            Beatriz began with her translations of  “Visita” by Rosamel del Valle. From “Visit” – “He will come … the room opens … the walls lose their tranquility … I know then that the walls are shaped like an ear … The moment I see him take off his hat and throw it in the ocean I know that our conversation has begun … I hear the tear falling from the door that closes.”

            Beatriz told us that it took her a long time to become a writer.

            She read her poem “Original Man” as a compliment to “Visit” – “I take out my needles … It would be ridiculous to say that I sew myself to him … before the night falls and the colour of our blood changes … our attending limbs growing wilder … raise our legs in tandem and speak the music of the heart … he does speak the language of the worm in the fruit … His ear sewn to the Earth by the invisible hands of the great sound maker.”

            From “Louis Riel is in the Neighbourhood” – “I see you every thirty minutes / per second at the top of my street … never stopping at the lights … feet that walk and unwalk / the knotted hard dream / hanged with you … the air breaks … much pain / flowing in capillary systems / that point to new republics … misfortune grows … sooner than ten / machines at a time growing // with the echo of your ravings … Blackbirds / escape from your mouth heralding // a life of dark screams inside the drum / where the daily rope is placed around / your neck … we roam in darkness tapping / lightly on electrodes / gadgets of the soul … those rooms without walls / we build for our dream of water / a new Saskatchewan of the mind … the new republic whose sediment / anchors the soul despite the mechanical / locusts … separated merely by the murmur of the Earth … utterances heard inside fruit / of restless vision … I stand at the prestigious / edge of violence … touch the edge of our golden Batoche.”

            Beatriz declared that Riel was a great poet.

            She told us that her next poem would be one about her family, which came to her in a vision on the western shores of Newfoundland. She dedicated “Cowhead” to her late father – “The ancestors have reached their destination … The silent one whose hymns darken … deep inside the gears … learning the tongue … that other season for answers … These are my dearly departed … alive in this heart, beating at the gate of pain.”

            These readings of Beatriz’s work were chronological. Introducing a different phase of her writing, she shared that a human-sized raccoon appeared in her life at a certain point. He was the perfect lover, was cuddly and warm, but also slightly repulsive.

            From “Prayer Heart” – “While visiting the Jewish Museum in Paris … The origin of prayer … created in Babylon … divine service of the heart … ‘You are lonely’ whispers the raccoon in my ear … Somewhere a woman and a man are lying down and preparing to feed the large cat that they have taken to bed with them.”

            From “Internal Meditation” – “Raccoons play a role in new strains of this virus … The process is called reassortment … They play the role of Typhoid Mary … Raccoon has grown weary of his form … It isn’t about his arousal … I hide these perceived weaknesses … time being elastic for Raccoon and myself … a way of being in several places and historical periods at the same time … I begin to speak this phrase from Ovid … What comes easily … the rest of the verses become inaudible …”

            Beatriz read two poems inspired by Empress Theodora of Byzantium.

            From “The Dream of Theodora: Theodora in Kuwait” – “Always the gentle voice of mother and father … the mountains persisted … torment of memory of the cruellest cipher … early algorithms tattooed … rubbing against the new life of parents … the gas was inhaled for generations …”

            From Theodora Incipient” – “Gravity doing what gravity does … the shards of glass lined the floor of the love child in the womb …”

            Beatriz informed us that her natal homeland of Chile is a country with the Southern Cross replicating a morning star.

            She introduced her final poem by mentioning how Dante was inspired by Beatrice but how he also watched Beatrice eat his heart – “I will not really push your heart in my mouth … I will stop walking a great distance to place your heart in my mouth … A song fills my throat because I have your heart in my mouth … There are no limits to what I can do when I have your heart in my mouth … A life-size tiger threatens to appropriate your heart in my mouth … Innate always is the state of love … The soul and the spirit have become one with your heart in my mouth.”

            Beatriz Hausner is an inspired and eloquent writer who goes to that place where dreams make themselves available to her hand so they can be pulled into the attention in order to exquisitely destabilize reality. She doesn’t only dream while awake but has learned to speak the language of dreams where gravity is broken to throw the consciousness off balance and to reveal that there is something inside of and behind the ordinary. She is breaking the rules so that reality is penetrated by what secretly moves us and we are thrown off balance. Things become other things so as to give deeper meaning to those things, such as when the heart is a curtain over an open window in the wind.

            We returned immediately to the open stage, beginning immediately with Simon Constam, who read two poems.

From “Evanescence” – “Whatever they have become … what they have gone through is still undefined … I haven’t seen her for more than ten years … Sometimes it is good to not be differentiated … The night I woke to see you naked at your desk … threw caution to the wind and gave up an ocean of inexorability … because when you refused to love me I valued love too highly …”

From “A Mountain in the Sky” – “We must love one another and die … God offered the torch to the Jewish people … If I know Jews, some argued to go back to Egypt … After a month of their reluctance god tore Mount Sinai from the land and held it above them … We have no choice but to try and understand.”

