Wildlife: Whitetail Deer are all over the neighborhood. I think that buck that ran in front of me the other night was killed a few nights later by traffic -- there's a big body laying on the side of the road in about the same spot where I had to hit my brakes.



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

Weather: It's reasonably dry here today, but those clouds are threatening, and it's snowing on the border in Eureka, Montana.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click to help a half-dozen charities.

Media Watch: NPR tries to give us a window on the world, but it's rarely pretty -- Cruel shortages of doctors in Africa; Unconscionable neglect of the earthquake victims in Kashmir; Abyssmal depopulation and corruption in New Orleans; A Radio Tour of Krishna's city Vrindavan in India;
Well, THAT was nice -- warts and all -- but it had very little to do with the purported subject of belief in the the afterlife. Most religions, including the Hundustani veneration of Krishna, are much more about how we LIVE than they are about mystical cosmologies. National Public Radio
Speaking of India -- We saw the late Ismail Merchant and James Ivory's The Guru from 1969, starring Michael York and Rita Tushingham. The movie's depiction of York as a Rock Star is pretty weak, but that's probably the writer's fault -- when he and Tushingham act as normal English people they are very convincing. Overall, it's a fairly good, though very slight, film.
Here's what James Ivory says about it:
The Guru seems now to be a brightly colored fairy tale, a kind of 1960s fable, in which a muddled young urchin prince is deposited, via Air India's flying carpet, in a land of broad rivers, oriental domes, and harems full of plotting ladies. In this ever-so-puzzling kingdom, ruled over by an insecure despot who can thunder one moment and summon up divine music the next, our urchin prince has many strange adventures. There are witches who cast evil spells, magic amulets, a courtesan who is strangled by her own strings of pearls, cups containing mind-altering brews, and ancient seers who deal out both encouragement and fierce rebuke.
At the end of all his trials, the young prince, now enlightened, boards his magic carpet to return to his own far off land. He is sheltering his treasure in his arms - the simple, good-hearted maiden he has set free from her imprisoning dreams, and who loves him. The Guru, the most unseen and mysterious of our movies, was Merchant Ivory's version of a sixties trip. To me anyway, it holds up as well - though some might say no better than - any of the others of the genre that have survived. -J.I.


Classic Sri Krishna
Krishna on Wikipedia

Wildlife: I seem to be out and about with the Whitetail Deer in the mornings lately.



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

Weather: Rain, with snow above 5000 feet. The sun came out briefly about noon.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click to help people, forests and animals.

Media Watch: Thanks to a tip on DailyKos.com, I saw Joe Wilson on CSPAN last night while dishing out Halloween treats.
I wish I could stay as focused and rational while fighting the unprincipled thieves and liars who are his enemies.
From the senators who make false claims about his reports, to the journalists who repeat known lies to his face, just so that they'll be heard one more time, the scale of the machinery of retribution is massive, and it is awe-inspiring to see someone standing up to all that abuse.
His greatest point remains partially obscured by the drama of his plight -- the people who manipulated false intelligence to preconcieved ends, and cavalierly exposed top-secret information for political payback struck a literal blow on the safety of everyone in our country. It shouldn't be a partisan issue -- boundaries and laws have been violated by those responsible for maintaining them.

One Halloween film I WISH was on TV last night:

Patricia Laffan as the Devil Girl From Mars
with her walking refrigerator -- uh, robot guardian

Wildlife: The mini-herd of Whitetail Deer ran in front of me on the way into work this morning -- I saw them in plenty of time. Last night I had to hit the brakes on Foy's Lake Road when a buck leaped in front of us on the way home.



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

Weather: Rain again, after a mild weekend.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Help these charities by clicking.

Media Watch: We saw the new Antonio Banderas/Catherine Zeta-Jones Zorro movie with our houseguest yesterday. It was a comic-book flick for sure, and fairly fun, but I must say I've read many better-plotted comic books. Zorro's horse had the best scenes -- lots of CGI and matting to make the stunts look good.
All that cattiness aside, this is the kind of movie I like: