Weather and Wildlife: The big sky is still flinging snow flurries at us -- yesterday afternoon we had sunshine and snow at the same time. This morning I drove/slid to work on extremely slick roads caked with layers of white crytalline deposits of heavenly precipitation. The songbirds have been scare lately -- we think that the Sharp-Shinned Hawk is still lurking nearby.

Updates are underway: 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!

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: A very good opening reception at the Hockaday Museum of Art! Most all of the Montana Impressionists came to meet their public, and a significant portion of the Flathead Valley Art Educators stopped by too. Herman Schnitzmeyer is dead, but his photos were appreciated by all in attendance. We had two artist couples who came in late -- very late, so late we had to turn the lights back on in their gallery, because we were closing up the museum. They are friends of mine, so I will not say their names. (To be fair, we SAID we were going to be open until 8 PM, and there were still 15 minutes to go.)

Media Watch: Dancing With The Stars -- Our favories, Cheryl and Drew, did very well. I didn't like "Tina Sparkle"'s choreography, but she got the same score (27 out of 30). Tia Carrere's partner did the best choreography and they got a 26. Giselle Fernandez had the funniest moment of the show topping the already-funny George Hamilton -- he started speaking Spanish while pleading for viewer's votes. "I know what he's saying," she told the befuddled announcer. She then took the microphone and said (paraphrased): "He's telling you to vote for Giselle Fernandez and Jonathan Roberts!" as Hamilton went on in the background.
The two male judges were outright rude to "Master P" Miller -- he actually tried this time, and did OK in his clinches with Ashley Del Grosso. We didn't like the way he was treated, and VOTED for the self-made millionaire and well-meaning dance floor schlub. (I hope we didn't jinx him -- remember we voted for "Sticks" too, and he was out on his tail the next day.)
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
TCM has been showing Japanese animated movies by Hayao Miyazaki on Thursdays. This week it was Whisper of the Heart (Mimi wo Sumaseba) from 1995.
Director: Yoshifumi Kondou; Screenplay, Storyboards, Production: Hayao Miyazaki; Character Designs: Kitarou Kousaka, based on rough designs by Yoshifumi Kondou; From on the manga by Aoi Hiiragi. Hayao Miyazaki Web -- An illustrated site about this movie and more.
Marc Hairston says in part: One of the key elements of the movie is the old John Denver song Country Roads. The movie opens with Olivia Newton-John singing it (her version was a hit in Japan in the 1970s), and throughout the movie Shizuku struggles to write new Japanese lyrics to the song. At one point she does a parody of it called Concrete Roads which describes her city life. Ironically, her spoof is closer to her real life than the cliched images of country life that she keeps trying to use. The movie closes with her new version of the song, but now it is more about her life and her experiences growing up than about country life. Shizuku has finally begun to find her voice as a writer.
Miyazaki "felt that children living in the modern day Japan need their own story" as opposed to the nostalgic movies like Totoro which look back to an idyllic country life. In Miyazaki's own words: "'For Shizuku, who grew up in the newly founded residential area in the city, the green earth or mountain momma has little to do with her. After many struggles, she reaches the conclusion that for her, this scenery with convenience stores and fast food restaurants is her 'home', and she has no choice but to live here with her feet down to earth."


Moments of Fantasy (Left) and Reality (Right) in Whisper of the Heart
This matter-of-fact portrait of modern Tokyo teaches foreigners like me a lot about Japanese culture as the movie's well-realized characters go about their daily lives. A parallel world of wonder breaks up the conventional story once teenaged Shizuku follows a commuting cat on it's way to a mysterious shop. If You Listen Closely is another translation of the title. Many thanks to FVCC Literature Professor Christy Kabler for recommending this series to me, and showing Miyazaki's films to her classes!

Weather and Wildlife: The snow cleared up and the roads even melted over the last two days. The deer aren't happy about their grazing being interrupted by storms. There were several groups of them gleaning under the bird feeders during the evening hours yesterday.

Updates are underway: 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!

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: OK -- Skating with the Celebrities wasn't a bad show. It won't win any awards for originality, though. Jillian (Warry) Barbarie admitted that she ice-skated as a kid. Nancy Kerrigan's partner plays hockey. Kristie Swanson was slapped down too hard by the judges, but Bruce Jenner was treated too kindly. The Diff'rnt Strokes guy was better than the judges said, and so was Deborah Gibson. Speaking of judges, their token Grumpy Englishman didn't really relish his part as a killjoy, and voted nicer than his remarks.

In The Community: Opening reception for Montana Impressionists, Herman Schnitzmeyer, and Flathead Valley Art Educators. We're expecting over 200 guests at the Hockaday Museum of Art tonight.

Justice Delayed: Gustav Klimt's eccentricly decorated, but famous, portrait of Viennese beauty Adele Bloch-Bauer is now officially the property of her family's heirs, sixty-plus years after it was confiscated by the Nazis. If the Austrians want the painting to stay in Vienna, they really should pay a fair price for it somehow -- something to compensate in some way, and show regret for, killing and expelling their magnificent Jewish population, who contributed so much to world culture before WWII.


Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt circa 1906
This respectable industialist's wife was the model for
Art Nouveau's own decadent version of Mona Lisa, and became a major Poster Queen of college students for the last forty years

Weather and Wildlife: A blizzard is steadily depositing snow since yesterday evening. It didn't seem to stop the Bald Eagle, but the other critters are lying low.

Updates are underway: 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!

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: NASA TV is usually just about the dullest channel there is, but they had a number of interesting shows about the soon-to-be-launched Planet Pluto/Kuiper Belt probe, and the comet dust collecting satellite that just landed in Utah. They even mentioned new Planet Xena (but not her companion Gabrielle).


Actor Lucy Lawless (Left) and stuntwoman Zoe Bell (Right) as the two halfs of Xena, Warrior Princess. A photo of Kuiper Belt Objects (planet & moon) Xena and Gabrielle is in the upper left corner.

Martin Luther King's great I Have A Dream speech from 1963 was commemorated on C-Span, and shown as it appeared on NBC back then via videotape on Al Gore's Current TV.

Updates are under weigh: 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: Day-um! That was one BIG Bald Eagle on the lake today. Speaking of big, those male Pheasants feeding in the front must weigh close to 15 pounds.

Weather: A gray day, with a couple of very light snow flurries.

In The Community: The gift shop at the Hockaday Museum was selling things at a steady rate during Summer and Fall. It slowed down as Winter deepened, even with Christmas shoppers cruising through. Jewelry didn't move as well as it has done before. It would be nice to bring the numbers up before the tourist season starts again. See if there's anything you want to put in YOUR shopping cart -- Hockaday Museum of Art

Media Watch: Al Gore gave a great speech today, which was shown live on C-Span, and is being rebroadcast all over the media. So he sounded like a politician -- that's what he's been all his life. He told the truth, which is enough to make big waves in today's deception-swamped world.

Follow-Up: There were a couple of shows on satellite TV about Buffalo Bill Cody and Annie Oakley.
One was a slide show/lecture on C-Span about Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show and it's impact on the public's imagination. The effect was considerable -- people today know the name Buffalo Bill all over the world without knowing either the man or the legends about him.
The other was the 1935 Annie Oakley movie starring Barbara Stanwyck on TCM. Those fatuous legends I just mentioned were both laughed at in the movie, and used without shame. (Her husband did NOT damage his eyesight saving Sitting Bull from a drunken assassin.) Oakley had only passed away a decade before, and half of the movie-going public would have seen Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show a generation earlier.
I find it interesting that many dramatizations of Oakley's act in the movie were based on films of her actual performances. The costumes are exact copies, and Stanwyck duplicates Oakley's mannerisms to an amazing degree. There was something that struck my eye -- Annie Oakley was actually prettier than Barbara Stanwyck! Hollywood usually over-glamorizes their characters, but Oakley's prim good looks outshone the actresses who later portrayed her, or rather the tall tales associated with her name -- including Ethel Merman, Betty Hutton, and Gail Davis. The documentary films from the early 20th Century also prove she kept her wholesome beauty all her life. Larry McMurtry had a point about she and Cody being America's first superstars.


Annie Oakley circa 1910

Wildlife and Weather: Mist in the morning, which blew away into a sunny, near-forty degree day. (Fahrenheit! Fahrenheit!) The Bald Eagles came and went, plus two small flocks of Canadian Geese. At least two Goldeneye Ducks dived in the pond too, while big male Pheasants grazed in the front yard under a cackling Blue Jay.

Updates are in progress: 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!

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution! Click on The Hunger Site once a day.

Media Watch: From the One Nation Board Room (A.K.A. P-Board):
"Kim just got BOUNCED by Flav!!"
I don't have to watch that dawg-azzed show anymore!
I felt like Horton hatching his %$#@! egg:
"I meant what I said. I said what I meant..."
(I support all 'Mobsters 100%)
I muted the sound most of the time, because I've watched enough MTV/VH1 to know when there's just alotta back-biting and bleeped-over swearing going on.
Ms. Manning left holding her head high.
That other lady's tears shoulda been tears of joy at her release from "Flava's Reform School 4 Gurrls."


Kim Manning onstage singing in 2004
George Clinton & the P-Funk All-Stars use Washburn guitars

More Media: While that stupid VH1 thing was on, I finished reading Deep Simplicity by John Gribbin. It attempts to explain Gaia, Chaos Theory, and basic fractals in layman's language, and demonstrates how life is one of many natural systems which are simple in their basic constructs. Complexities occur based upon the way systems start, and the feedback they generate exchanging energy with the universe's other systems.
Earlier in the day I was trying to follow a Harvard physicist on Book TV who was talking about String Theory, and theoretical constructs called Branes which make many aspects of this esoteric theory work -- including Gravity. She spoke of multiple dimensions too, but I was also watching ... (guess what):
NFL Football -- It was a tough Sunday for the home teams. The Pittsburgh Steelers beat Indianapolis in the Colts' own domed stadium. Carolina beat Chicago on the frigid turf of Soldier's Field. Yesterday was different. Denver outplayed New England in Colorado, and Seattle humiliated Washington D.C.'s team in Washington State. The Seahawks' best player was knocked out of the game with a concussion early in the first quarter, though. I hope he'll be alright in a week -- they play Carolina in Seattle for their divisional championship. Denver will host the Steelers, and the two winners will meet in the Superbowl on February 5, 2006.
MAD-TV's Frank did a funny Bush impersonation during the pre-game show. I tuned in late, and didn't see Jillian -- whatever, she'll be on Skating with the Stars soon. She's Canadian-born, and was married to a hockey player once -- she might know how to ice-skate.
BTW -- Dancing with the Stars covers two nights this season. Friday was a "results" show. Nick Kosovich and Tatum O'Neal recieved the lowest overall score, and were eliminated from the competition. I thought she had a chance to win -- shows how dumb I am! That lousy too-slow Rhumba the women had to do didn't excite me at all -- only Stacy Keibler managed to make it look like a dance. The judges gave her and Tony Dovolani 29 points out of 30.
The male "stars" had to do the Quickstep. I should write snide jokes about George Hamilton and Master P, but I won't.