Sexual Deception

            On Friday morning after yoga I got my usual journal posts out of the way and around 7:00 I started working on my short response essay for British Literature. The first thing I did was to go online and fill out the form to get the one week extension on the paper. I didn’t know if I was going to need it but since it has no bearing on future marks I figured I might as well take it just in case. The form consisted of a quiz asking for the number of my tutorial and that was it. I’m pretty sure they're all 101 but hopefully I got that right. 

            I spent the next several hours making notes on certain stanzas of the Fairy Queen that relate two stories involving sexual deception. One from Book One involves the Red Cross Knight being deceived by a sprite disguised as his lady love Una and behaving in what he considers an unladylike manner. The other from Book Three involves the female warrior Britomart posing as a man. When she is a guest at a feast hosted by the beautiful but lascivious Malecasta, Malecasta thinks that Britomart is a beautiful man and makes sexual suggestions towards her. Since Britomart in trying to maintain her disguise does not bluntly reject her Malecasta comes later and slips into bed with her, causing Britomart to draw her sword in anger while at the same time revealing her gender. Malecasta faints in terror. 

            I took a siesta at around 11:30. I had chips and pesto with hot sauce for lunch and continued working. 

            I started typing all my hand written notes but didn’t finish that or even start my essay before the formal deadline. 

            I went to bed about an hour early. Here's what I had done by that time: 

            Sexual Deceptions in Edmund Spenser’s The Fairy Queen 

            Two sexual situations in which Red Cross is present. One with Una and the other with Britomart. One in which he is deceived and the other in which the deceiver is Britomart. Red Cross is fooled by Archimago’s sprites, one of which has been metamorphosed to appear as Una, who is only named when falsely represented. The other sprite is made to appear as a young man with whom the fake Una is cavorting lustfully. The Red Cross knight, the bed, the lust, the anger and the leaving are what these two situations have in common. Red Cross also drew his sword but was calmed by Archimago. 

            In stanza 47 Red Cross is made to dream of lustful play. His heart nearly melts bathed in wanton bliss and wicked joy. The sprite imitating Una is beside him and telling him that Cupid has subdued her and made her want to satisfy her body by enjoying pleasurable play. Una seems to be no longer chaste. False winged boy of false love. She has given in and he is tempted to do so as well. He is “bathed in wanton bliss and wicked joy.” This is ironic because to be bathed usually means to be made clean or perhaps even baptized. The winged boy. A flying boy. Not a man, but immature. A child and yet able to invoke lust. This is also ironic because one would normally consider adult behaviour in a child to be a manifestation of their immaturity. One would blame the adult for being influenced by the manipulations of a child. 

            In stanza 48: She seemed like Venus the goddess of love had delivered the chastest woman of all. The queen of beauty delivers a princess. This Christian knight reverts to pre-Christian Greco-Roman pagan religion in a moment of lust. The Graces, the handmaids of Venus seem to sing the Hymn to Hymen making him believe that he has married Una in a pagan ceremony. His bride, a flower crowned by Flora has been delivered to him. He dreams that he has married Una and that his bride is already beside him in a pagan ceremony. He dreams that he is not a Christian. If this idea were frightful to him it would be a nightmare. A loose leman or lover. He has always seen Una as “the chastest flower that ever did spring on Earthly branch, the daughter of a king." Una is not only a flower but the “chastest flower", suggesting that flowers are already chaste and she is exceptional among them. The fact that she is the daughter of a king seems to also add to her purity. First a flower but "now a loose leman” or lover, but this is also a play on “lemon" the sour fruit. 

            In stanza 49: Unwonted lust or unaccustomed lust. He is unaccustomed to fear that he is doing something wrong. He senses that something is secretly wrong and that there is a hidden enemy and so he wakes to see Una in bed beside him. Under the false Una's black stole is a bated hook. Which part is the bate and which part is the hook? The part by which their bodies would hook together in sexual intercourse would be the hook. She pretends to be shy while coaxing him with an offered kiss. 

            In stanza 50: He is dismayed by her shameless, uncouth guise and thinks about killing her in indignation but does not because he is only “half" enraged. 

