No rain yesterday, despite those weather predictions ...
Yes, it was smokey again, but there were occasional winds to stir things up a little.

Remembering my friend Georgio 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
UPDATED! 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!
Read my latest Spitfires in Context essay.

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.

In The Community: Lowell Jaeger's launch party/book signing for Poems Across the Big Sky -- An Anthology of Montana Poets at the Hockaday Museum of Art was excellent! The people were fun, and the works they read aloud were uniformly interesting. Cover illustrator Jeniffer Fallein even read a little poem which inspired one of her images. You can order the book for $16 US ($18 Canadian) from:
Many Voices Press
Flathead Valley Community College
777 Grandview Drive Kalispell, Montana 59901 USA
Their next book will be poems by Victor Charlo, a descendant of the famous Bitteroot Salish Chief -- he and his daughter April closed out the evening in great style! She translated one of his poems into the Salish language for the book, and us.
Here's a sample poem by Lowell's friend Irving Moen, written about Moen's niece who raced in the Special Olympics one year:
You taught me how to lead.
You were an athlete in the Olympics
that became special to me
when you dashed in the right direction
of 100 wandering yards of play

You were so far ahead
of your friends you sensed
something was missing. So ...
you stopped
in the two most important tracks
left in the grass that day.
You turned to your friends because
they were your friends
and you waved and cheered
them closer as they pumped and huffed
as fast as each was able.
And you all finished in the plenty
of time.



(L to R) Lowell Jaeger, Victor Charlo, and April Charlo at the Hockaday Museum last evening.

Where's that rain they are predicting today? There was a BIG fire that blew up near the suburbs of Missoula the other evening.

Remembering my friend Georgio 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
UPDATED! 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!
Read my latest Spitfires in Context essay.

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: We are having MANY special events over the next month at the Hockaday Museum of Art -- A Poetry Reading, a Lecture/Reception, Museums & Music, and an Unveiling of a Special Painting. Check 'em out!

Media Watch: Lets' talk about some REAL Theater!
The 2007 Bindlestiff Family Cirkus and Magic Hat Summer Variety Show Tour:

9/5 TBA Scranton PA (tentative)
9/6 Chameleon Club, Lancaster PA http://www.chameleonclub.net
9/7 The Zipper Theater, NYC http://www.thezipperfactory.com
9/8-9/9 The Boston Tattoo Convention, Boston MA http://www.bostontattooconvention.com
9/10 Lucky Dog Music Hall, Worcester MA http://www.luckydogmusic.com/
9/11 TBA
9/12 Red Square, Albany NY http://www.redsquarealbany.com/welcome/
9/13 Hops in the Square, Syracuse NY http://www.hollerbackproductions.com
9/14 Rex Theatre, Pittsburg PA http://www.elkoconcerts.com/rextheater.htm
9/15 World Cafe Live, Philadelphia PA http://www.worldcafelive.com/

Juggling Workshop in Hudson, NY
September 30th from 11 to 2pm.
In conjuction with Artswalk, Bindlestiff co-founders Keith Nelson and Stephanie Monseu will be offering juggling workshops.



Stephanie Monseu as Ringmisteress Philomena introduces The Strangest Show on Earth! (Digitized images from the trailer of The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus DVD by Alan Plotkin.)

A dozen different ducks and a big white goose at Dry Bridge Park. The air smelled sweet enough down around the willows and water, unlike the smokey soup overhead with that big red ball of Sun floating above the vague horizon.

Sitemeter's working for me again: Welcome Dublin, Ireland (Love 'ya too, Eavan!); Limoges, France; Israel (looking for Ida Rubinstein); Berkeley, California; and New York, New York!

Remembering my friend Georgio 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
UPDATED! 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!
Read my latest Spitfires in Context essay.

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: We are having MANY special events over the next month at the Hockaday Museum of Art -- A Poetry Reading, a Lecture/Reception, Museums & Music, and an Unveiling of a Special Painting. Check 'em out! (I spent what was normally my day off making some changes to the place.)