Mehri Yalfani read “And Me” – “Such a beautiful day … sunshine everywhere … I have to go out … to see a sparrow sitting on her eggs … but … there’s war … The children are suffocating by poison gas … the trees are senseless / and me, nobody.”

            Bänoo called me to the stage and I went up to get my guitar. I was glad to find that it was in tune but I would have had time to tune it anyway while introducing my poem. I said that I would be doing my translation of a 181 year old poem by Gerard de Nerval and I heard a positive “Ah!” from Beatriz. I explained that Nerval had been a big influence on the surrealists and looked at Beatriz to ask, “Right?” She nodded. I recounted the legend that Nerval had pet lobster named Thibault that he used to walk every day on the end of a long, blue, silken leash in the gardens of the Palais Royale in Paris. I had meant to add, “And you can’t get much more surrealist that that” but I forgot and just said, “But that has nothing to do with the piece I’m going to do”. The original is called “L’Andalouse” and my translation is entitled “Andalusian Dream” – “Come now my Andalusian / as night in jealous confusion / casts her shade on the sky / Lift the veil she hides behind / to bathe her in the starlight / of the stars of your eyes // Come now my shining empress / into the serene darkness / We’ll throw arms around her / We’ll climb to her above us / on our silk-woven ladder / on our ladder of love // Come now with me my lady / as this night of ecstasy / grants my boldest desires / As the night is our sovereign / I now bid you to open / the door to paradise.”

            Although my guitar playing wasn’t strong, I actually played much better than the earlier stiffness in my fingers had suggested I might. I think that if I’d gone up before Beatriz I would not have played as well but she’d inspired me to rise to the occasion.

            Reza Eslami read two poems. The first was written in response to a letter received after a break-up – “Fighting the dream of you by the shore … To accept that what was happening is the reason for my bitterness … I just stand and stare … I was bound to stray from my being when the storm hit … The perpetual sneer was all that I could bleed … painting my exit path without any tactical thought of reality.”

            From “Herald of Rainy Day” – “On the tallest branch of a dried tree … sits a skylark.”

            Pat Connors read “The Rooster and the Piglet” – “Organizing my thoughts … the rooster crows … around the clock … waits for the piglet’s reply … Sometimes they cry at the same time … I have done nothing since I got here … I know in a few days I will return to my ordered and ordinary life … I will be happy to go back …”

            Norman Allan read “Three Thoughts in Search of the Mind” – “A quantum phase … We watch it happen … came out of nothing … in pixels of energy … happening somewhere … sliding out time … Being is because everything is in the possible … stepping into the river … why did the stone go from possible to was … iterations of something happening somewhere … sliding down time … visual fields … accessing contrasts … A fourth iteration brings linear boundaries … from possible to was … a tangle of activity … floating.”

            During Norman’s set, Imogen, the event’s photographer, approached me and asked if she could borrow my guitar for a song. I nodded.

            I hadn’t seen much of Imogen all night, which surprised me since all the other photographers of Shab-e She’r have come close to the stage for a lot of their shots. The only time that I saw her was when I was on stage and she took a picture of me from the back. Did she use a zoom the whole time?

            From Ben Brendis’s poem – “ … Mount Olympus in the true north … a Canadian Shield rock band … The sea of language … The past of the foreign country where they drive stick shifts … How do we say ‘Our home on Native land’ in Swahili? … Creating poems from stolen conversation … Smiting with premeditation eight innocent mosquitoes … French past and perfect … The sounds of silence … English parliament, seasoned with Churchill.”

            Madhu Arora told us that this was her first time reading anywhere. She said that she comes from India where the patriarchy expects women to become mothers. She shared that after she reluctantly had a child she irrevocably fell in love with her son despite the fact that she still hates being a mother. From her poem – “Dear son, What can I say about what binds me to you? … I rail against it, I fail against it … Even on my worst days when I hate everything about being one … I am not Mother Theresa … I cannot offer you perfection … I will offer you a love as faulty as myself for the rest of my days … Love, Mom.”

            Nordine moved the microphone back, about halfway towards the altar and said, “We’re gonna start in the centre where life began … I am ancient … the ancient female … the beginning of DNA … made in energy … navigated the mother ship … After protecting my woman … my right brain was defeated … my curly hair became dreadlocks … Wanted to protect my baby for a reason.”

            Chai reminded us that in the last decade or so Toronto has added a lot of condos and informed us that the forest fire in Parry Sound has just crossed the Trans Canada Highway. He said we are overbuilding cities at the expense of the forests.

            From “High Rise Slums” – “We look upon those quaint houses with gardens … those far away trees … for oxygen … think food comes from supermarkets with large parking lots … Not a blade of grass … concrete and glass … All of the rain that falls flows down the sewers … Why are parking lots like highways? To feed high-rise slums we cut down forests far away … Who cares for species extinction anyway? Why should we not have it all? So what if there is far away famine? Maybe we all need to learn from child … When will we stop building Trump Towers … High-rise slums may stand tall … dominate the planet … after our extinction.”

            Nicholas Hadzis read two poems.

