It hasn't rained since last week. The cooler weather has slowed the local forest fires down, but the air is still fairly smokey.

Remembering my friend George-O at: 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!
Spitfires of the Spaceways
UPDATED! Wilma Deering & Dale Arden to the rescue; Bodacious Princess Aura I; Hapless Aura II; The fiery Emperor Ming; The Orson Welles Rumor Debunked; and BOTH incarnations of Jean Rogers!
Read my latest Spitfires in Context essay.

Thanks to Jim Keefe (Visit his Website) -- the LAST Flash Gordon illustrator of the 20th Century, and Flash's first illustrator of the 21st, for his recommendations -- HERE!

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Classes are starting at Flathead Valley Community College -- our new rooms are ready, but we'll see what other last-minute things may develop!
Museums and Music at the Hockaday Museum of Art was a wonderful end-of-the-summer event last Sunday! The music was good -- I particularly liked what Lee Zimmerman did inside with his singing and cello-playing. We also had the Midnight Guitar Quartet out on our lawn all afternoon. Andre Floyd and Blue Iguana were their usual rockin' selves at Central School a block away, and Cocinando did Latin Jazz at the Conrad Mansion. The Hockaday had about 500 visitors!


Lee Silliman stretches out at the Hockaday Museum of Art during the afternoon of Aug. 26, 2007.

Media Watch: I saw the FVCC Summer Theatre's version of Bye Bye Birdie last weekend -- it's a good play for community theater groups. The characters are such well-known stereotypes, and the songs are so good that if the cast just does their best, it works! Warning -- that constipated movie from the early 60's is not the freewheeling play. Comparing my experience with the so-called professional Bigfork Summer Playhouse, I'd say the acting was as good or better at FVCC. The music was better overall in Bigfork, but FVCC had some good singers too.
Public Radio, Cable TV, and the Blogosphere noted the second anniversary of the Katrina Disaster. Our local, state, and federal governments failed the people at the mouth of the Mississippi, and continue to do so -- it's not just their rampant greed, corruption, and incompetence, but also the Republican Party's ideology that Government can't work, A.K.A. Government must not work, so the GOP will guarantee failure of our public institutions -- overt treason and sabotage.
Sci-Fi Channel's Flash Gordon went back to Mongo for a fast get-in and get-out adventure, so their version of Princess Aura got another few minutes of air time. The dialog says she's hot for Flash, but the visual action doesn't read that way. They wrote in an Amazon-like tribe of yet more beautiful actresses with lousy lines to say. Speaking of which, Baylin had most of the critical scenes again.


Be afraid, be VERY afraid! The REAL Princess Aura, as played by Priscilla Lawson in 1936, inspired by Alex Raymond's original version of the barbaric femme fatale.