Greetings to my readers in Dublin. Sitemeter says you're visiting regularly, so I've got something special for you in the photo section. The Blue Jays showed up at our box feeder yesterday -- a beautiful pair of blue-feathered, crested birds, obviously looking for peanuts. (You'll get 'em soon!) The weather has been dry and warm, but today's air wasn't near as smokey as other days' have been.

Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net

Starring: 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!
NEW! Spitfires of the Spaceways
Watch Dale Arden rescue Flash Gordon for a change!

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution as Autumn rushes toward us! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: Ridiculous to sublime today --
Ree-diculous! George White's Scandals of 1935 on TCM -- looked like it might have been made earlier than that date. Scandals was a bizarre flick by any standard. Alice Faye and Eleanor Powell both did the same unvarying schtick they'd later do throughout their movie careers. Ned Sparks played his perennial "crab" character. There were over a dozen musical standards which had been introduced in the real, long-running Scandals revue -- a show which played Broadway, and stayed on the road from the 20's until well after WWII. White's focus was Burlesque -- not Minsky's version, but still recognizable by it's low-grade, sentimental jokes, and the decked-out chorines acting as Scandals' stock-in-trade. They had a three-piece curtain that came in from the left, right, and above -- when it came together, there was an Art Deco bon mot in the middle with three live chorus girls smiling and posing in each section.
As a matter of fact, when the old railroad-town theater circuit faded away, the various principals went to work in places like Las Vegas, Miami Beach, or wherever the girlie shows lasted. The movie's production numbers owed a lot to Busby Berkeley, and there was even an intentional satire of Merriam C. Cooper's Carioca from Flying Down to Rio.
I am fond of another 30's backstage flick called Murder At The Vanities, but I haven't seen it since 1990 -- it features a straight-faced version of Cocktails For Two, made famous by Spike Jones' parody, which was played for two or more generations by Dr. Demento. That whole film is excruciating!
Sublime -- Tehanu by Ursula K. LeGuin -- there is more beneath the surface of this little fantasy book than I could fathom, but she had me in tears at times. The setting is Earthsea, but cruelty and horror leaven the tale -- without magic most of the time. There isn't much of either, but she doesn't need an awful lot to make dread and fear so palpable the readers can taste it themselves. Age and loss are major themes as well, including the dues we pay for choices we make as we live. The two main characters from Earthsea's finest book, The Tombs of Atuan, are reunited in the story, but their pre-existing identities aren't all that important compared to the gut-wrenching conflicts they endure on the underbelly of their fantastic world. Magic plays a small part, but brings a lot of trouble along with it.
Ms. LeGuin has been a literary and emotional gift to the S-F genre, and I'm glad to be alive while she is writing. My boss lent me her copy of Tehanu, so I'm giving her a bookplate autographed by the author in thanks.

Theater/Theatre: I'm sending this blog back to Footsbarn -- we need a laugh!


(Clockwise left to Right) Sister Rhonna, Sister Roseanna, Sister Clara, and Sister Beatrice warm up their pipes for a turn around the Midway on James' Velocycle, led by Father Seamus, jive-ass extraordinaire.