On Tuesday morning I finished posting my
translation of “Est-ce est-ce si bon” by Serge Gainsbourg and memorized the
first verse of his song “Yellow Star”. The yellow star in the song is the one
that the Nazis forced the Jews to wear. Gainsbourg was about ten years old in
occupied Paris when he was required to wear the yellow star. But the legend
goes that in his young mind he was thrilled to wear the star because it allowed
him to pretend to be a wild west sheriff.
I
worked on getting caught up on my journal.
When
the workmen started downstairs the first thing that I heard was the music of
Queen blasting up through my floor. One of the guys sings along with the music
and he’s pretty good. A week or so ago he started singing and I heard some call
out, “Can you sing?” Since then I’ve often heard them voice their appreciation
and today he put on a little concert for them. I could hear them cheering and
shouting, “Encore!”
Around
midday I was taking out the garbage when my neighbours Benji and Shankar were
chatting in the hallway and ended up joining them for half an hour. Shankar had put a still functional standing
lamp in the hall and asked if I wanted it. I told that I have too much stuff
already. He said he would put it out on the deck but I told him that if he does
that Raja would just throw it in the garbage. I advised him to put it out on
Queen Street because within minutes somebody would come along and take it.
We
talked about Popeye’s moving in soon downstairs. Shankar suggested to Benji
that Popeye’s isn’t my cup of tea based on a comment that I’d made earlier that
Popeye’s would be very popular in Parkdale because there are a lot of black
people here. I don’t know how he drew that conclusion. I love just about any
cuisine that African Canadians tend to like.
Shankar
asked about my time living at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram north of Montreal and
wondered if Swami Visnudevananda was still alive at the time. I told him he was
and although he was a good yoga teacher I found him to be an asshole. This led
us to discuss several bogus gurus that became prominent in the late 20th
Century such as Bagavan Sri Rajneesh, Satcha Dai Baba and the Hare Krishnas.
I’d never asked before but I found out that Benji is a Hindu as well. He said
that a lot of Guyanese people from India were forced to be Christians but that
they held onto their traditions nonetheless.
I had to work that night at OCADU and so I
boiled three potatoes beforehand so I’d have something ready to eat when I got
home. I worked for Peter Maimik in the Illustration department at the top of
the pencil box. Peter is one of the many TA instructors that work in that
department. I worked for him once before back in the fall and he got so caught
up in talking to individual students about their work that he forgot all about
using me as a model for twenty minutes. When I arrived in the studio this time
another TA that I’ve seen around for years was just packing up after his class.
He took a moment to warn me that Peter is a little green and doesn’t quite know
what he’s doing yet. I got the impression that Peter doesn’t get to have lunch
at the same table as the other TAs.
It
was a portrait class and so I didn’t have to disrobe. I just sat in a chair and
did various twenty-minute poses from the waist up at different angles.
I
got home at exactly 22:00 and started heating up dinner. I had potatoes and
gravy while watching the season finale of Doctor Who.
Spoiler
Alert!!!
The
Master takes the Doctor to the ruins of Gallifrey. He has killed everyone there
and destroyed almost everything except for the knowledge Matrix. He traps the
Doctor’s body in a paralysing device and then his consciousness takes hers into
the Matrix where he shows her has learned from it about the true history of
Gallifrey. The first Gallifreyan explore beyond that world was a woman named
Tecteun who found on a remote planet a gateway to another dimension. Beneath
the gateway she found an abandoned child who perhaps had fallen through the
portal. She adopted the child and raised her as her own but one day a horrible
accident took the child’s life. But miraculously the child regenerated into
another child. Tecteun began to study the child and the work lasted over
several of the child’s regenerations. After many years she discovered the
secret of regeneration from the child’s DNA and then she tested it on herself
by splicing it into her own body. As a result Tecteun became the first
Gallifreyan to regenerate. With Tecteun’s help the population of Gallifrey
developed an advanced civilization and learned to travel through time. She also
gave them the ability to regenerate. The Doctor asks the Master what happened
to the child. He laughs and seems surprised that she hasn’t figured out that
she is the Timeless Child from the other dimension.
Meanwhile Graham, Yasmin and
the refugees plot to escape the Cybership by removing the organic parts of some
non-functioning Cybermen and disguising themselves with their armour.
The
Cybermen attack the planet of the gateway and Ko Sharmas leads Ryan and Ethan
to try to fight them off. They are almost defeated when Graham, Yasmine and
friends teleport to the surface and save them.
The Master’s body
and the other part of his consciousness has invited the Cybermen into Gallifrey
where he proposes an alliance with their leader. The leader wants to elevate
the Cybermen beyond having organic parts until they are pure machines. The
Master is disappointed and tells him, “Then you’d be nothing but robots!” The
Master uses a weapon that shrinks the Cyber leader down to an immobile doll.
The Cyberium that had been in him leaves his body and the Master lets it into
his. He them uses the Cyberium on the organic matter of all of the dead
Gallifreyans to turn them into invincible Cybermen with the ability to
regenerate.
The Doctor is
still paralysed and trying figure out how to break free. She is visited by
Ruth, the other Doctor that she recently met, who helps her connect with all of
their past selves, giving the Doctor the ability to overload the Matrix and
escape.
The Doctor finds
the miniaturized Cyber leader. Knowing that he contains the death particle that
can eliminate all organic life beyond regeneration she decides she has to go
against her anti-killing ethics and use the death particle to eliminate the
Master and his Cyber army. But when she confronts him in the Matrix, surrounded
by the army she can’t bring herself to kill them. Suddenly Ko Sharmas arrives
and takes the death particle from her. He says he will kill the Cyber army and
tells her to run. Yasmine, Graham, and the refugees escape to present day Earth
in the Master’s Tardis. The Doctor escapes in hers but suddenly the Judoon
police appear and teleport her to an asteroid prison.
The Doctor will
return perhaps next Christmas in The Revolution of the Daleks.