            In Book 3, Canto 1 Stanza 4: Britomart rides with an aged squire. Why is the squire aged? Does she represent the ancient land over which she rules? Age old traditions, ancient heritage? She carries a triangular shield showing a lion walking on a golden field. The narrator refers to her as “he” from her first appearance in stanza four until she is both named and called “her” and “she.” But at this point only the reader knows her gender. 

            In stanza 7: Guyon is ashamed because he has never before been knocked from his horse. The narrator speaks as if to him, although he cannot hear, to tell him that he should not feel bad because Britomart has a secretly enchanted spear that allows her defeat every foe. She does not share this information with those whose lives she puts at risk. She does not fight fair and this is another deception on her part. .

November 7, 1990: After Nancy blew me we went to a movie

Thirty years ago today

            We moved someone down to St Clair and Walmer. We finished at 13:00, the customer gave me a $20 tip and a blaster. I just went home from there rather than going way back up to the suburbs to clock out. I bought some juice on the way. 

            I called the CKLN radio station but the production manager wasn't in. I left a message but he didn't call back. 

            I read something to Yvette's answering machine. 

            Nancy called and said she wanted to come over. After she got there she blew me and then we went out to a movie. We saw "Brazil" but she fell asleep. 

            I cashed a cheque for her but my machine would only give me $320. I kept the $20 and gave her the rest. 

            I read to Nancy from the baby book over the phone.

Archimago

            On Thursday morning I had about half of “A la pêche des coeurs" (Fishing for Hearts) by Boris Vian memorized.

            I didn’t quite finish working out the chords for the instrumental parts of “Sparadrap” by Serge Gainsbourg. They go through a lot of changes I guess to make it a longer song than it is. 

            At 11:00 I logged onto my Canadian Literature tutorial. 

            Next week is reading week and so there will be no lecture, no tutorial and no discussion questions to answer. 

            We talked about David Chariandy’s Brother. 

            Someone was talking about the nickname “Scarberia" as if Chariandy made it up. There is also a lot of play with the word “Scar” like in "Scarlem". 

            I suggested that the flashbacks correspond to the unfolding events in the present. Michael's denial of his mother's complicated grief is followed by the main events leading up to his brother’s death. He puts “complicated grief” in quotation marks before that memory but afterwards he frees it from quotes and speaks about it as real. 

            Someone said complicated is simplistic. 

            Kelly’s fiancé is a physician and he advises people to do something that makes them happy every day. The visits to the Rouge Valley in the novel would qualify. 

            Freud wrote an essay on mourning and melancholia. Melancholia is what he called what is now known as complicated grief. He said that mourning is a natural response to loss that should not be interfered with. But melancholia is different. If someone loses someone they know who they have lost but not what that loss represents. Ruth’s loss of her son might be her loss of the Canadian dream from an immigrant’s perspective. 

            Why does community represent hope? 

            Flowers from the Rouge. From an unnameable colour to a description. 

            I said I’ve met very few people who are proud of being from Scarborough. She argued that that is changing and there are writers and artists now speaking proudly about Scarborough. 

            I said that there are lots of people that have drawn inspiration from Scarborough like Mike Myers. Wayne’s home town in Wayne’s World is definitely based on Scarborough. I’m sure that people can feel a sense of community in Scarborough but really it's only a walking place if one walks to a wilderness area. Unlike Toronto there are no nice old houses to live in and no old villages to enjoy walking through. Parkdale is a beautiful, old urban village that is far more diverse than even the area described in Brother. I’d say most people aren't proud of being from any suburb.

            I said that Ruth quotes the song “Feeling Good” when she says, "It is a new day." Someone else added that the song also talks about nature, which ties in with the Rouge Valley.

            I shaved and showered. Being clean shaven would make me more comfortable on Friday when I would be working on my essay all day. 

            I had chips with tomato sauce and scotch bonnet sauce and yogourt for lunch. 

            In the afternoon I went to Freshco where the grapes were very cheap but there weren’t many left. I got five small bags. I bought a half pint of raspberries, a pack of ground beef, five year old cheddar, two containers of Greek Yogourt, kettle chips and Arm and Hammer toothpaste. 

