A small flock of BIG Canadian Geese ringed the pond yesterday, and the Bald Eagles took turns watching for fish. "Big Boy" Eagle stood guard this morning.

See Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton: 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 in February too! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Lecture by Denny Kellogg at the Hockaday later today -- I'll be setting up the data projector for his Powerpoint presentation, plus bringing a microphone.
Hockaday Museum of Art

Media Watch: Dancing with the Stars had a surprise in store -- Tony & Stacy danced well in their free dance, but it was a LOUSY DANCE. I've been pulling for Drew & Cheryl all along, but I was scratching my head when it looked like their main competitors forgot they were in a contest.
HOW BAD WAS IT?
It was SO BAD the judges gave Jerry & Anna a better score on their free dance.
Jerry Rice steadily progressed from week to week, but those judges never warmed to his dancing.
Sunday is the season finale, and there's supposed to be ONE more judged dance.
I hope they are done with the flashbacks too -- hearing Barry Manilow forgetting his own song, and Bill Medley barely able to croak were hard to endure. Medley was a favorite of mine in the mid 60's when he led the Righteous Brothers, and I'd rather remember him singing well on TV shows like Shindig.


Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield on Shindig circa 1964
Carole Shelyne was the "dancer with the glasses"
Teri Garr also danced with this widely-watched ensemble for awhile
They were on the cover of Time Magazine in 1965

A huge immature Bald Eagle with a smaller white-headed companion next to the pond yesterday! Pileated Woodpecker(s) eating suet on the deck for the first time in almost ten years. (See picture below) The sub-zero temperatures are done for now, and we had over four inches of fluffy snow overnight.

Updated with Michael "Kidd Funkadelic" Hampton!: 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 in February too! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Lecture by Denny Kellogg -- he will discuss Herman Schnitzmeyer’s work and show additional photographs of Wyoming, Montana, and other photos from the Northern Pacific Railroad collection. Friday, February 24, 3:00 pm
I'll be setting up the data projector for his Powerpoint presentation, plus bringing a microphone -- this guy's a QUIET speaker.
Hockaday Museum

Media Watch: I completely missed Skating With Celebrities last Monday -- watched the Olympics instead. Their token grumpy Englishman, John Nicks, is Sasha Cohen's coach, and she skated a KILLER short program. Hey! Look at this -- there was no Celebrities show this week -- the finale is Monday the 27th! Skating With Celebrities
MY Olympic Highlights -- I have enjoyed the Japanese ice skaters, men and women. Their choreography and presentations have been pleasantly original. Silvia Fontana of Italy skated a hot dance number to a jazzy blues, but was second-to-last among the qualifiers. I think the music was a touch too tricky. I mention her because I liked the performance, and because she's married to John Zimmerman of Skating With Celebrities and was on Queer Eye with him a year or two back.
Speaking of GRUMPS! -- Local favorites Barbara Fusar-Poli and Maurizio Margaglio of Italy fell at the end of their ice-dance on Sunday. Barbara indulged in an icy, glaring, grumpfest for the next twenty-four hours that was right out of a bad soap-opera. They performed brilliantly on Monday, nevertheless, but it was alternatingly funny and terrifying to see their emotional jack-hammer ride.
I was VERY sorry to see the Canadian lady Marie-France Dubreuil fall so hard that she couldn't skate the next night.
An observation, not a complaint, about ice-dancing costumes -- They are "cut" like standard ballroom outfits, which means the women look half-naked. On the ice, they use a lot of skin colored nylon, though.
My wife is a skier, and we've enjoyed seeing the downhill events, including those scary stunts where they flip up in the air thirty feet or so -- better them than me! We try to endure the various skate and sled races, but we use the fast-forward feature quite quickly.


A Pileated Woodpecker at our suet feeder
Middle Foy's Lake February 21, 2006