            From a rap called “Oil and Water” – “Oil and water just don’t mix … Oil on the street, there’s a rainbow in it … Oil and water just don’t mix … More connected? No, not at all … I’m doing better cause I don’t need a fix.”

            From “Eternally Who” – “I wish someone could buy me memories of sweet wines … A tongue intertwines … Yours a chest of airs … from whom I want more love … I am also you … a sweet and ageless wine … That’s who.”

            The final poet of the night was Imogen, who sat down with my guitar and two microphones. She would be the first person besides me to play my Oscar Schmidt. She sang a poem which she told us was about a girl in love - "You were Charles Bukowski without the gambling ... I played a song for you over the phone … You said it wasn’t my best … You said you've got this pain in your chest ... Beatnik bullshit ... That suit came in the mail ... When I put it on you can see the scars on my chest … All you can do is throw your voice into the blackhole of opinion ... You're the closest thing to god ... Something so perfect couldn’t have a soul ... But now it's all just blank stares and blank cheques ... I stepped a little closer and found you're not so strong … You said I'm the only thing keeping you alive ... I'm glad we don't speak anymore but I think of you sometimes."

            The next Shab-e She’r will be on September 25.

            I told Beatriz that she’d done a great reading and told her about an interesting coincidence relating to the song that I did. I’d always wanted to sing the song someplace where she was reading but I'd already planned six months ahead of time on doing the song that night, even though I’d only heard about her feature a month ago. She said she loves Nerval but heard that he'd had a tragic life. I confirmed that he’d hung himself and had apparently chosen the darkest street in Paris to commit suicide. He was found carrying a note for his mother. Beatriz’s friend declared, "It's always the mother!" Beatriz introduced us, though I don’t remember what her name was, unless it was Samantha. She said she'd observed a lot of coincidences between the subject matter of many of the readings. She didn’t say specifically what those coincidences were but I noticed there were a lot of mother references throughout the night. She said that Beatriz told her that I know her mother, and I confirmed that Susana is one of the loves of my life. She said, "Mine too!"

            I chatted with Cy Strom and he told me that he’d looked up Nerval and saw that Serge Gainsbourg had covered him. I confirmed that Gainsbourg had done Nerval’s "L'Andalouse” as "Rock de Nerval”. I told him that the original song had actually been part of an opera called “Piquillo" in which the song lyrics were written by Nerval, the text was by Alexandre Dumas the elder and I'd forgotten who wrote the music other than that his first name was “Hippolyte". I can confirm now that his name was Hippolyte Monpou although I don't know if the music for the version of the song version of the poem that I did was by him or Gainsbourg. I told Cy that I changed the context of the song but if my translation were to be part of an English version of the opera then I would have to change it back. In the original, the speaker is telling the woman that he has been made sovereign and so he bids her to open the door to paradise.

            Shortly after the event finished, an intoxicated man came in looking for the pastor. He spoke to a counsellor that was still there but he was very upset about his mother and speaking very loudly over and over again about his wish that she would die a horrible death. So the theme of the mother that repeated itself during many of the readings carried over into the after-show as well.

            Outside, I chatted a little more with Beatriz’s friend as she told me that she’d recently had her bike stolen. I said that nobody steals my bike because thieves steal according to aesthetics and are too stupid to know what a good bike I have. I told her that she could build one at Bike Pirates. Beatriz came up and asked what we were talking about and her friend said, “This nice man was just suggesting that I build a bicycle". Beatriz shook her head, "Oh no, she doesn't have time for that!" and her friend nodded in agreement.

            I walked with them the few meters until I got to my bike and we said goodnight. Beatriz said that her mother would be coming to Toronto in August and so maybe we could all get together.

            After all the talk about theft, as I unlocked my bike I noticed that someone had stolen my front flasher. Fortunately it was bought at a dollar store and I have more.

            I had a late and quickly prepared dinner of ribs with potato chips and watched the last two episodes of the last season of Dobie Gillis.

            In the first story the dean has told Maynard that he must keep his hair out of his eyes and stop bumping into people or he’ll be expelled. Maynard brings hair tonic to biology class but gets it mixed up with the bottled musk from a male hippopotamus. When he uses it begins to have an alluring affect on women, beginning with Dobie’s girlfriend, Lara, who becomes extremely aggressive with Maynard and eventually drags him off by his hair. Even Dobie's mother is affected but the writers cop out by giving her an overwhelming urge to mother Maynard. When Dobie’s father notices the power Maynard suddenly has over women he tries to cash in on it and gets Maynard a movie deal co-starring with international film star Lola Lasagne, who goes nuts over him too. Nobody realizes though that it’s Maynard's smell that is making him attractive with so many women and so the movie is a bomb because the female viewers can't smell him.

            The last story is basically a repeat of the series pilot but instead of a movie theatre raffle it’s a charity bazaar raffle. In both stories it is arranged that Dobie will get the winning ticket by cheating but Dobie's conscience won't let him go through with it and so he ignores the call of his number, not realizing until it was too late that he actually legitimately won $5000.