Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net
Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first 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 Winter settles in early! Click on The Hunger Site every day.
In The Community: The Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta is on my agenda this weekend. I'm spending the long Thanksgiving Weekend in and around the Canadian Rockies. Ckeck out the Hockaday Museum's Website for Art Walk information. Hey -- that's a week from Friday!
Media Watch: NFL Football and Book TV normally make up my weekends on Da' Tube. As long as TCM features Superman serials made before the George Reeves TV series, I'll watch them too. Kirk Alyn appeared suspended from wires now and then, but most of the "flying" was still done by a Fleischer-like cartoon in Superman vs. Atom-Man. Noel (Lois Lane) Neill looked almost sexy sometimes too. Me and other Grand Comics Database members are going to write letters, suggesting that the network continue running other examples of this odd entertainment form on Saturday mornings.
Speaking of the NFL, they showed some tight competitive games last Sunday.
Book TV -- Mark Kurlansky and Tom Hayden had a better-than-average discussion about the issue of Nonviolence, live from the Miami Book Fair. Kurlansky made an interesting observation about certain nations recently being "failures as diplomats."
Real books -- The Matter Myth by John Gribbin and Paul Davies is an older attempt to introduce Quantum Theory to the general public (people like me). Gribbin's recent Deep Simplicity was better. I've decided that Davies isn't a very clear writer for me, but I liked his confessional paragraphs about how he got his Ph.D via the language of math, while all the time misunderstanding scientific principles within his own spoken language. He's not alone -- there were a couple of discussion threads on Daily Kos in Darksyde's Science Friday feature where folks were trying very hard to project their religious feelings onto phenomena they obviously didn't understand.
I personally think it's IMPOSSIBLE to deal with Quantum Physics without mastery of Calculus -- which I don't possess. (Gawd knows I've tried.) What I find dramatic about Science are those cases where seemingly arcane theories repeatedly predict actual facts, which are the only things that matter. Science demands subservience to provable Reality. I think this chaps the asses of those who try to inflict their unsubstantiated assertions onto you and me. There are many ways of working with it, but ignoring or misrepresenting Reality is folly.
