Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Alpharetta, Georgia; Frankfurt Am Main, Germany; Harwood Heights, Illinois; Marlborough, Connecticut; Sacramento, California; Melbourne, Victoria; Bangor, Maine (searching for the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus); Williamsburg, Virginia; Aliso Viejo, California; Schertz, Texas; Sacramento, California; Chassey-ls-Montbozon, France; Jamaica, New York and Cleveland, Ohio.
Check out 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.
Many 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: Check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site. Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day.
In The Community: Current shows at the Hockaday Museum of Art include Rails, Trails, and A Road -- honoring the 75th Anniversary of Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park, plus Ace Powell -- Ace of Diamonds and Native American Interpretations from our permanent collection.
Museums & Music -- our final Sunday of the Summer will be a party spread out between the other two county museums.
Road Pictures
The east front of the Rocky Mountains, part of the Two Medicine area of Glacier National Park. The community was once named Midvale, but the Great Northern built the original Glacier Park Lodge about a kilometer to the west, and renamed the station Glacier Park in 1909. The town is now named East Glacier.
Media Watch: The Snake River Outlaws on Montana Public Radio, from live radio broadcasts recorded in Missoula, Montana around 1953. Sentimental hybrid Honky-Tonk from the myth-loving west of my childhood. We had similar shows in Salt Lake City on KDYL and KSL when I was a toddler.
Om Shanti Om -- a fairly new film by Farah Khan, starring Bollywood's equivalent of Cary Grant, Shah Rukh Khan. His co-star is a young model named Deepika Padukone, a delightfully capable actor and dancer. This director also did Main Hoon Na, an action film with Suniel Shetty and the aforementioned Mr. Khan (no relation). I like Farah Khan's visual style, and since she's also a choreographer, I liked the dances best. The film has some bright moments, and is very entertaining most of the time, but I prefered Main Hoon Na.
That being said, there's some crazy fun associated with Om Shanti Om that would be hard to duplicate in other movies -- particularly a supposed post-awards party with about thirty major Bollywood movie stars looning it up. The goofy awards ceremony itself was pretty funny too, with some clever pokes in the metaphorical ribs to major hits like Dhoom and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Shah Rukh Khan at the age of 42 is still able to convincingly play a thirty-year old -- his physique was ultra-trim and muscular, and pictures of his ripped and toned body were used to promote the film. He looks a touch too mature in the face to carry off a twenty - something, though. (Cameo visitor Sanjay Duit, Bollywood's Robert Mitchum, often portrays a lot of much younger men in his own films, but that is a whole other subject.) Gauri Khan, the star's real-world wife, is one of the producers, and the family could have done a whole lot worse than this colorful spectacle.
Om Shanti Om relies on a lot of movie in-jokes, which makes sense since it is set in the world of movie-making. I don't know Indian films near well enough to understand all the references though. There was a drama buried amongst the fun, which wasn't too bad, but there were a few holes which could have been filled much better than they were. I didn't appreciate the villain being named Mikee, for one, and discerned Phantom of the Opera vibes here and there, but it was much more supernatural than that.
Turn and face the strange CHANGES: Producer Jerry Wexler, one of popular music's greatest innovators passed away on August 15 at the age of 91. From his Wiki site:
During his time as an editor, reporter, and writer for Billboard Magazine, Wexler coined the term "rhythm and blues." He became a partner in Atlantic Records in 1953. There followed classic recordings with Ray Charles, the Drifters and Ruth Brown. With Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegün, he built up Atlantic Records into a major force. In the 1960s, he ... recorded Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and oversaw production of Dusty Springfield's highly acclaimed Dusty in Memphis album. He also cultivated a tight relationship with Stax Records, (and) was an enormous proponent of the then-developing Muscle Shoals Sound...
I have a copy of Rhythm & Blues In New Orleans by John Broven -- on pages xxi to xxiii, there are quotations about the musical concept funky, reportedly created by NOLA drummer Earl Palmer and passed around the industry by Jerry Wexler, NOLA saxman Red Tyler and others. The old gentleman had an ear!
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