            I found a mouse trapped in my kitchen sink. I guess it had come for water in this dry apartment but then couldn't climb up the aluminium sides. When it saw me it panicked and really tried harder but it still couldn’t make the jump. When I tried to pick it up with a sheet of paper towel it somehow made the jump to the other sink bet then it was trapped again. I managed to grab it with the paper towel, put it in a plastic bag and released out on the deck. Hopefully it was the only one. 

            I finished typing out my stream of consciousness notes on the Fairy Queen: 

            Sexual Deceptions in Edmund Spenser’s The Fairy Queen 

           Two sexual situations in which Red Cross is present. One with Una and the other with Britomart. One in which he is deceived and the other in which the deceiver is Britomart. Red Cross is fooled by Archimago’s sprites, one of which has been metamorphosed to appear as Una, who is only named when falsely represented. The other sprite is made to appear as a young man with whom the fake Una is cavorting lustfully. Even though Britomart reveals her face and even though it is seen to be beautiful she is perceived to be a man by Malecasta. But Britomart seems unoffended by the environment in which she is visiting. She attends the feast politely and then goes to bed calmly trying to maintain her deception. Malecasta is portrayed as being lustful to an extreme degree she does not seem to be evil like Archimago. She does not attempt to deceive and is quite open about her lustful desires. She gets into Britomart’s bed because she finds her desirable. In a sense it is Malecasta who is the victim here. She is threatened by the angry Britomart, is overwhelmed and she suffers a fainting spell. Her six knights come to her defence. What causes Malecasta to faint. Is it the threat of attack or the fact that she discovers she had made advances on a woman? Usually someone as libertine as Malecasta would not mind being with a woman. She was feeling for the movement of a member. Britomart attacks because she feels her chastity is threatened. She deals more easily with being wounded by an arrow than with Malecasta’s advances. But is a woman a threat to her chastity? Britomart is angry with this lecherousness only after it had approached her in bed. She is not visibly offended by it as it was displayed by others during the feast. She does not seem to mind being flirted with as long as she is not touched. But both she and Malecasta are mistaken. Britomart thought that a man had come into her bed. Would she have been as angry if she had known from the start that it was a woman? There is the same moment of anger that causes her to leave with Red Cross as when Red Cross previously left behind the sexual situation that he’d thought Una had been engaged in. The sprites posing as Una and a lover. Malecasta is also referred to as a sprite. The Red Cross knight, the bed, the lust, the anger and the leaving are what these two situations have in common. Red Cross also drew his sword but was calmed by Archimago. 

            I spent some time analyzing the three stanzas in which the magician has his sprites create a deception for the Red Cross Knight. But my brain gave out.

            I had a potato and my last slice of pork cottage roll with gravy while watching Interpol Calling. This one was a bit unique. 

            A car is impounded in London because it was illegally parked. Unlike here in Canada cars that were impounded in London at least in 1960 were taken to a police garage. They also weren’t towed because apparently the police had a master key for all cars and the officer just drove the car to the pound. As part of the police routine all items in the car are inventoried and listed. This is a US car with French plates. When they open the trunk they find the body of a young woman who has been strangled to death. Shortly after this the owner of the car, Ben Stack shows up to claim his car. He is a US executive working for the French branch of his company and has come to London on business. He is arrested and he, the car and the body are shipped back to France where Interpol becomes involved. He admits that he got drunk before putting his car on the air ferry, but he doesn’t know where he had been drinking. They learn the woman was Marie Therese Sauvin and that she worked as a hostess at a club called D’Ambrosio’s. They also find Ben Stack's lighter in her apartment. Duval and Moray go to D’Ambrosio’s and learn that Stack had been there and had gotten into an argument with a Senator Landau. Stack is put in a line-up and Landau identifies him. Duval learns that D’Ambrosio has a vice record from the States. He goes to interview D'Ambrosio again and when he leaves he almost gets into the wrong car. It suddenly dawns on him that might have been what happened. Perhaps someone put the body of Marie in Stack’s car by mistake and later planted the lighter. Duval learns that D'Ambrosio just bought a brand new car. He locates his old car and finds that it is identical to Stack's. Then they learn that Stack has escaped custody. Duval is pretty sure he will go to D’Ambrosio's. Stack confronts D’Ambrosio, who admits that the body was mistakenly put in Stack's car. D'Ambrosio pulls a gun but Duval stops him just in time. D'Ambrosio admits he was running a vice racket out of the club but he didn’t kill Marie. His backer did to stop her from going to the police. His backer is Senator Landau. Landau is arrested and Stack is freed.

