Beautiful Autumn rain -- colorful leaves are still on the trees, plus the Tammaracks are turning color too. Some folks complain about the cloudy skies, but they keep the place warm. We had a huge Red Tailed Hawk visiting the Flathead Valley Community College campus yesterday -- big as a small Eagle. (see below)

Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris, from my jet-lagged day by the Seine.
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 progresses! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: Dancing With The Stars made it a "Mulligan" this week -- no couple was eliminated, even though Jerry Springer shouldn't be on the damn show at all. Maybe his staff should set up one of those fake conflicts which made his crummy televised talk-fests so popular. Let's see -- the story will go something like this: Jerry Springer is expected to make a full recovery after an assault by professional wrestler Warren (White Trash) Warren, who complained "He called me and my twin sister (pro wrestler Tina (Trailer Trash) Warren) INCESTUOUS, just because we are married. I'll have you know we are not that kinda people -- we're good Southern Baptists!"

FVCC Wildlife


We have had Rough Legged Hawks and Owls on campus before, but this Red Tail Hawk is one of the biggest visitors yet. There was a Bald Eagle a year or so ago, but he/she wasn't much larger than this specimen.

It was dark this morning, and there were two clusters of Whitetail Deer in the neighborhood -- I know because they ran right in front of me twice on the way to work! (Go SLOW, Mike.)

Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris, from my jet-lagged day by the Seine.
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 progresses! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: Winifred Shaw -- one of Cinema's greatest unknowns, who sang and starred in Busby Berkeley's scary masterpiece Lullaby of Broadway in 1935, was also the star of Broadway Hostess a forlorn 70-minute bill-filler which TCM showed along with some other forgettable backstage dramas* last week. Tireless journeyman actor Lyle Talbot was her leading man. Allen Jenkins, Spring Byington, and other stock performers from First National Pictures padded the cast.
Lloyd Bacon is supposedly the director, but I doubt he was on the lot much -- the story and songs stink, and the production looks like the work of various assistants. Berkeley had NOTHING to do with this movie's Playboy In Paree number -- he was making his own flicks at the time, while trying to recover from a car accident which almost landed him in jail for negligent homocide.
Somebody spent a little money on special effects -- placing a dozen or so chorus girls in a champagne glass, wearing balloon-festooned costumes, and bubbling up to a zooming lens. Poor Winnie doesn't get the man she wants, and ends the film by saying to her good-hearted accompanist: "...A girl always needs a piano player..."
(Read Wini Shaw's Wikipedia Article.)
Ms. Shaw crossed paths with Busby Berkeley again when she sang The Lady In Red during a cantina sequence for Dolores Del Rio's comedy In Caliente. Whatever thunder she built up at the beginning was stolen by Judy Canova doing a low-comedy dialect number which frankly ruined the piece. Edward Everett Horton was his usual funny self, and even Pat O'Brien was tolerable. Del Rio herself was excellent in a less-than-stellar movie -- her identical fate in Berkeley's own Wonder Bar.
*Jean (Dale Arden) Rogers was beautiful, competent, and charming in Let's Make Music, a real pile of carpet-sweepings from a Hollywood cutting-room floor -- featuring popular bandleader Bob Crosby. (I knew a man named Hal who had played clarinet in Crosby's orchestra. Hal was a good friend and ally of my theater company in the 70's.)

C'mon along and listen to -- the lullaby of Broadway!

Winifred Shaw's immortal starring moment as the focus of Busby Berkeley's frightening dance sequence from Golddiggers of 1935. She starts by singing in the dark, as the camera slowly zooms in on the oval of her beautiful Hawaiian face. Berkeley then quotes Man Ray as Winnie sticks a cigarette in her mouth and lies down to visually morph into the New York City skyline.

Winifred Shaw then becomes a "Broadway Baby," in a hot romance with Dick Powell. True to the song, she comes home at dawn, sleeps all day, and is off in a limo that night. This particular photo is from the abstract nightclub scene where Winnie and Dick party above a huge crowd of male and female tap dancers, who eventually stampede our "Broadway Baby" over the balcony of a skyscraper.
Winnie reappears to finish the song, but the audience never knows what's supposed to be surreal or real.

