Not much snow today, but WATCH OUT -- the forecast says MORE! A Bald Eagle was hunting over the Stillwater River next to the college yesterday.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Independence, Ohio; Moreno Valley, California; Los Angeles, California; Dallas, Texas and Gainesboro, Tennessee.

ROCK against Reaganomics 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!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in the Saturday Matinees and Sunday Comics!





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. Also check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site.

In The Community: Nancy Cawdrey's American Silk Road, The Collective Caravan, and Old West -- New Visions at the Hockaday Museum of Art -- also Fall for Glacier -- a fundraiser for several programs that make Glacier National Park even better. I shot a full cast picture for Mary Reckin's production of Notable Heroines of America last night.

Media Watch: Live from the Metropolitan Opera -- Die Walküre by Richard Wagner, thanks to Montana Public Radio. I made sure I heard the start of Act III where eight women singers join Brunnhilde for the epic Ride of the Valkyries. It is awe-inspiring the way the high, keening woodwinds and violins swirl around the symphonic brass as they play that mighty, and mightily familiar, tune. Weaving various sopranos, mezzo-sopranos, and contraltos into the sonic fabric is a stunning aural experience. The additional voice of Sieglinde makes ten women in all. I just closed my eyes and listened as Gerhilde, Ortlinde, Waltraute, Schwertleite, Helmwige, Siegrune, Grimgerde, Rossweisse, and the other two ladies made all that beautifully excessive music. Wotan's distant baritone brought the soaring scene to an end, but Sieglinde escaped, thanks to Brunnhilde's reckless bravery.


Sieglinde stands with Brunnhilde (sword), waiting for the eight other Valkyries, as the two ill-fated women flee the wrath of their War-Father Wotan.
(Click to see a larger image.)
Ride of the Valkyries is a cultural nexus where High Art and Kitsch coincide. The bombastic beauty and power of the piece is undeniable, but the image of woman warriors riding sky-horses is fraught with symptoms of psychological distress, especially when they carry dead bodies of male warriors with them. True, Wagner borrowed the Valkyries from Norse legends, but they were the product of an unlettered, violent, and self-destructive Dark Ages culture. Somehow grim barbarity also infected influential social elements in otherwise highly-civilized Germany, leading to some very deadly wars between 1870 and 1945. Wagner's Ring operas often celebrated violence and power, while his artistic patrons practiced REAL violence for the sake of extending their OWN power. Brunnhilde sacrificed herself to save her half-sister, but she wasn't exactly rewarded for her heroism. The Rock Music-like dynamics of Ride of the Valkyries make it easy to remember, but those same repetitions, high energy attacks, and literal one-to-one leitmotifs are anything but subtle. I group the Ring operas under 'Art as Athletics.' They may have shallow or non-existant depths, or even be ridiculously pseudo-romantic in Wagner's case, but they sure can be beautiful on their surfaces!