Media Watch: I went out to the Bigfork Summer Playhouse to see their production of the 1940s Radio Hour. It's supposed to be a professional venture, but what I saw was definitely an amateur effort -- at least 66% of it. About another third was OK -- when the singing was good. The acting was rather underplayed, but that was a plus, because nobody showed much character, and those few moments where someone actually came across as someone else were very pleasant.
The womens' costumes were excellent 40's recreations -- especially their hairdos. Every woman's hair was different in color and shape. Some were close, but still distinctive enough.
The men were more sketchy than authentic -- pretty good comb-ups and grease jobs without going 50's on us, but mostly generic shirtsleeve office-wear instead of identifiable styles from 1942.
The Coca-Cola machine was also vintage 60's rather than WWII, but I'm not sure that meant anything at all. My parents were young teenagers during that period, so my knowledge of that time is all second-hand. Mass Entertainment was important then -- Movies and Radio had grown up to be cultural Leviathans after WWI.
The Swing Dance craze from the late 90's should have reminded everyone that although there were some GREAT songs and records from the 40's, there were mountains of drek under those peak moments. This show was primarily a musical revue, featuring many once-called "standards" from that era.
Unfortunately, after an introductory scene, the "broadcast' started in the cesspool of "I Got A Gal In Kalamazoo." NOBODY sang well in that overblown group vocal, featuring more than a dozen people, possibly because of the key or rhythm. (I've always hated that crappy song anyway.)
The play's arrangements had a lot of syncopation and sophisticated modulations in general, but the company's singers rarely maintained their concentration throughout a whole number. "How About You" was one success, "I've Got It Bad" was another. The classically stupid Pepsi-Cola commercial was pretty funny -- hit the spot, you might say.
At intermission, I went for a short walk and heard some more 40's Music coming out of the Bigfork Inn -- didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Anti-Rock radio stations used to call that stuff Music of your Life when I was a teenager, but they weren't talking to ME when they said it! On my way back to my car, after the play, I heard a band at the Garden Bar doing Van Morrison's Brown Eyed Girl -- a song from 40 years ago. I was glad to also hear some Hip Hop booming from a side street, so I knew I wasn't in a time-warp!


The sky above Dry Bridge Slough -- a weak low-pressure front lifted the smoke a few hundred yards (or meters) over our heads near sunset.

Instead of RAIN showers, we're getting METEOR showers -- sometimes you just can't win. The high pressure traps forest fire smoke next to the ground, which obscures the view, and stinks, and ... (why go on complaining?)

Remembering my friend Georgio 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
UPDATED! 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!
Read my latest Spitfires in Context essay.

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Working at the Hockaday again on Sunday -- must be summer. Special events at the Hockaday Museum of Art will rev up this week, and continue to Labor Day Weekend, after which I'll have my weekends off. We already have Lowell Jaeger's anthology Poems Across The Big Sky in our gift shop, ready to sell at the Poetry Reading this Thursday.

Media Watch: I didn't find the Sci Fi Network's new version of Flash Gordon all very compelling, but it was better than I feared. (Hmmmm -- faint praise without excessive damnation.) Their too-stupid, uncharismatic Ming wandered around like a pompous office-boy executive, rather than a ruler. He might have been a disguised satire of George Bush, or an indictment of stupid elites who sponsor nonentities like this in positions of importance. Ming was originally created in the 1930's when charismatic dictators and wannabes actually ruled over large populations. His larger-than-life character made a formidable arch-villain against whom the heroes could forge alliances among the strange life-forms of Mongo.
The woman actors were all beautiful, but the makeup and costuming made them look too much alike. The over-riding plot was an echo of Kathy Ireland's Alien from L.A. -- a dog-assed show from 1988 which owed an awful lot to Dino Di Laurentis' Flash debacle of 1980 mixed with Journey to the Center of the Earth and Blade Runner. I don't quite feel like writing about all their variation-points yet, though.


As other inmates of Ming's seraglio surround his Imperial Wickedness in 1936, Princess Aura (Upper Left) smirks in lustful glee as the hypnotized Dale Arden (Center) faces "a fate worse than death" as the Emperor's concubine, leaving Flash Gordon to Aura's wiles. This none-too-original idea came from Alex Raymond's comic strip, and was repeated in the Universal serial, the 1980 movie, and the Sci Fi Channel's mini-series.