Thursday, March 04, 2004

I read that most bloggers update every 10 days or so -- sounds like me.

Weather: Light snow -- been this way for a few days, but I've been away (see below).

Wildlife: The deer and birds sure missed us, but we are back now. We took some roadside shots of Golden Eagles and Bald Eagles near St. Regis, Montana. Our own eagles are still hanging out next to the ice-melt pond on our lake.
Speaking of wild -- our cats went nuts when we came home -- running and tussling for hours before they settled down.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site : Give Food for Free to Hungry People in the World

Media Watch: I've been on vacation -- staying away from da' tube. However I did watch Steven King's Kingdom Hospital last night -- 5 minutes of show, 5 minutes of commercials for two hours.
Here's some reviews of the original Danish productions:
filmcritic.com Movie Review: The Kingdom (Riget)
MMI Movie Review: The Kingdom II
Steven King inserts a fictionalized version of his own near-fatal pedestrian/auto collision in his adaptation of this Danish TV miniseries -- that's alright! It means Tabitha King has a disguised part too, as the artist's wife.
Nah -- they ain't calling it All In The Addams Family.

Mini-Vacation: Drove to Spokane, Washington (about 4 1/2 hours) to see Sarah Brightman in concert. We used to live there, so we visited some friends, saw some old sights, and dodged traffic on those chaotic one-way streets. The air is loaded with dirt from the Columbia Plateau, and the exhalations of modern urbania, so we were getting sick -- thought we getting colds until we got outta town -- poor Sarah, having to sing in that Hoover-bag atmosphere! (More about this concert later -- maybe even another day.)
Sarah Brightman

Follow-ups:
At the College: I worked my tail off, preparing a presentation about Women in S-F at the end of February.
To do the subject justice, I felt it necessary to show the history of "Science Fiction," especially since the genre began with Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly. To explain why, I chose to show how the genre emerged from hero stories, travelers' tales, satires, and speculations by scientists/alchemists over the last 2400 years, and took form as a gothic novel.
By the 20th Century, it was very popular with adolescent boys of all ages, and still is. However, around 1970, the best writers in this genre were women, and they've continued to set the highest standards since then.
Considering that authors like Thomas Pynchon, William S. Burroughs, and Kurt Vonnegut visit this field, that's something indeed! (Doris Lessing, Angela Carter, and Margaret Atwood are also distinguished visitors.)
Statistics support the fact that half the writing awards go to women now, so there's a fair amount of gender integration among the creators here.
All this took over an hour to tell. I shouldn't have been surprised. Luckily the class was into it, stayed with me, and Christy Kabler, the regular teacher, had nothing else on the agenda. Thanks to everybody -- wanna see the power point? Email: mevans@fvcc.edu

Grammy Awards -- I liked Christina Aguileria's song, but didn't mention it before.