That winter storm finally showed up -- we've been getting steady snowfall since the AM. The wind is blowing snow underneath the covered sidewalks on our campus, though, which makes rolling expensive equipment between the buildings a challenge, not to mention the travails of the guy who cleans the walks, and has to start over the minute he finishes.

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 Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
NEW! Spitfires of the Spaceways
Watch 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: New updates on the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website. I've extended our Power Point presentation in the Crown of the Continent/Glacier National Park gallery -- it now includes a portfolio of Blackfeet portraits by lithographer Joe Scheulere. Thanks to digitization, we are able to show our visitors the contents of those old souvenier books without wearing them out further.

Media Watch: I like Penn & Teller, but I've been less than impressed with their show Bullshit! on Showtime Networks. My sister convinced me to give BS another try. I watched two of them, and got a few chuckles. I even agreed with their points of view, but the shows were still too shallow for me to recommend.
That being said, I personally experienced the Boy Scouts of America turning into an undisguised extension of the Mormon (LDS) Church, witnessing the undoing of many values scouting once claimed to uphold, and was glad to see someone calling their hypocritical bluff. Penn & Teller's choices of crypto-zoologists were guys who were too obviously silly to have any credibility at all. It was fun seeing how much mileage you could get out of obviously fake Bigfoot video, though.


Welcome to the Blogosphere!


My friend, musician & theatrical manager John Kilby, has started his own blog:
Bloggin' In The Wind
Here's a photo from Footsbarn's 35th Anniversary Celebration with
(L to R) Mohammed, John, Annouk, Kascha, and Davy Johnson.

Winter storm watch in effect, but all we’ve seen are light rain and sunshine so far. The migrating birds are showing up in the backyard – a Golden Eye Duck, a Canadian Goose, Ravens, Starlings, a Canadian Jay, and a Rough-Legged Hawk trying to eat one of ‘em!

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 Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
NEW! Spitfires of the Spaceways
Watch 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 saw the local symphony at Flathead High School Auditorium, last Sunday. They had a guest violinist named Jorge Saade who led the musicians through some wonderful compositions from South America. They started with the sentimental, but popular, Espana by Parisian composer Emmanuel Chabrier, and then took our ears deeper into the 20th Century. The original Hemispheres started the second half, a somewhat–serial, jazzy piece by conductor John Zoltek, which I found very pleasing. Ravel’s Bolero finished off the show – Ida Rubinstein’s role in commissioning this modern classic for her ballet company is all but forgotten, but you can get a glimpse of this mighty rhythmic tone-poem in its original context HERE.
John could use about ten more experienced brass players – there were moments when the orchestra lacked the punch a full horn section could deliver. My friend Sherry Parmater played a wonderful English Horn solo during Bolero, and the strings sounded great throughout the concert.

Media Watch: Book TV showed a winner! E.R. Braithwaite described his childhood in Africa and the events that led him to write To Sir With Love in 1959, the novel describing the struggles of an African man in England teaching troubled white youths in a public school. Educated as a research physicist at Cambridge, Mr. Braithwaite reluctantly became a teacher but gradually began to enjoy his work. His first book was a memoir based on this experience, and became a movie starring Sidney Poitier in 1967. Braithwaite went on to serve as an UNESCO educational consultant and lecturer, Guyana's representative to the United Nations, and as Guyana's ambassador to Venezuela.



Ida Rubinstein (and Kitty), in her solo dance costume for Ravel's Bolelo in 1928. The music was a sensation, but Ida owned exclusive performance rights until the early 30's. Ironically, just as Bolero made him internationally famous, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was injured in a Paris taxi accident in 1932, which is often blamed for the sudden drop-off of his productivity and his early death.