Ogden, Utah looked good yesterday -- we cruised 25th Street, once known as "Two Bit Street." It fed into the old Union Pacific station, but was derelict for many, many years. There are restaurants, art galleries and specialty stores amongst the old second-hand stores and historical bars. They were renovating a building with a glaring Chinese Dragon sign out front.

Sitemeter Sez: Someone from Kalispell, Montana looked in here yesterday while I was downtown!


I bought this postcard of a COLD day on Two Bit Street on a lovely pre-Autumn afternoon -- image from a painting by local artist Mac Stevenson.

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: Make an Autumnal Equinox Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. Also check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site.

In The Community: Visit the Hockaday Museum of Art in Kalispell, Montana if you are up there.

Media Watch: Speaking of the Hockaday, I got an enquiry from a student at FVCC about influential Montana artists who weren't named Charlie Russell, so I recommended Winold Reiss, John Fery, Ace Powell, and Joe Abbrescia. I also sent her to the museum, and told her I was on vacation.
I watched the movie 300 last night -- it says much more about Frank Miller's hang-ups than anything historical. The Graphic Novel was better, because I expect fantasy in a comic book.
Sparta had been a long-time ally of the Persian Empire, and knew their tactics well. They also didn't want huge Asiatic armies on their side of the Aegean Sea. I happen to think that the Greeks believed they could dishearten the Persians by defeating their troops by land and sea at Thermopylae, but the sea battle was indecisive, and Xerxes did not back off after the initial slaughter of his land troops. Persian scouts would have found the route to the rear of the pass with or without help. I think the Greeks' orderly retreat shows they had a plan in case their initial resistance failed. The Spartans and Thebans acted very bravely by staying behind as a rear guard, knowing they were doomed. The abandonment of the city of Athens was also noteworthy, because I doubt that Xerxes' ships would have fallen into Themistocles' trap at Salamis if the invaders hadn't been so over-confident.
Nobody really knows how History might have changed if European Greece had been conquered by the Persian Empire. However, I guarantee that Athens wouldn't have had it's "Golden Age." Subtract the accomplishments of that period from our culture and ...


(R) Greek art BEFORE the Persian War -- (L) Greek Art AFTER the Persian War. Any questions?