What happened to the Canadian Geese? We haven't heard them honking after dark lately. This doesn't have anything to do with migrating birds, but we're hearing Coyotes again -- our cats are NOT going out until full daylight, no matter how much they whine and cry in the dark mornings! The rain was welcome this morning, since our lawn water was turned off last week for the Winter.

Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Don't miss Ida's Places in Paris, from my jet-lagged first day by the Seine.
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 settles in! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: I foolishly hit my head doing housework Saturday, and had to lie down for the rest of the day. In between naps, I watched TV and read a large-print edition of A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow -- Einstein and Quantum Mechanics are still at odds, and are still both correct in what they describe. String Theory is still an unfulfilled promise for unifying Theoretical Physics, but it's use of the term branes for space and time structures is pretty funny. Gravity may act like a force to us, but I still think that Einstein was onto something when he described it as an intrinsic element of Space-Time -- you can't block it, unlike other forces.
Sleazy Movies -- John Travolta and Uma Thurman in a violent fantasy about double-dealing in the Music Industry. I suspect the characterization of devious criminal Chili Palmer resembles Travolta's fellow Scientologists. Kevin Bacon and Colin Frith wasted their talent in another show-biz murder flick, unconvincingly set in the 50's and 60's, with interchangeable 21st Century blondes and their breasts on display. The female actors performed well, but they sure had degrading roles to play.
Good Movies -- Rosie Perez directed a documentary about the people of Puerto Rico, and their relatives who live and travel between the sun-kissed island and Mainland USA.
PBS -- Various Nevilles, Meters, and other New Orleans musicians were laying down those fine Louisiana Rhythm & Blues on Austin City Limits as the New Orleans Social Club. Nova had a concise run-down of the Vinland Map forgery. Mysteries of the Dead showed a convincing analysis of the Hindenburg disaster that blamed it's Aluminum Dust/Iron Oxide dirigible coating for igniting the orange fireball witnessed at it's demise, rather than the near-invisible blue-burning Hydrogen which made the doomed ship lighter than air. The metallic combination mentioned above is now used as a component of solid rocket fuel, and is easily set off with an electrical spark.
Book TV -- Jeff Cohen had some insights about the prostitution of Network News in his book Cable News Confidential . Contemptible ex-Senator John Ashcroft seemed to make a belated observation that his and his allies' divisive misuse of religion has dire consequences for civil society. Oh well, he's rich, old, and will die before the fires of Hell he ignited on Earth destroys everything he claims to treasure -- bleepin' hypocrite! Jim Bohanon and his guest were laughing about mercenaries in Iraq -- only what they said about that subject wasn't funny at all.
History Channel -- Decoding the Exodus tries too hard, and ranges too wide. There were intense cultural and commercial contacts between Egypt, The Hittites, various Greeks, and so-called Babylonians all through the Bronze Age -- trying to tie everything we know about them together via the stories of Moses is too opportunistic to be credible, but somebody gave those film makers a lot of money anyway.

A Footsbarn picture from Footsbarn itself!

An aerial picture of Footsbarn's 35th Anniversary site in Central France, sent to me by Pascal-Ritchie Perot, their ace Technical Director, looking Northward. The Aumance River valley with distant St. Caprais fills the top third of the photo.


(Spiraling inward, clockwise from the upper-right corner) Compagnie Tzigane Werdyn; Le Bivouac des Voyageurs; Theatre Luzzi; Tra La La Splatch; The blue roof of Buckinger's Boot Marionette theater; Compagnie Pavaly's outdoor puppet stage; various living trailers and caravans on the lane leading in and out of La Chaussee; The official volunteers' campsite and meal tent; the Entrance Gate (still under construction); Circling back along the midway -- The Pizza Restaurant; The Organic Restaurant & Kitchen; My evening hangout -- Chapiteau Bleu Restaurant & Bar; Le Billettrie info tent, with it's striped roof; The children's play yard, marked by the small, round Yurt; An adult bar, across from Buckinger's Boot; and finally -- big, white Chapiteau Footsbarn with it's own little open-until-5:30 AM cafe waiting to be built, once that un-needed extra entrance comes down.