November 6, 1990: I worked fixing go carts for the Santa Clause parade

Thirty years ago today

            I worked in the morning in the warehouse fixing "go carts" for the Santa Clause parade. For lunch              I had chili and fries at the restaurant nearby.

            I worked in the afternoon with Randy, the owner of Mr Mover. He was one of the nicest guys I'd ever worked for. 

            We worked until 17:00, I got a $15.00 tip and the customer drove me to Finch. 

            After stopping at the store it was almost 19:00 by the time I got home. 

            I had something to eat, shaved, showered and did some cleaning. 

            Nancy called and we talked for a while. In the background I could hear her mother having a frantic argument with Susan over her having bleached her hair.

Nanette Newman

            On Wednesday morning I almost had all the chords worked out for “Sparadrap" (Plaster Wrap) by Serge Gainsbourg. There were just a few instrumental parts to understand. 

            It was so hot in the apartment with the heat blasting that I did song practice in my bare feet. 

            At 11:00 I logged on for my British Literature tutorial. 

            Alexandra reminded of us that we have the option of filling out the form to get a week’s extension on our second assignment. I plan on trying to meet the deadline but might fill out the form just in case. 

            I asked if Aemilia Lanyer is in love with the countess. The metaphor of intercepting the kiss that the countess gave to the tree seems pretty erotic. At least one other student read it that way as well. Alexandra said she didn’t know about this case but that some erotic metaphors are about something more than sex. 

            We discussed Lanyer’s “Defence of Women” and how she changes the accepted interpretation of Biblical history. 

            I said that she effectively uses textual evidence from the Bible to argue that Eve was not to blame for sharing the fruit with Adam. Alexandra asked if we think Lanyer is addressing women. 

            I think she is more interested in women but I don’t think she would resent men being swayed by her argument. 

            The rhymes of “Defence of Eve” are more complex because it’s a more complicated argument. I said I found her rhymes for “Description of Cooke-Ham” very tedious. 

            She mentioned an earlier French poem called City of Ladies. I told her that Fellini’s City of Women is based on it. She said she hadn’t known that and hadn’t seen the movie. I told her it’s a great film. 

            We did a close reading of John Donne’s “A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s Day”. I thought Lucy was a person he was in bed with. I got a lot of stuff wrong about this poem. 

            Enjambment is when a fragment of an idea from a previous line continues on the next. In this case Alexandra said it was in the first two lines: “T’is the year’s midnight, and it is the days, / Lucy’s …” She said it’s not a very good example though. 

            When he says, “Study me then” he is using imperative. A command. 

            “Love did express a quintessence from nothingness …” and he uses other words to say the same thing for the rest of the stanza. Repetitions of abstraction. 

            For lunch I had saltines with five year old cheddar and for dessert a toasted chocolate chip waffle with yogourt and honey.

            Around that time my wifi went off. I took a ninety minute siesta and when I got up the internet was still down and Shankara’s network wasn't even showing up on the list on my PC. My phone however was connected and so I tethered for half an hour or so until the network appeared again on my computer. 

            I answered the weekly tutorial question for Canadian Literature. This one was on the topic of David Chariandy’s Brother: 

            When Michael rejects the idea that his mother’s erratic behaviour is the result of "complicated grief" he is showing symptoms himself of another stage of grief known as denial. Aisha’s suggestion of a type of social therapy to help Ruth to remember is exactly what she needs and this is proven with the get together of talking, reminiscing and listening to music that Aisha organizes. It is only when Michael breaks up the party and tries to force his mother back into withdrawal that she becomes further stressed (96). Michael only begins to realize this after he himself has relived the experience of his brother’s death (159) and funeral (163). He then begins to accept that his own grief has been attempting to contain his mother’s grief inside of a co-dependent time capsule of his own refusal to move forward. It is then that he returns to thinking of his mothers complicated grief, this time without containing the phrase in sceptical quotation marks(175). Once he has worked things through and arrived at acceptance he allows Aisha and Jelly and the music and memories that they bring, back into their lives to help both himself and his mother to heal (177). 

