Damn freezing weather has started again -- couldn't wait for October to end, could it?

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Cranston, Rhode Island; Paisley, Renfrewshire, UK; Seattle, Washington; Brooklyn, New York; Davenport, Iowa; Houston, Texas; Warsaw, Poland; Kankakee, Illinois; Oneonta, New York; Union City, California; Cachoeirinha, Brazil; Los Angeles, California; Lexington, Virginia; Miami, Florida; Zurich, Switzerland; Sofia, Bulgaria; Zaanstad, North Holland; Moscow, Russia; Fresno, California; Easton, Pennsylvania; Missoula, Montana; Chicago, Illinois; Courcouronnes, France (Britanny); Ankara, Turkey; Jamaica, New York (Yo Stozo!); Vancouver, British Columbia; San Diego, California (Yo Justin!); Buffalo, New York; Denver, Colorado; Somerville, Massachusetts, and Chartres, France.

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.
High school seniors all over the community college today. I was running sound in one room, and missed most of the seminars, but our near-future students were all pumped up and enthusiastic.
The Climate Change series drew a few people on the night of the Presidental debate. Dr. Dominick DelaSalla was excellent, and the crowd was pretty thoughtful. The ever-decreasing jackass contingent is slowly learning that nobody's taking the trouble to attend these lectures in order to drink saccharine kool-aid, stirred with waters of denial.

Road Trip: It started out rainy, and there was new snow on the Rocky Mountains, but once I cleared Marias Pass the weather was sunny and warm throughout Eastern Montana. Lewistown is an oasis of green on the high plains -- the downtown seemed vibrant and the houses were well-kept. There was also an ESPRESSO BAR on Main Street!

The tiny Lewistown Art Center, just across from the big courthouse.
I saw Raptors hunting in the neighboring fields, a few Deer, Pheasants, and migrating Geese. I listened to a couple of fairly substantial Verdi operas off the satellite -- Macbeth and Masked Ball, the latter featuring tenor Jan Pierce of New York City, whose long streak of performances singing the Star Spangled Banner at Yankee Stadium will never be broken. I stumbled on the tail end of a Samuel Barber number with a nice chourus, but true to form, a couple of over-wrought lines of atonal English ruined everything.

Historic Fort Benton, Montana, navigational head of the Missouri River in the days of steam. Acting Governor Meagher, an Irish/American patriot, died under mysterious circumstances, falling from a boat like this one, moored at about this same spot around 1870. It's likely he was just drunk, but he'd made a lot of enemies out in the Wild West to boot.
Oldies DJ Cousin Brucie featured Dion DiMucci promoting his latest album, but although I never really liked that guy's singing very much, it was worth listening because he experienced Rock & Roll up close during its golden era -- I never knew he did Abraham, Martin, and John in one take -- good job! I rather enjoyed Dion's performance of that song on the Smothers Brothers TV show when it was new, but I also liked 'Moms' Mabley's serio-comic version a few months later too.

Nancy Cawdrey's American Silk Road exhibition was safely delivered to its temporary home at Liberty Village Art Center in Chester, Montana.
Media Watch: Speaking of opera, Lucia di Lammermoor is on the radio tomorrow! Let's see this programme again!

Crazy Lucia redefined Grand Opera in the mid-18th Century. Neither Verdi, nor Wagner, nor Puccini boiled over the top with as much tragic style as Donizetti did in his masterpiece -- it is SO tragic it seems like black comedy, but those melodies are nice!