Wildlife: I woke up Friday to the sound of ducks quacking loudly -- uncharacteristically loudly. When I looked outside, the Bald Eagle was perched on the log right next to our bedroom. (I got a picture of it taking off.)



Visit: A Tale of Two Movies

Weather: Today the clouds are pouring down rain, after gathering their strength all morning. We certainly want no part of the wildfires that are flaring up over the Western USA.

Charity Alert: The Animal Rescue Site Goal: 2.7 million bowls of food this month -- keep helping them with a click a day please -- they are at 2.1 Million as of this morning.

Garage Sale Booty: Two early paperback books by Ram Dass. A Mickey Mouse push-button telephone/lamp combination from the 70's. (Gotta figure out what kind of lamp shade it needs.) A kitty-cat tape dispenser. A flower pot that might finally be large enough for the Christmas Cactus we rescued from death at a church rummage sale. A classic chrome Osterizer blender!

In The Community: These Power Point presentations are becoming all too common! I had to scramble to set up a computer and data projector at the Hockaday Museum of Art for a meeting of Montana museum directors (MAGDA). I also set up a conventional slide projector next to it -- they were looking at potential traveling shows.
One lazy presenter sent un-optimized photos of their artwork, which made a file over 170MB in size -- I had to reset the virtual memory in the machine before the blasted thing would open.
Hockaday Museum's Website
MAGDA's Website

Media Watch: Thunderstorms interfered with my satellite TV. I watched a tape of Willis O'Brien's The Lost World from 1925. It was the FIRST time stop-action dinosaurs and people co-existed on film. It had a freshness that only comes from original ideas -- Arthur Conan Doyle's story was only 20 years old, and the filmmakers' idea of a monster rampaging through a major city was brand new. Even in silent films, Wallace (Prof. Challenger) Beery was a fabulous actor.
O'Brien refined his techniques further with the incomparible King Kong in 1932, and later introduced his apprentice, and future special-effects master, Ray Harryhausen to the movies with Mighty Joe Young.
Disney Corporation's CGI version of the later flick is a snore-generator. (Sorry Mr. Baker) Dino DiLaurentis' version of the former film is not only a horror, a horror, but only a third-rate horror movie. I have NO expectations for Peter Jackson's upcoming version, except to say that the idea of redoing Kong with CGI isn't original in the least.

Theatre/Theater: I got an email from Stephanie H. Monseu, Vice-President and Booking Coordinator of Bindlestiff Family Variety Arts / Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. She's better known in her role of Ringmistress Philomenia, and is one of the most electrifying performers in the world!
We "spoke" about the uncertain future of Coney Island -- sitting in the gunsights of unscrupulous property developers right now -- and how it would be a shame to lose over 100 years of cultural history for un-needed malls and unaffordable condos.
The Bindlestiffs have fought several losing battles to preserve theaters around over-gentrified Times Square, so I'm hoping for divine intervention in their favor around Brighton Beach.
Bindlestiff Family Cirkus Website
We also mentioned NYU's circus master Hovey Burgess, who chairs the Bindlestiff's board, and my friend, the now-named Crimson Rose, who may (or may not) be lead coordinator of the magnificent Burning Man festival. (There's more than ONE lady named Crimson Rose.)

Thanks to Blogger.com's new photo-feature, here's Motorcycle-Philomenia in motion.


She says: I'm off to Atlantic City to ride a motorcycle on a highwire as part of a thrill show operated by The Fabulous Miss Una, aerialist extraordinaire. (Added 6/30/05)