            I re-read the parts of The Fairy Queen that feature sexual deception and then I made a couple of pages of stream of consciousness notes on the topic. 

            I made pizza on the last two slices of the round loaf of fruit and nut bread. Since these were the smallest slices I figured two wouldn’t be too much but they were more than substantial. I had the pizza with a beer while watching Interpol Calling. 

            This story is called “White Blackmail” but that’s only because it takes place at a ski resort. The resort, run by Ingrid Hoffman is a front for a blackmail ring. Attractive women are hired to flirt with wealthy men until they can be photographed in compromising positions and then blackmailed. Interpol learns of two suicides at the same Swiss resort and so Duval decides to investigate by posing as a wealthy guest. He takes the identity of the Count De Ranier because the real count hasn’t been in Switzerland for years. A pretty young woman named Hannah attaches herself to Duval, pretending to hurt her ankle while skiing in order to draw him closer. A young man named Fawley stays at the hotel more to flirt with women than to ski but he also knows that the Count de Ranier is a former champion skier and while Duval is not bad he isn’t anywhere near an expert. After secretly observing Duval sneaking downstairs one night to look through the hotel register, Fawley assumes he is a criminal and reports him to Ingrid. Ingrid realizes that Duval must be a cop and she tells Hannah to leave as soon as possible. But while Hannah is packing Ingrid comes and kills her with her own gun, then she puts the gun in Hannah’s hand to make it look like a suicide. But Duval doesn’t buy the suicide angle since suicides rarely pack their bags before killing themselves and also he finds footprints in the snow on Hannah’s balcony that don’t match her shoes. Duval discovers that every room has a music box with a hidden camera that is activated when the box is opened. He develops the photos from Hannah’s room and finds that when Ingrid shot Hannah she hadn’t noticed that when she fell she knocked over and opened the music box, causing the camera to take a picture of Ingrid standing with a gun. 

            Ingrid was played by Mary Morris, who had a long and distinguished career as an actor in all the mediums. She co-starred in “Pimpernel Smith” and “Undercover.” She played Professor Madeleine Dawnay on the two Andromeda TV series. She played Queen Margaret in “An Age of Kings” and Cleopatra in “The Spread of the Eagle”. She played the shaman Panna in a 1980s Doctor Who episode.

            Hannah was played by Nanette Newman. Early in her career she was sent to work on a film by director Bryan Forbes but when she got there it had already been shot. Forbes offered to drive her home and they ended up getting married for the next more than fifty years. She starred or co-starred in nine of his films, including The Raging Moon, Deadfall and International Velvet. She is famous for a series of Fairy Liquid dish detergent commercials in the UK. She was a regular panellist on the BBC version of What’s My Line? She has written thirty children’s books and nine cookbooks.

November 5, 1990: A washer fell on my foot at work but it seemed to be okay. My foot I mean.

Thirty years ago today

            It was my second day working for Mr Mover. I worked in the rain with the owner's son Tod and a guy named Paul moving the job that we'd packed on Friday. A washer fell on my left foot but it seemed to be okay. My foot I mean. 

            We got back to the shop at 16:00. Tod said he'd give me a ride to the subway in ten minutes but more than half an hour later he still wasn't ready to leave. Someone else gave me a lift. 

            I got home around 18:00 to find my door unlocked and the window too. I was pissed off until Nancy came in and told me a few minutes later that she didn't have a key anymore. 

            We had a fight later over spaghetti. She went home but not because of the argument.

Kunstlerroman

            On Tuesday morning I woke up from my first decent night’s sleep since the time change. 

            I memorized verses three and four of “A la pêche des coeurs" (Fishing for Hearts) by Boris Vian. 

