Two days of excellent Early Spring weather. The Red-Winged Blackbirds are back with their beautiful singing!

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!
SPECIAL: Spitfires of the Spaceways
Watch Dale Arden rescue Flash Gordon for a change!

Charity Alert: Make a resolution as Spring (slowly) approaches to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Worked all day yesterday helping Mark Norley and Linda Engh-Grady install the Minatures Show at the Hockaday. Don't miss: Auction of Miniatures thumbnail pictures and a bid form on the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website!
I went right from there to set up and run FVCC's Honors Symposium at the Red Lion Hotel in the evening. Dr. Debra Miller was very good. She'd worked hard to prepare the keynote lecture in this series on Emerging Roles in Gender. As a sociologist, she clearly explained the none-too-comfortable fact that we are ALL born with a sex, but how we deal with that fact is indoctrinated into us by our various societies -- on so many levels that it is impossible to scientifically distill "Nature" from "Nurture."
The next one is Monday, March 12 - Feminism 101 by Brooke Barnett, director of the Department of Women’s Studies at the University of Montana in Missoula. I'll be running the PA and a Laptop/Data Projector combination for her PowerPoint presentation.

Media Watch: The History Channel was doing another Barbarians Week: Lombards; Franks; Vandals; Saxons; Mongols (Told ya' they belonged in this bunch!); Huns; Goths; and my ol' homeboys, the Vikings -- they outlined the life of bloody King Harald Hadrada of Norway, but skipped King Canute altogether, even though he briefly united most of the North Sea under his rule and did more to establish Christianity as a unifying force than even King Olaf (Harald's older half-brother).
Their new Dark Ages show was just the start.
I saw Derailroaded, a film by Josh Rubin and Jeremy Lubin about out-there street singer Larry (Wild Man) Fischer. Wikipedia article HERE. He was somehow associated with Bill Mumy, Robert Haimer, and the song Fish Heads (One of my favorite early MTV videos). I first heard about Fischer as a protoge of the late Frank Zappa -- the film showed a clip of his appearance on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In when he was on Zappa's Bizarre Records. Zappa and R&M had both sponsored Tiny Tim as well.
I've laughed at the antics of (the late) Tiny Tim and Wild Man Fischer, but I also remember the words of (the late) Phil Ochs: There but for Fortune go you and I...

Mighty Marvel Bombast!

Word is that Marvel Comics' venerable hero Captain America will fall to a sniper's bullet in the next issue. Yeah right. Original co-creator Joe Simon has reportedly said "We still need him!" I frankly doubt that major franchise characters EVER go away for good in comic books -- I know villains don't. This is a portion of Cap's very first issue in 1941. (Most of a year before the US entered WWII) I am very proud to have known his OTHER co-creator -- the late Jakob Kurzenburg AKA Jack (King) Kirby, designer of the Marvel Comics Group.
Image from the Grand Comics Database
Permission granted for all non-commercial use.