Weather: Most of the week was clear and hot (for here). Today rain sweeps the valley from south to north from waves of turbulent black clouds. Our view of Glacier National Park is lost in a deep-gray haze, but I won't be surprised if there is white on the peaks tomorrow.



Visit: A Tale of Two Movies

Wildlife: Maybe it's so dark the deer think its evening. I saw one grazing by the road about one o'clock in the afternoon.

Charity Alert: The Animal Rescue Site Simply click to donate on this, and five other donation pages.

In The Community: Earlier this week, I shot some video for Flathead Valley Community College's regular cable infomercial up a nearby hill, on the grounds of Bibler Gardens. The flowerbeds and views of the valley are fantastic, plus there are many unusual birds and animals living there. This next Current Events segment will be special because I've recruited Marca Vogle, our Recruiting Officer to share the front of the camera with Tara Burkhalter, our Information Officer. We are getting conversations instead of press releases, and I'm happy about that. We are shooting at the school again on Thursday, so Bibler Gardens was kind of an on-the-job-training session for Marca.

Media Watch: Dancing With The Stars finished up with Kelly and Eric winning out over John and Charlotte. The latter couple was VERY consistent, as they had been throughout the series. Their two dances on the last night both scored three 9s from the judges. Kelly, the Soap Opera Lady wore the same costume that had almost fallen off two weeks before, but it was re-designed with extra straps. The trouble was, her first dance only got a score of 25 from the panel. (That damn costume's just plain jinxed!) Alec, her partner, really stepped out in the athletic dance which followed -- Kelly performed all sorts of carries, drops, and spins. It looked like there were some minor flubs because of timing and recovery, but they received three 10s in a row anyway. Along with votes from phone calls and the Internet, Soap Opera Lady beat Sitcom Actor at the end. The pollsters estimated that 16 million people watched this show. Well, we did too, and had a very good time.
I am less than overwhelmed by the new season of Queer Eye For The Straight Guy. The ending of a show of any kind is so important, but they complained about the client's girlfriend in the final segment again, verbally ganging up on her. It wasn't funny the first time, wasn't funny the second time, and left a bad feeling for me, the viewer.
I watched the first part of AFI's tribute to George Lucas last night. Boot-licking is not entertainment in my opinion, so I was ready to switch the channel -- but William Shatner started the show (WHAT?!?) as a comedian. He acted as if he was at a Star Trek convention at first, then did one of his excruciatingly bad talk-songs (Paul Anka's My Way) with a chorus of Imperial Storm Troopers -- "Regrets, I've had a few, ANYBODY SEE HOWARD THE DUCK?" -- Funny! Funny! Once the tongues started wagging I went away.
My own appreciation: Lucas has done more to advance the technology of moviemaking than anyone else in the last two generations, so he surely deserves his share of praise. My favorite Lucas film is American Graffiti, although I like some segments of Star Wars too. He has weaknesses, like everybody -- remember what Jedi Master Yoda says: George Lucas writing dialogue so terrible at is.

Garage Sale Booty: I found some real highs and lows among the used books this weekend: Lows FIRST -- The Elvis Sightings inutterable nonsense by Peter Eicher; The Tarot Murders -- A Novel of Suspense by Mignon Warner; TV 80 (actually published in 1979) superficial rubbish about then-current television stars by Lisa Freeman; Higher than low -- Movie Comedy Teams (1974) by Leonard Matlin; Saturday Night Live (1977) scripts and photos from their best period, edited by Annie Beatts & John Head;
Recent Anthologies -- Kate Chopin: The Awakening and Selected Stories; Contemporary Fiction: 50 Short Stories Since 1970; Older Anthologies -- Cathedral (1984) by Raymond Carver; Great Tales of Fantasy and Imagination (Pocket Books 1954, 1st PB Edition); The Writer's Chapbook (1989 1st Edition) Interviews with famous writers from the Paris Review by the late George Plympton; Other Hardbound First Editions: Interface: The Painter and the Mask by Francoise Gilot, a fine artist, best known for her long-time liaison with Pablo Picasso; Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut; The Generous Years: Remembrances of a Frontier Boyhood by Montana's own Chet Huntley; (I bought it for about 80 cents. People ususlly want a fortune for this minor autobiography around here.) Paperback Poetry -- Leonard Cohen: Selected Poems 1956-1968 (11th printing 1977); The Energy of Slaves: Poems by Leonard Cohen (1973, First PB Edition). Reprinted Paperback Classics -- How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education (1940) by Mortimer Adler; The Dwarf (1945) by Nobel laureate Par Lagerkvist. (Author of Barabbas and The Sybil, two books about people who encounter Divinity, and suffer as a result.) The Pure and the Impure (1932 & 1941) by French literary master (or is it misteress?) Colette; Dusk of Dawn (1940) by W. E. B. Du Bois, including Honoring Dr. Du Bois (1968) by Martin Luther King, the latter's last major speech before his assassination.
Dr. Du Bois has left us but he has not died. The spirit of freedom is not buried in the grave of the valiant... Rev. Martin Luther King Feb. 23, 1968