            I worked out the chords for the verses and chorus of “Sparadrap" by Serge Gainsbourg. There's really just the bridge and the instrumental parts left. 

            At just before 11:00 I logged on for my Introduction to Canadian Literature lecture. Professor Kamboureli continued with her talk on diaspora. Diaspora is voluntary or involuntary displacement marked by the trauma of loss. Its tropes are nostalgia and return. Return is often manifested in a fantasy about the lost place invoked by cultural celebrations and feats. Sometimes the return is actual but that is also accompanied by the trauma of loss because the place is not the same as remembered. Black writing in Canada. The black diaspora by roots and routes. The collective memory of the slave trade’s middle passage on the slave ships. Death on the boats from violence, suicide or disease. Diaspora is shaped by the receded memory of elsewhereness. 

            We looked at the opening passage of David Chariandy’s Brother in which the older brother Francis is teaching the younger brother to climb a hydro pole. I said that it reflects Francis’s whole life. He is a risk taker with an urge to be at the top of this world he cannot leave. He has a death wish.

            Francis’s urge to “memory right" in the moment reminds me of the idea of self remembering towards self awareness that I learned in Gurdjieff studies. 

            The novel Brother is against and through the tradition of white suburban fiction. 

            Donald Trump asked white suburban women to love him because he will keep low income housing out of their neighbourhoods. Essentially that means he will keep black people away. 

            Brother’s Scarborough is one of multicultural ethnic enclaves, criminality, a dystopian landscape of neighbourhood crime scenes. 

            Aisha is the only character who leaves but she comes back. She is diasporic. She becomes an agent of change. 

            The spatial structure is limited to Scarborough. Desirea’s barber shop is important. 

            The temporality is tied up with mourning. Aisha unfolds time backwards and forwards when she returns. Memory and trauma are interrelated. 

            The Rouge Valley is the biggest urban park in North America. That’s only been true since 2019 when Toronto transferred 18.5 square kilometres of land to the already existing national park. The Rouge serves as a refuge and sanctuary in the novel. 

            Chariandy says it is not nature and the professor thinks it’s because it's the site of a former Seneca village called Ganatsekwyagon at Bead Hill. There was farming practised there as well. But that site is less than 400 years old and this is not really Seneca territory. The Seneca moved up here for the fur trade. This was much longer Huron-Wendat territory before they moved up to Georgian Bay. There's also the fact that the Seneca, like other members of the Iroquois league had a tendency to settle in larger villages over longer times than the traditional occupants of this area and they named them. The Huron-Wendat and the Ojibwa never stayed anywhere for that long and they tended to only group with not more than four tepees at a time. I think the main reason Chariandy said it wasn’t nature was because there was so much urban garbage dumped there. 

            Desirea’s barbershop was Dru's. Clients were not welcome. They had their own world and a different economy. Money changed hands but not like in a normal business.

            I said it was a hybrid culture that housed the hybrid hip hop art produced by Jelly. 

            The relationality transcends racial and ethnic divisions. It is literally a multicultural counterculture. The small space reflects restricted mobility but where agency is encouraged. 

            We took a break. 

            Why is Michael the narrator? He is a witness and mediator on the inside and outside. Narrators who tell their own story tend to be unreliable. The first person narrative helps to come to terms with grief. Telling is healing. Aisha is the catalyst for this. She has critical distance. 

            You feel “it”. You spot the threat. “It” is exposed. It embodies lost opportunity and physical and emotional violence, abjection. Internalized race. “It” is unspecified but it takes shape. 

            Michael has no social life. He repels the outside. 

            The professor sees racialization everywhere but it seems to me this novel could have been written in a different culture and a different location like a ghetto in Iceland or Poland. Poor people get hassled by the cops everywhere. The only difference would be that the cops don’t carry guns in places like Iceland and so they have less opportunity to kill poor people. 

            Remembering becomes healing. The story goes backward and forward in time, crisscrossing spaces. 

            Michael withdraws and is overprotective of his mother. Mourning is disabling unless one engages with it. Trauma grants the narrative its structural and formal elements. He is repressed and has lost his memory. He needs to come to terms with the materiality of it. Michael’s mother Ruth is numb, uncommunicative and detached. They need to share in collective kinship and relationality. 

