Those damn Coyotes are still prowling the neighborhood at night. Firehouse Pond is ice-free, and there are dozens of families of water birds setting up nests on the little islands there. Our lake is thawing, but it's still covered over by ice except for about 25%. A huge Bald Eagle soared overhead in the early afternoon.

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 after the Vernal Equinox to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Friday's Auction of Miniatures at the Hockaday Museum was exhausting, but fun, and the weather was excellent. We had enough helping hands, but things got a little crazy sometimes. (We sold almost 90% of the items.) There were LIVE auctions on top of the silent auctions for every piece. We gave a local politician a microphone, and he did the rest. I dragged myself back there on Saturday and helped with the cleaning-up. The walls are stripped and ready for new shows to go up starting Monday. Watch the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website for details.

Media Watch: Stoned, a movie about the short life of Brian Jones, was too shallow to be either instructive or entertaining -- shots of young flesh not withstanding. Everybody's going to die one day, but very few are going to be part of a worldwide phenomenon like the Rolling Stones. What were the things which made him successful before his fall? These Celebrity Death Flicks completely miss the point most of the time.
Real books -- Agincourt was a historical account of young Henry V and his first successful invasion of France. Thanks for extending the ruinous Hundred Years War for two more generations, Your Royal Ego-besottedness!
I can say that he was nothing like either Shakespeare's majestic hero or young wastrel. He WAS a canny Mideavel general, though -- which meant misery for all of his neighbors. I think he was relativly sane and sober, unlike many of his contemporaries in the ruling class of the time, who seemed to be psycho or sociopaths in my estimation. The heavily-armored French infanty's suicidal attempt to charge through knee-deep mud at Agincourt, and their abandonment by the equally-handicapped French cavalry demonstrated wide-ranging stupidity and perfidy amongst their captains.
Aftermath: Henry V re-invaded France, and wedded the French Princess Royal. His infant son was declared heir to the throne of France, but "King Harry" died at war soon afterwards. Henry VI grew up weak, beset by attacks of mental illness. England lost all it's holdings on the continent, despite ongoing treachery by the French nobility against each other. The sad tale of Joan of Arc illustrated how firmly the French populace rejected domination by would-be English overlords by banding together to crown the hated, corrupt, but still-legitimate Dauphin at Orleans. The Middle Ages weren't much fun, but the Dark Ages were over, and countries were forming.
Henry V's young queen was rescued from her accommodation, er -- prison, in an English castle by a dashing commoner named Owen Tudor. One of their grandsons became Henry VII at the end of the bloody family feud known as War of the Roses, and every king and queen of England since then has been a descendent of the Tudors.


Anita Pallenberg as the Black Queen in Roger Vadim's interpretation of DeForrest's Barbarella circa 1968. She was romantically involved with Brian Jones for awhile, but later had a number of children with Keith Richards. The last time I read about her, she was fond of bicycling, and performing some sort of serious social work in London.

BOING! That is the sound of Spring's official arrival -- we celebrated here in NW Montana with cold winds and hailstorms. Early Daylight Savings Time has been a royal pain with our computers, but the bright evenings are wonderful. Venus and the New Moon have been dancing together in the Western sky. I hate to report it, but a pack of damn Coyotes are prowling the neighborhood -- we heard them right after dark last night. Our cats are staying inside until after 9 AM for the time being.

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 after the Vernal Equinox to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: The Honors Symposium has been interesting in that the audiences are bringing their own controversies with them -- Feminism 101 by Brooke Barnett prompted a 40 minute post-lecture discussion after a fairly diagramatic overview of various forms of Feminism over the last 200 years or so. (Mary Wollstonecraft included!)
Biological Differences by Dr. Steven Gaulin said more in it's implications than his careful correlation of the physiological trait of spatial recognition being directly related to amounts of androgyns between human sexes. Body height, muscle mass, and aggression also correlate in similar ways. These tested, objective criteria do little to solve any disputes between Nature vs. Nurture however, or slow down people with agendas. The few facts may say something about our species being Polygynis in certain important ways, but Gaulin also made an important point that the most numerically significant human cultures are largely Monogamous.
So many people had their minds made up, and Gaulin's subject matter was so narrowly focused, that the big guns of preconception started booming right away, and continued the next morning on local talk radio.
This weekend at the Honors Symposium: Twelfth Night — Gender in the Shakespeare Theatre -— Brian Bechtold, Department of English and British Literature -- Flathead Valley Community College, Free lecture from 6-6:30 p.m. followed by FVCC theatre department production of Twelfth Night at 7 p.m.
That's a BIG subject, Brian! Our Theatre Dept. is handling the whole thing -- I'll be at the Hockaday!
Auction of Miniatures bid lists and bid forms at Hockaday Museum of Art's Website. The real thing is TOMORROW -- I'll be meeting, greeting, and then running away to the wrap-up room to pack things up as we sell them. It takes a crew of about a dozen folks to make an auction work efficiently.

