Rain is washing the dust, slash-fire smoke, and auto exhaust out of the air, plus freshening the flowers! Lilacs are blooming all over Kalispell. Cherries and Plums are in full blossom too. The eight Ducklings were paddling around this morning between squalls.

Funk Master Bernie Worrell at: 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 Summer approaches! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Sitemeter Sez: Southend-On-Sea, UK surfed in for a visit, as did Ile de France in Paris, South China (Maine, that is), and Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome all Yahoo/Google searchers and Blogspotters!

Theater/Theatre: The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus is looking for a Theater Tech/Stage manager! Here's what I wrote to them:
I already have a very involving job here in Montana, but the mere thought of seeing "The Bindlestiffs" every night made my mind wander...
Whoops! I'm back now ...
I was with an English theatre company in the 70's, and they are having their 35th Anniversary Celebration this August -- at their base in France (long story there). Well, I've decided to go -- but it's not just a get-together of old artists, they are hosting about 30 other theatre groups and musical acts from August 9 -13. They will come in from Latin America, Sub-Sahara Africa, India, and all over Europe. I'll probably be one of relatively few Americans on-site, and I'm going over for a WORKING vacation. I'm going to do lights, sound, and take as many pictures as I can shoot. It's very likely I'll find myself rigging tents, and other Cirkus Exotica again, as well -- it's going to take a lotta "grunt" to make this thing happen. Over 10,000 people are expected to turn up to see these shows too -- whew! (Attachment: an arial view of the venue.)
Here's two web links to this event, if you want to see what your distant compadres are up to:
http://footsbarn.com/35/organisation/index.en.html
http://footsbarn.com/35/programme/index.en.html

Here's a link to one of my own web pages -- I've mentioned "The Bindlestiffs" there, and digitally altered one of your pictures, located about 70% of the way to the bottom. Is that OK? (The server and content are very different from what you may have seen before.)
http://theatrex.net/theatre/index.htm
Hey! Here's an idea -- just for fun, pretend that last link is my RESUME -- would you hire me?

They wrote back: I couldn't think of a better guy to have on the road!! We can't offer you the kind of money your experience demands, tho...
They flatter me, but I LOVE it!
I think I'll send them a contribution -- gasoline prices are going to make their summer tour HARD -- whomever reads this blog and lives on the East Coast, do your best to see them.


A digital interpretation from a photo showing Ringmistress Philomena of Bindlestiff Family Cirkus keeping Sideshow Artistry alive. Check out the schedule of the Bindlestiff's Summer Tour.

Eagle in the morning! A quick fly-by right over the back deck. There was also an enormous male Pheasant strutting his considerable stuff in the front of the house as I was backing out my car to go to work -- my Calico Cat Jasmine is TERRIFIED of large birds ever since she was chased by a flock of wild Turkeys a decade ago, and she was nearby -- holding very still, with her green eyes wide and fearful.
By the way -- the weather wasn't quite as hot yesterday as it was on Tuesday.

Funk Master Bernie Worrell at: 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 Summer approaches! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Sitemeter Sez: Jonesboro, Arkansas sailboarded in just long enough to snap up Diana Dors' PHOTO -- the popular English pinup from the late 50's and early 60's.
It was an illustration for Jericho, a detective show set in that time, which is running on PBS' Mystery now. Look HERE if you missed it. (See more artifacts from Pre-Beatle Britain below.)
Some folks are still cruising for "tanya memme nude" -- Google sent them to me again, only they went to the WRONG page. Scroll down if you just can't live without knowing those photos exist. (May, 2006)

Media Watch: I've been reading a book about American Musical Theater -- there's a lot to say about the subject, and some things which stand out 40 years after the book was published. As I was dressing this morning I saw part of a movie from 1943 starring Eddie Cantor, Dinah Shore, and Edward Everett Horton. It was about a roadshow setting out to entertain the troops in WWII, but in it's own silly way, it was also about how show business and popular art changes with time.
Scandal (1989) was on one of the "indy" film channels, despite being a mainstream effort in it's day. It starred John Hurt, Ian McKellen, Bridget Fonda, and Joanne Whalley-Kilmer. It was a VERY fictionalized account of the John Profumo affair (LINK), where a Tory cabinet minister was caught regularly shagging a professional lady named Christine Keeler, who was also doing a Soviet intelligence officer. Her friend Marilyn (Mandy) Rice-Davies and she became internationally famous when they implicated their procurator Stephen Ward in public testimony which caused the fall of the MacMillan government, bringing in Harold Wilson and Labour, and revealing "Swinging London" to the entire world.
I think the Beatles Phenomenon later that year was a kind of catharsis after this event, but it was a very complex thing -- transcending class and British society, as many things underwent transformation -- a bigger wave than any of the ripples I've mentioned.


(L)Mandy Rice-Davis (born near my ancestoral home in Llanelly, Wales) enjoying the glare of flashbulbs in "Swinging London"; (Top) Christine Keeler at one of those COLD English seasides; (Bottom) Ms. Rice-Davis in a news shot; (R) Ms. Keeler during her session for Lewis Morley's best-selling poster.

It's official now -- 92 degrees (F) is HOT! We have a fairly humid climate in this corner of Montana, so it gets oppressive quickly. Hummingbirds are buzzing around the feeders at last.

