Sunny day, but cold as all get-out. We're still in luck -- much of the Midwestern USA is covered in snow.

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: Make a Post-Equinox* resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day.
(*Still hard to call this weather Spring.)

In The Community: Children's and High School Art shows opening tonight at Hockaday Museum of Art. I have a fund-raiser there tomorrow night too -- helping to rebuild trails in Glacier National Park damaged by last Autumn's extreme weather.

Media Watch: Trash A-Go-Go -- Slimey talk-show host Leeza Gibbons is OFF Dancing With The Stars. Long-time social pollutant and shock-jock Don Imus opened his dirty, racist mouth one too many times and was booted off TV. (Update -- and CBS radio.) May we hope that fellow dung-piles like Rush Limbaugh, Mike Savage, and Glenn Beck will be held to account for their ugly bigotry too?
Real Books -- One of the U.S.A.'s finest humanitarian writers just passed away -- Kurt Vonnegut (1923-2007). From In These Times, May 10, 2004:
But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
These are the words of a man who survived the Great Depression, capture by the German army at the Battle of the Bulge, and the soul-searing, useless fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945. If he had a mantra, it was "Be Kind."
As a young teenage Science Fiction fan, I read a few of his short stories, and tackled Sirens of Titan to my great delight. The literary quality of his work made me realize that he was more of a distinguished visitor to the genre rather than one of the yarn-spinners I was used to reading. As the 60's progressed, his star rose ever higher in literary skies. Later, when he wrote less, he still wrote very well, saying things which needed to be said.
I once met him at a book signing inside Elliot Bay Books in Seattle in 1990 -- he was friendly, humorous, and witty, without any pretentions. He will be missed, but his writings will endure. Here are some web pages and multimedia featuring Vonnegut:
http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/vonnegut.html
http://www.wnyc.org/search/?q=vonnegut&x=0&y=0
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2005/09/27#segment52117

This oughta cheer us up!


I linked up with NYC Dancer/DJ/Singer and true Funkateer Lady Miss Kier via our mutual MySpace sites. She acted as an important catalyst for the P-Funk revival during the 90's. Miss Kier is pictured alongside Bootsy's Rubber Band, and (Upper Inset) in Dee-Lite's Groove Is In The Heart video with Maceo Parker, who really needed the work while James Brown was in prison. The lower inset shows her with fellow MySpacer George Clinton. She'll be touring Brazil later this month.