Media Watch: Let's get the sad stuff over -- one of our students in the video class made mainsteam news by passing away while celebrating St. Patrick's Day in nearby Spokane, Washington. Priscilla Wetzel was a friendly, vivacious lady and I'll always remember her for those qualities!
Trash A Go Go Go Go -- The FOURTH season of Dancing with the Stars! Only two couples showed some flair -- Joey Fatone & Austrailia's own Kym (Tina Sparkle) Johnson and Apolo Anton Ohno & Julianne Hough. Ms. Hough is only 18, but she is a remarkably accomplished dancer, and an excellent teacher. Most of the other couples started rather tentatively, but only one celebrity was actually bad -- Billy Ray (Achy Breaky Legs) Cyrus.
I sent an email to Robert Edsel's site congratulating him for his Book TV presentation, and a question about Ida Rubinstein. (High Patroness of this Blog). I got an answer back the very next day! I was able to pay them back by giving them a few facts about my own Art History professor Lennox Tierney and his own team's efforts in Postwar Japan. They sent me a return email which read in part:
Yes, I saw your wonderful website! She was a rather amazing woman! I have made note of the website and your email address in my database in case I ever encounter any references to Ida's confiscated items.


The Ida Rubinstein Ballet performing Ravel's La Valse in Monte Carlo circa 1929. Choreography by Bronislava Nijinska.
False theatrical color by M.E.
Adapted from www.balletto.net

Sunday started out dark and cold, but brightened up in the middle of the day. The wildlife are out seeing what there is to eat -- we keep the feeders full this time of year, since the Winter has depleted natural foods. The skunk barrier is put in place each night to prevent accidental visitors.

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 during the Vernal Equinox to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Auction of Miniatures bid lists and bid forms at Hockaday Museum of Art's Website.
The real thing is this Friday!

Media Watch: Book TV -- Robert Edsel gave a GREAT lecture based on his book Rescuing DaVinci -- incredible but true adventures of Allied soldiers tracking down the great artistic treasures of Europe which were systemetically plundered by the Nazis. Think of your favorite famous painting -- it was was likely hidden in a salt mine in Germany during WWII, or abandoned by a fleeing SS officer because he couldn't find a truck which was large enough to haul it. Art historians and museum directors found themselves drafted into the service and saving buildings, furniture, books, paintings, and sculptures from the ravages of a worldwide war. General Patton wanted to destroy Nazi Headquarters in Munich, but it was being used by the "Monument Officers" as a warehouse for recovered artworks, and they had the power to stop him. Edsel showed a slide of dashing Langdon Warner, and a similar pic of Indiana Jones, but briefly told how Warner saved the cities of Kyoto and Nara from General LeMay's firebombs. Edsel has also made a film about these complicated stories called The Rape of Europa. He's spent a considerable amount of his own money to inform the world, and help find the various Raphaels et cetera which are still missing. She's only a minor case in the overall picture, but Ida Rubinstein's collection was looted in Paris, and I wonder what Mr. Edsel might have to say about all those Leon Baskt pictures? http://robertedselblog.com
Boogie Nights was on the satellite/cable. It made former rapper 'Marky Mark' Wahlberg a movie star, but told a sad sleazy tale doing it. There was some truth in it's fictional characters from the 70's and 80's. I give it credit for avoiding the worst aspects of filth-wallowing or sanctimonious admonishment about sex movies. The filmmakers had witnessed many of the scenes they depicted around them in mainstream Hollywood, and seemed to have some sensitivity about people seriously falling down in their lives -- but it's still not a fun flick. Gawd Day-um! They're running Wonderland afterwards -- ace actor Val Kilmer playing porn prince John Holmes in one more sad tale which wallows and admonishes, but misses essential truths. Like the long-gone Mr. Holmes, that flick is a loser -- no offense to any of the cast.
TIME TO LIGHTEN UP -- The MTV Movie Awards nominated Wahlberg's penile prosthesis for a technical award in 1998. However Rick Baker's "Head on a Stick" from Men In Black won, and the television audience was treated to a tirade from Boogie Nights' losing "member," wearing a miniature top hat and tails.
Speaking of obscenity -- David Horowitz was wasting your time and mine on Book TV. He's paid to lie, and that's all anyone really needs to know about him nowadays. His funding from the radical Right Wing is unlimited, and his plan is to wear people down when they stand up to refute his discredited untruths hundreds of times and more. CSPAN shouldn't give liars free media time. One side or another may be mistaken in a debate, but discourse does not exist when someone intentionally lies. Read this recent Daily Kos diary by Philosleft -- among other things, she states in the comments: His right to freedom of speech IS my right to challenge the content of his claims.
What was that about lightening things up? Thank goodness for PBS -- a whole show on buildings made in the shape of Milk Bottles, Ducks, Coffee Pots, Dogs, Teepees, Catsup Bottles, Shoes, and Doughnuts, not to mention the Corn Palace we visited in 2004 -- there seemed to be no end to the variations. In Salt Lake City, where I grew up, there was a fried chicken restaurant shaped like a rude charicature of an African American chef on Highland Drive. It's name contained a racist slur which I won't repeat. To make things worse, it was part of a chain -- when the degrading thing burned down in the early 60's, I doubt that anybody seriously thought of rebuilding it.
(Oops, gotta lighten up again!) Spokane boasted TWO three-story milk-bottle buildings when I lived there -- one of them was used in the movie Benny & Joon.