Funk Master Bernie Worrell at: 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 Summer approaches! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Sitemeter Sez: Someone clicked over via Blogger.com from The Citadel, a famous military acadeny in Charleston, South Carolina. Whomever that person was read most of the same page you are reading now -- but Hazel Court was still on the scroll below.
I took a look at the "referrals" list, and it turned out that I had a few visitors who had been searching for Kristy Swanson last winter. Here's my joke about her various batterings and miscues on Skating With Celebrities: http://northernborder.blogspot.com/2006/02/07

Media Watch: I happenned to see Anne Rice on A&E's Breakfast With The Arts last Sunday. She looked good again, after suffering all those health problems at the turn of this century. She was with Bernie Taupin, the great lyricist and co-writer (with Elton John) of Broadway's version of her character Lestat. The stage phenomenon Les Miserables showed the world that a well-done novel could become a successful musical, and Lestat's producers followed the same model.
Nobody could do worse than that wretchedly-handled Hollywood version of Interview with the Vampire in the mid-90's -- good actors, lousy execution (ahem).
Check out her Wikipedia entry, and take a look at Ms. Rice's Official Site.
Breakfast With The Arts resembles my blog to some extent, in it's scatter-shot range of subjects -- I enjoyed seeing their piece on the Frick Museum's exhibition Goya's Last Years.


Detail from The Miracle of St. Anthony, a fresco by Francisco Goya, painted inside of a dome. He is noted today for the mixture of beauty and grotesqueness in his compositions. This segment of the whole may be a precursor to that theme, but it could also be as simple as an illustration of youth and age.

It's almost HOT for this time of the year in these northern lattitudes! We had Raccoons poking around the back deck last night.

Funk Master Bernie Worrell at: 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 Summer approaches! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Sitemeter Sez: Baltimore, Maryland surfed in from Yahoo looking for "goodnight, sweet prince (biography of john barrymore)" -- they found my blog entry for that very interesting book right HERE: http://northernborder.blogspot.com/2005/07/24
and left after looking at the rest of July last year -- Wildlife, Hockaday Museum events, and Busby Berkeley: http://northernborder.blogspot.com/2005_07
An unspecified surfer from the USA came by via Yahoo looking for "gisele lindley" -- Ms. Lindley was the daring and lovely actress who played Princess in Oingo Boingo's misbegotten Forbidden Zone movie. Her picture is HERE: http://northernborder.blogspot.com/2006/05/03
St. John, New Brunswick (I've been there!) clicked in via Blogger.com and read about Tanya, Lisa, Hazel, the two Herons, and the Hockaday Museum. (Scroll down, they're on THIS page.)
One more Blogger.com user from the U.K. spent time reading my all-text entries from the 2004 Superbowl, plus the 2004 Grammys, Ridley Scotts' Gladiator, and studio musician Al Kooper: http://northernborder.blogspot.com/2004_02

Media Watch: Busby Berkeley's Fashions of 1934 was on TCM again, it boasted Willam Powell, Bette Davis, and the famous pre-censorship sequence featuring swan-feathered chourines and living harps.


Good taste is TIMELESS -- A "Living Harp" from Fashions of 1934

Ducklings at sunset last night! Our first flock of them -- about eight downey featherballs scrambling in the water behind Mama Mallard in Middle Foy's Lake -- they were so small they could ride on her back, but they mostly swam.

Funk Master Bernie Worrell at: 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 Summer approaches! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Sitemeter Sez: Stoke On Trent, England was here long enough to view the Hockaday Museum and the Blue Herons -- I wonder if they scrolled down to see Mary, Lisa, Hazel, and Gothic Angie?
Fujisawa, Japan stayed long enough to read the whole page -- Thanks!
A couple of visitors from Henderson, Nevada and Anderson, Indiana "googled" for tanya memme...nude and all they got was a mention of her A&E show here: http://northernborder.blogspot.com/2005_10_01
That's one of my most 'popular' pages -- B.B. King, George Clinton, and Faux Montana Postcards. The word "nude" referred to Ida Rubinstein, who has quite a few lines of text and several photos on that page (none of them nude). So Google put the words together and sent them to me.
St. Louis, Missouri "googled" Oingo Boingo's movie http://northernborder.blogspot.com/2006/05/
...and checked out this page as well, featuring a brief description of Hungama, the Bollywood comedy: http://northernborder.blogspot.com/2006/04/
I also found out that Sitemeter says the Hockaday Museum's ISP is in Salmon, Idaho! I wrote yesterday's blog while I baby-sat a reception for the Glacier Symphony and Chorale at the museum.



The personable and poised Tanya Memme -- host of Sell This House on A&E. She's not afraid to work hard, or risk getting paint in her long black tresses. As a former Miss World of Canada (and Miss Niagra) she looks like she's saying "I'm an ADULT about modelling -- are YOU?" in the center image.

View from the canoe -- Common Mergansers are swimming around on Middle Foy's Lake. A swift-flying Tern was skimming over the waves. Mallards and Goldeneyes dominated. We know there are Griebes nesting on the Southeast corner, but we didn't want to disturb them.

Funk Master Bernie Worrell at: 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 Summer approaches! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: Yes, they did it -- all afternoon on Mother's Day,
MTV showed solid re-runs of their insult-joke competition YoMama.
What else was on the TV? Senator Russ Feingold was addressing the National Press Club on CSPAN -- quite a relief after the Sunday morning lie & spin shows on the other "news" channels. Sycophancy towards the Radical Right makes very strange bedfellows. When I saw Rupert Murdoch and Hillary Clinton "making nice" yesterday, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, or throw up. DAY - UM! a decade ago Rupert's employees were accusing Hillary of MURDER, and he encouraged them to pile on those unfounded accusations for the sake of ratings.

In The Community: The actual AUCTION of Miniatures is this Friday, May 19, 2006 at the Hockaday Museum of Art. We are showing and selling-off some larger pieces this year, but the real miniatures are exquisite -- and worth many looks before they find new owners!


An interested group of patrons at the Hockaday Museum's Miniatures & More Preview Reception on May 5th