Updates are coming: Theater X-Net

Featuring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Wildlife and Weather: The Bald Eagle perched by the aereation pond at first light this morning. The widespread meltwaters might have made it difficult to spot. The temperature was nearly 40 degrees (F), and everything was slushy. The roads were driveable, at least, but there were big puddles of runoff at every intersection. Big banks of clouds shrouded the mountains, and I hope it was snowing up there!

Charity Alert: Soak up some good karma with a contributing click on The Hunger Site.

In The Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art and Flathead Valley Community College are both CLOSED for the rest of the year 2005. I'm going to get another nighttime photo of the Hockaday before we take the lights down, though.

Media Watch: I was busy today, and didn't sit in one place very long. Last night I saw a program on the History Channel about the origins of the Christmas story -- there were many of the same faces I saw on 48 Hours earlier in the week talking about the same subject, only THIS time they included the contradictions with history resident in those miraculous gospels and traditional tales.
While I was getting ready to go out this morning, I flipped through Fox's morning show from Los Angeles and there was Jillian Barbarie doing "The Weather!" Why is that expression in quotes? Her maps and forecasts were showing on the screen, but she wasn't saying anything -- she danced around gleefully while a visiting choir sang an acapella Christmas song. I figure that dance she was doing was called "The Weather." It was actually heartfelt and cute -- she's best when she's spontaneous. There will be NFL football on TV for the next three days, but who knows if I'll have time to catch her act later?
There were some beautiful selections of classical and pre-classical music playing on Montana Public Radio as I drove around.

Out and About: Christmas shopping means crowded stores and dangerous parking lots, but it also means chance meetings with friends and moments of delight when you find what you're looking for. I read the local paper during lunch and the editorial page was full of letters from incensed dupes going on about their putative war on Christmas which rages in their OWN minds and sours their OWN bowels.
I'll take visions of sugarplums for myself -- Merry Christmas!