COLD -- Right around 0 degrees (F) all "F"ing day! It warmed up to about 20 degrees (F) for Art Walk last night. (see below)

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Lindon, Utah (Twice!); Jamaica, New York; Citrus Heights, California; Oakland, California; Louth, Ireland (Again!) and Brooklyn, New York.

REAL SLC Punk, not the movie, 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: Make a Holiday 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: Kalispell Art Walk and Christmas Stroll at the Hockaday Museum of Art was nice -- over 400 people braved bitter cold to visit us and other locations around town. The chestnuts were warm and sweet, and the Director's husband did all the roasting over a flaring finned barbeque which was THE BOMB, or was a bomb at one time. The lights all worked well, and YES, we had cookies -- LOTS of cookies.

InSanity Clauses: November Novel Writing Month declared me a WINNER!


I achieved BULK, but missed coherence -- My version of Near-Future Big Oil and the Ultra Extraction Process which sustained their worldwide City triggered a massive cataclysm in the Middle East which devastated the Black Sea, Tigris/Euphrates Valley, and obliterated Jerusalem, along with the Upper Great Rift Valley. The Sultan of former Brunei was lucky enough to take steps which saved the remote park of Wallasea from drowning when the *hinges of the world* turned. The engineer who guided the Sultan sacrificed himself for Wallasea's sake. BushCo in the Caribbean Gulf was watching helplessly as Earth's geologic revenge destroyed their wealth and power via Dyastrophysical Resonance more slowly and surely, as was NeoBenin in the Niger Delta. A brave investigator in ex-London and his international research staff prevented worse loss of life by revealing the murdered engineer's research to the wide world, while solving the related murder-by-lion of Big Oil's double-dealing agent.
Control Group A, on bicycles in Africa's Great Rift Valley, proved that even active geologic areas will endure if left undisturbed by Ultra Extraction -- they also discovered another relative of Leaky's Lucy, and named him Leaky's Desi.
Thanks to my co-authors Joseph Conrad, Anthony Burgess, Robert Anton Wilson, *R. A. Lafferty*, the authors of Genesis, Gilgamesh, Wikipedia, and the SubGenius Mythos.

Media Watch: Eric Clapton's Crossroads Concert in Chicago was the best of the lot so far -- Guitarists young and old, country, traditional blues, jazz, rock et cetera!


Jeff Beck was masterful as usual, plus he stood aside while a young Australian woman named Tal Wilkenfeld played a bass solo -- a remarkably unusual event for my favorite amongst all the great British electric guitarists.

That little bit of snow and those dangerous roads again this morning -- heavier snowfalls make other drivers more careful, and I prefer it that way.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Okatie, South Carolina; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Bydgoszcz, Poland and Detroit, Michigan. They were reading some of my longer posts.

REAL SLC Punk, not the movie, 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: Make a Holiday 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: Art Walk is coming closer at the Hockaday Museum of Art. We'll be roasting chestnuts again, if we can even keep a fire going at 1 Degree (F). I had to unravel some PHP code yesterday to revise our online Museum Store. The programming works GREAT (Thanks to Dennis Kern), but interface modification is NOT user-friendly.

Media Watch: San Francisco FUNK November 23, 2007

Featuring:
420 Funk Mob featuring DRUGS
with special guest Eric McFadden.
with Parliament Funkadelic members
Clip Payne
Lige Curry
Kidd Funkadelic
and
Adam Widoff (Big Lovely)
Chicken Burke (Big Lovely)
Stefanie Keys (We Funk)
Starr Cullers (Pfunk All Stars)

Dancing with the Stars is done! (See below). A little bit of snow plus LOW temperatures made the roads very dangerous yesterday morning -- luckily, it got above freezing, melted, and evaporated most of that stuff before nightfall.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Lakeland, Florida (researching the Byrds); Lamont, Alberta and Jamaica, New York.

REAL SLC Punk, not the movie, 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: Make a Holiday 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: I delivered my videotape to the cable company at last -- wanted to do it in the morning, but was too damn busy up at the college to get away. I walked around the block to learn that we had Xmas decoration problems at the Hockaday Museum of Art -- something odd happened to the roof lights after some bulbs were replaced by the contractor over the weekend. I myself had some problems replacing ceiling flourescents inside, but we had some fun afterwards setting up a sixty-plus year old Santa Claus animation made by our namesake Hugh Hockaday.

Media Watch: I took time from my November Novel to check out the last twenty minutes of Trash A Go Go. The winning team was Julianne Hough and Helio (Apollo) the race-car driver -- Hough is a remarkably complete performer and fantastic teacher, but Sabrina the Cheetah Girl was still the best celebrity dancer this last season, PROVING it in her guest-spot, and further exposing the flaws in their f***ed-up system. I couldn't really say if Helio or Mel C was the better of the second-bests or not. At least Osmond's rabid fans didn't push her into the final two. Congrats to big Maksim for the fierce competition.
BTW -- the reformed Spice Girls' first single flopped badly, I hope whomever is behind their comeback has written or commissioned some decent material for them to sing, otherwise the public will just turn their own behinds, and walk away from yet another empty package.

