What was that BIG Hawk hunting along the Slough last evening? It seemed darker than a Red Tail, but that thing was almost as large as an Eagle.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Tijuana, Mexico; Craig, Colorado; Emeryville, California; South Hadley, Massachusetts; Oakland, California; Chante-Alouette, Auvergne, France (John Kilby maybe!); Kaysville, Utah; and my pal Eavan Brennan in Dublin, Ireland.

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: Inuit -- A History Told In Art is in it's last hours at the Hockaday Museum of Art. I'll be there every working day for the next week or so, moving and removing things. Muhtha Murphy struck again! There's a tiny grain of matte board between the glass and my Members Only Salon painting/print. It even casts a shadow -- I discovered it after I sealed the whole thing up, dust cover and all. It will only take twenty minutes or so to clean up, but %$#@! I hate to turn those things over until the glass is secure, so Murphy bit me on the ass for not checking.


Another detail from A Century of Changing -- And More of the Same. Those "bubbles" are artifacts of Photoshop's lens flare feature.

Media Watch: Halloween Movie Time! Frank Langella's version of Dracula (1979) showed up on the cable/satellite again. I finally realized who Langella resembles -- Harpo Marx! His acting style was just too restrained for me, though -- Langella's, I mean NOT Marx's. Some actors seem to get away with being a "blank slate," like Michael J. Pollard or Keanu Reaves, but if it's all they do, I get bored really fast.
I notice Cate Blanchett is reprising her interpretation of Elizabeth I on the big screen -- this time against the Spanish Armada. Spain's Phillip II was Elizabeth's brother-in-law for awhile, when he was married to her Catholic half-sister Mary I (known to history as Bloody Mary for her violent religious intolerance). Even though Parliament never recognized him as king, he considered England his property. After Mary's premature death, when Protestant Elizabeth Tudor was crowned, the English fought Phillip II directly and indirectly for decades. The disasterous fate of his Invincible Armada in 1588 was an important turning point in European History, but unheroic fire ships did much more damage than the ragtag pirates and merchantmen who made up Elizabeth's navy at the time. Their dogged resistance helped prevent resupply landings, though, and fatally delayed Phillip's plan for linking up with his formidible land troops in the rebellious Netherlands. Protestant Europe just plain lucked out when North Sea storms struck His Most Catholic Majesty's fleet before they could regroup after the fire attack.
The first Elizabeth movie was only fair, and owed a lot to Coppola's The Godfather, but Blanchett's acting was excellent, and made that silly costume parade worth watching once or twice. If this franchise scores big a second time, I'm afraid we'll be seeing Essex or even Shakespeare in Ol' Lady Liz, or something like that. I can hear 'em in the board meeting -- How about doing Elizabeth Part III as Godfather II, with an attempted coup followed by another vengeful bloodbath of Elizabeth's royal relatives?
Speaking of Blanchett, I saw her playing a backwoods southerner from the USA in a strange crime movie co-starring Keanu Reaves. He actually ACTED, rather than his normal routine of detachedly reacting to the other players -- in a villainous role as well. Good for him!