Mary Carey makes her living in the sex-movie industry of today, but ran for Governor of California against ANOTHER actor a year or two ago. Star-struck voters made the wrong choice.
Digital collage from political campaign images,
used for satirical purposes in the context of the review above.

We had some snow Friday, but it all melted Saturday -- St. Patrick's Day! It almost looked like Spring, after the fog burned off at noon. The aereation pond is expanding, ice is melting on the smaller lakes, and the sounds of Canadian Geese are in the air. Two Mallards skimmed some leftover seeds on the back lawn. We went walking with our three cats, but no skunks interrupted the neighborhood tour this time.

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 Equinox settles in to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Auction of Miniatures bid lists and bid forms at Hockaday Museum of Art's Website.
The real thing is this Friday!

Media Watch: A Guinness-pouring demonstration on CNN -- better than some other things they could have shown. I doubt St. Patrick would approve polluting good brown beer with lousy green food coloring, or praying to porcelain gods on a day meant to honor him. Merwyn (Bishop Patrolicus) was not the first Christian missionary in Dark Ages Ireland, but he was the most famous by far. His generation of somewhat-Romanized Britons were the first to establish a written language in the Emerald Isle between about 400 to 440 A.D. Their so-called Vulgar Latin survived just outside the neglected Northwest corner of the fast-crumbling Western Empire. When St. Columba converted the Celtic bards over a century later and started Irish monastaries offshore, an important wave of literacy began to spread over benighted Europe. By 800 A.D. Karl Der Gross (Charlemange) recruited key Irishmen in his successful efforts to re-establish literacy over his sprawling domains. Ireland itself, though, faced fearsome Viking invasions for another several hundred years. When they were done, the Normans attacked from England, and eventually took over. History has indicted the English as unworthy stewards. The EU gave that beleaguered country some hope, and perhaps bygones can truly be bygones over the whole island.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction show was presented on (edited) tape-delay. As usual, the first segment was pretty good -- The Ronettes, featuring Veronica Bennett, her sister, and cousin singing Be My Baby, with Paul Schaeffer re-creating the massive Jack Nietzche Wall of Sound behind them. Ronnie's producer and long-divorced husband Phil Spector is facing murder charges in Los Angeles, but Schaeffer read a 'congratulations' message from him. It might have been an act of artistic justice, but my guess is that it was spliced-in after Ms. Bennett was gone -- the whole world is now aware of the danger she faced living with a controlling madman like him.
Spector almost caused an ugly Hall of Fame scene in the 90's when Ike Turner was his impromptu guest -- Turner deserved his props, as did Anna Mae Bullock (Tina Turner), but some pre-arrangements would certainly have been appropriate, rather than nervous private security guards posturing against one another.
Ahmet Ertegun deserved all tributes bestowed on him -- especially from Aretha Franklin. He was responsible for recording a large percentage of the best music I ever heard during my life. Patti Smith, and her group also deserved their induction into the Hall of Fame -- she was lucky to live through her initial noteriety, but survived to fuse Rock and Literature as well as anyone else has done. She mentioned her late husband Fred "Sonic" Smith (nice guy, I met him once), and sang OK during the finale too. (People Have The Power, with nice solos by Keith Richard and Stephen Stills.) Lenny Kaye played a tasteful guitar, especially during Because the Night. I agree on the induction of R.E.M. -- time for New Wave! Van Halen (the group) reshaped Heavy Metal and deserved recognition for their successes -- including bringing Sammy Hagar up from Rock's AAA to the Major Leagues. Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five were the first major stars of Hip-Hop -- they took what The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, Scotty, Big Youth, and King Tubby had started, and brought it off of the inner city streets of Amerika to EVERYONE, whether they wanted it's truth or not.

I posted this little graphic on one of FVCC's students' MySpace sites. C.S. Lewis published a trilogy almost a decade before his good friend J.R.R. Tolkien made history with the form a decade later. It was actually three related S-F novels rather than one long book. Out of the Silent Planet began as a friendly race between Lewis and Tolkien to each write a Science Fiction novel, but the latter abandoned his project, although it evolved as the fall of Numenor in the back-story of Lord of the Rings.

The first novel is reportedly a portrayal of Tolkien's character on a fabulous journey to Planet Mars. The second amalgamates two of the Inklings' favorite fantasy novels -- David Lindsay's sexually-charged Voyage to Arcturus and E.R. Eddison's language-rich Worm Ouroboros. The third was a tribute to the Apocalyptic novels of fellow-Inkling Charles Williams who died after WWII.