Enough about cheap beer, lets talk about cultural champagne! My friend, Choreographer/Dancer Katie Duck (long story about that surname) is in New York all this week -- November 29 to December 1 - Workshop Katie Duck / 14:00- 17:30pm / $75 Eden’s Expressway 537 Broadway

November 30 Friday Performance St Marks Danspace 20:30 - Katie Duck, Justin Morrison, K.J. Holmes, Alex Waterman (cello) as part of the Movement Research FALL Festival 2007.
For more information and to enroll go to: amandaloulaki@movementresearch.org

All that and a Sunday talk show, of a sort: Focus group discussion - December 2, 2007 - 5.30 pm - 8.30 pm - Eden’s Expressway 537 Broadway Topics - Improvisation, as a subject with aims and objectives, as a pedagogy, as a festival focus


Digital dancing by Katie Duck and Justin Morrison (with Magpie Music/Dance) from a video on http://katieduck.com.
(Click to see a larger image.)
I've compared her with Jazz masters like Eric Dolphy, but it would also be fair to say Keith Jarrett, since he is her contemporary.

Boycott Dancing with the Stars! (See post from 11-06-2007) The inversion lifted on Saturday -- just as I was finishing two days of outside work, installing Xmas lights at the Hockaday Museum of Art.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Madrid, Spain and Montana.

REAL SLC Punk, not the movie, 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: Make a Holiday 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: The Northwest Ballet School's Nutcracker was pretty much a senior recital, with the seniors being all of 18. However, the solos, duets, and single ensemble piece were EXCELLENT, especially in the second half! Congratulations to their new artistic director Marisa Roth, and her predecessor/teacher Carol Jakes.

Media Watch: Remember my dread about a Queen Elizabeth I soap-opera? I saw a big chunk of Helen Mirren's mini-series about Lizzie Numbah One, and there it was! Judi Densch's petulant QE01 from Shakespeare in Love was definitely an influence. (BTW -- the later movie is a good-natured romp, IF the viewer remembers it is FANTASY.)
I frankly hope this plodding BBC sneer-fest scares director Shekhar Kapur away from trying to coax another dollar or two out of Cate Blanchett's reputation, even though their first collaboration helped make her a star. (His crappy sequel died at the box office, and I don't want a third movie pandering Essex, Raleigh, or the London theatrical scene.)
The real nature of the reign of the last Tudor monarch was too complex and under-documented to make authoritative historical movies about, but the real dramas within that history make it SO tempting to try. It was too bad that Good Queen Bess played favorites with undeserving courtiers like the Earl of Essex to any extent at all, but her immmediate successor damn near bankrupted the kingdom by submerging himself in the practice, then his miserable egocentric progeny were responsible for recurring civil wars all the way into the 1700s. There were very many dimensions to Anne Boelyn's daughter -- the only one of Henry VIII's children to inherit any of his brain power.

Funky News: From bassmaster Bootsy Collins: Hey Funkateers, let's face it. We got some screwed up issues going on all around the world. But it is truly a blessing for a long head sucker like me to be able to reach out and funk someone...Speaking of which on Saturday Dec.22nd at the Madison Theater in Covington Ky. We, Bootzilla Productions will be doing the very first Annual "James Brown Tribute show" feat: FreekBass, BucketHead, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Clyde & Jabo the funky drummers from the original JB's along with Catfish Collins and myself, we will be jammin' live music to honor my father that I did not have, my Mentor, and friend Mr. James Brown.
...Wow! IT'S GETTING CRAZY OUT HERE, but I am going to call my friends and fello funkateer's to support this show so we can re-build King Records where I met Mr.Dynamyte, Bobby Byrd and the rest of the JB Crew. Mr. Bobbit will be here along with MC Danny Ray, and I spoke to "Slash" who is trying to change his dates around right now so he can come and help out. Go to www.Madisontheateronline.com or call 1859-491-2444 To get all the details -- this will be a blessing for me along with James Brown's son Darrly ... who will also bring the Soul General, James' back up band to perform as well. If you want to be a part of history a part of a funky good time, then come on down and jam to the sounds of James Brown, BucketHead, FreekBass, iCandi, DJizzle, Chuck D, and many other very special surprises.
Did I mention that BET will be doing a live behind the scenes, while Bootzilla mobile will be doing a live recording from the top of the show until they throw us out. A James Brown Dance contest will be going down too...You can also go to: www.bootsycollins.com to check out the info about the show.


If you thought I was going to show the fearless Academy Award-winning actor Helen Mirren with her kit unpacked, you are CORRECT! However, this is a fairly recent image instead of the many she did when she was younger.