Another beautiful Autumn morning on a traditional Columbus Day. Once this quasi-holiday was a jingoistic brag-fest, now it's becoming an occasion to reflect on 500+ years of Imperialism and it's consequences. Christopher Columbus sold his voyage as a route to the Indies -- he was SO WRONG, but then nobody in Europe or Asia really knew about North & South America. The "Small Earth" theory was a delusion, but Columbus still borrowed the rap to jive potential backers. There is some minor evidence that literate mariners knew about landfalls west of the old Greenland colonies in the 15th Century, but not near enough to be conclusive. Somehow Columbus was confident that he would find land at the longitudes he actually found it, which counts a little bit. Whatever knowledge originated with the Vikings was lost or scrambled, but there WAS shipping recorded out of Iceland in the early Renaissance, and who knows where all those sailors journeyed? I'm certain some of them visited Greenland, and it's not really far to the Canadian Arctic from there.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Los Angeles, California; Saint George, Utah; San Antonio, Texas; Elliston, Montana; and Chicago, Illinois.

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
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!





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. Also check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site.

In The Community: "Orphan Art" Auction at the Marshall Noice Gallery on Main Street for the Hockaday Museum of Art last night. I wasn't working though, and even spent a little money.

Theatre/Theater: Somebody's working over the Holidays! Katie Duck – Improvisation for dancers and musicians
December 28-31 / 13:00-17:00 / studio 7 - eerste nasaustraat 7 / 120 euros / for more information go to: www.katieduck.com


Here's one detail from my entry to the Hockaday Museum's 2007 Salon -- A Century of Changing ... and More of the Same. I've melded and colorized images from two centuries and two continents into one space, and relied heavily on a book called The Natural History of the Chorus Girl © 1975 by Derek Parker and Julia Parker, instead of drawing or shooting the pictures myself like I did last year. However my assemblage constitutes a whole new work of art, and is protected by the Fair Use principle of International Law, in that it is a personal exercise with no commercial purpose whatsoever.
(BTW -- I heartily recommend the Parkers' book!)