            I asked her to provide an example of a white suburban novel, since she’d several times contrasted Brother with that genre but without offering anything specific with which to make a comparison. She drew a blank at first but then said Generation X though she couldn’t remember that the author was Douglas Coupland until someone texted the name. Someone else said The Virgin Suicides is an example. White suburbs are more protected. 

            She said Brother is a black bildungsroman. A bildungsroman is a novel that focuses on the development and education of a character from childhood to adulthood. It’s a coming of age story covering psychological and moral growth. It’s the process of the formation of a mature subject. It’s personal but symbolically social to tell the reader how to change the world. 

            A kunstlerroman differs in that the subject grows into an artist. The artist figure becomes a spokesperson for their community. 

            Carding curtails social freedom. Carding is the Community Contacts Policy in Toronto. It involves information gathering by stopping and questioning people who have done nothing wrong. 

            She says for white people it’s more about individuals while for black people it’s more about community. I guess that’s just because they have less privilege and so there is more strength in community. 

            Jelly is Djeli, a Griot or storyteller. I said Jelly gels things like culture together and jelly can be food, medicine and a conductor for electricity. 

            Jelly is a genius about flow. Mixing one era with another. He is a hip hop kunstlerroman. I don't think this is true. To be kunsterroman Jelly would have to develop into an artist during the novel. His artistic development was pretty much complete from the start. She says he represents the artist and challenges the existing narratives of the music industry and cultural paradigms. Black cultural language in youth culture. Turntableish. Non linear. He deconstructs. 

            I mentioned an interview with Chariandy in which he says that he got a play list from a DJ for most of the music in the novel but that he added Nina Simone on his own. She said she knows that interview and will talk about it next time. 

            I had chips with crushed tomatoes with onion and garlic, scotch bonnet sauce and yogourt for lunch. 

            In the afternoon I typed my lecture notes and finished a little after 18:30.

            I looked at the topics for my second short response essay for British Literature and decided to compare the similes in two stanzas of The Faerie Queen, but I have to reread a lot of the poem to figure out which two would most inspire me. I read the first forty stanzas before dinner. 

            I had three little potatoes, a slice of ham and gravy while watching Interpol Calling. 

            In this story a woman named Jane travelling on a yacht called the Susan with two men named George and Sid discovers that her shipmates are criminals transporting stolen jewels. They are docked on a canal in the French town of St André. Jane tells Sid what she’s found out and she says she's leaving. Sid tries to stop her but she backs off the boat and drowns. Meanwhile by coincidence the ship on which Duval has been travelling back to Paris has engine trouble and has to stop for repairs in St André. The mechanic tells him it will take four hours. He goes to the police station to use the phone and sees that they’ve fished Jane's body from the canal and assume it's suicide. In her pocket is a lump of shiny metal which Duval informs them is platinum. Duval says if there is anything unusual about a suicide then it probably isn't. Sid and George had been scheduled to rendezvous with Captain Blink who was to take the stolen jewels to Amsterdam. But since Sid and George were late Blink had to sabotage his engine by putting sand in it in order to buy time. The local police ask for Duval’s help. Duval looks at the info on all of the boats that are docked and sees that the odd man out is Blink. The papers show he passes through every month and this is the first time he’s ever stopped. The mechanic had pointed out Blink’s engine and said it had sand in it but an experienced barge captain wouldn’t get sand in his fuel pump. Duval sneaks onto Blink's barge but gets caught snooping. When Blink finds out he’s Interpol he plays it cool. Duval finds it odd that he is not angry about sand in his fuel pump. Duval learns that there had been a major jewel theft in Cannes the amount of time ago that the Susan could have travelled to St André. Duval figures they must be transferring the jewels to Blink's barge to take to Amsterdam. Duval borrows some jewels from a local jeweller and brings them to George, Sid and Blink. Sid and George think he’s found the jewels and George accuses Sid of ratting. Blink knows it’s a trick. Blink pulls a gun but the police arrive and arrest them all.