This deepening snow is having it's effects on the Deer herd in the
neighborhood. There's talk of taking Bald Eagles off the Endangered
Species list -- don't do it! I know we've had some success bringing
them back by banning DDT, but our National Symbol will be in mortal
danger from trigger-happy hunters looking for trophies. There is no
sport in shooting those big soaring birds -- they were being
slaughtered en masse by gunfire before the Endangered Species Act became law. Just leave them alone!
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 ArchiveTheater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!NEW!
Spitfires of the SpacewaysWatch Dale Arden rescue Flash Gordon for a change!
Charity Alert: Make a resolution as the days get brighter to click on
The Hunger Site every day.
In The Community: I think I'm going to see the Glacier Symphony and Chorale this Sunday -- Conductor John Zoltek is playing his new composition, there's a guest violinist, and they're playing Ravel's
Bolero. As always, I invite you to take a look at the
Hockaday Museum of Art's Website. I'll continue to link to
Travel Montana for another week or so.
Media Watch: BBC America showed a recent 90 minute adaptation of Bram Stoker's
Dracula, with David Suchet playing Van Helsing as a Dutchman, rather than the French-speaking Belgian he was originally written to be. Maybe Suchet didn't want to repeat himself as Poirot, another French-speaking Belgian literary crusader. The filmmakers shot some footage on the Yorkshire coast, since some of the action supposedly occurs in Whitby. They also brought up the subject of Syphilis -- a disease which ravaged the cities of England during late Victorian and Edwardian times. Stoker and his boss Sir Henry Irving both died from it, and Count Dracula's vampirism is easily read as a metaphor for that sexually-transmitted ailment, which had no cure before Penicillin was discovered. Unfortunately, although this movie was dark in concept, it's plot was as thin as an ink-blot on Victorian foolscap paper. The Transylvanian Count lurched around playing the modern cliche of a junkie Rock musician. Syphilis was a sideshow, the lynchpin of a newly-added, ultra-lame sub-plot. The filmmakers were not shy about killing off the cast, though -- which sure helped the pace. Yuk, yuk, yuk! Dare I say it? -- this version of
Dracula SUCKED!
John Poldori invented the charismatic aristocrat-as-vampire (based on prolifigate Lord Byron) during the same time that Mary Shelly created the
Frankenstein mythos. J.S. Le Fanu wrote his exquisite Gothic novella
Carmilla in the mid-Victorian era about a female aristocratic vampire. Carmilla continues to cast her spell over the generations, and has been re-interpreted in many ways.
D.M. Friston's 1872 illustration for Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Download the ORIGINAL story from Project Gutenberg.
