Getting colder -- we've missed snow in the valley so far, but Winter is settling in. The slough has hosted migratory waterfowl, but it is slowly freezing. At least we had an Autumn that lasted a reasonable time.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Chittenango, New York; Somewhere in the United Kingdom; Hradec Krlov, Czech Republic; Lansing, Michigan; Fairfield, Alabama; West Point, New York (reading my Armastice Day post); Oakland, California; Jamaica, New York; Moncton, New Brunswick; Oxford Junction, Nova Scotia; Columbia Falls, Montana; Bratislava, Slovakia; Columbus, Ohio; Rockville Centre, New York; Abu Dhabi, UAE; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Cortlandt Manor, New York; Columbia Falls, Montana; Barcelona, Spain; Petaling Jaya, Maylaya; Sydney, Australia; Baltimore, Maryland; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Wilkesboro, North Carolina; Los Altos, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Fort Lee, New Jersey and Newport, Rhode Island.

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 including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!


Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. 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: The Hockaday Museum of Art's Autumn Salon, with 116 pieces on display. We also have Crown of the Continent and Ace of Diamonds gracing our walls.

We hosted a web-based Positive Aging Conference at the college which showed that Internet technology itself is far from mature. There was one funny anecdote told about supposed long-living inhabitants of the Cacasus Mountains -- it was easy to lie about one's age on the census in early Soviet times, so many 20-somethings avoided impressment in the Red Army by recording their birthdays as happening 40 years earlier. When rumors of numerous 100 year olds circulated in the 1960s, investigators found a lot of men who weren't quite THAT old.
The keys to long life seem to be purposeful living, mild climate, physical activity, lots of vegetables, preventitive medicine, and lucky genetics. Only a few small population around the globe are fortunate to experience all these factors in their local cultures -- but the rest of us are certainly able to learn from them.

Media Watch: National Public Radio was kind of a downer this Saturday morning -- besides news about the world economic crisis, there was an analysis of Buddy Can You Spare A Dime, the lamenting hit song from the Great Depression. The Department of Homeland Security was one of the sponsors, pushing a program to rat-out, uh -- identify employability of immigrants. Soon afterwards, PBS and NPR's outspoken enemy and nemesis Newt Gingrich was spewing his partisan lies unchallenged, as if he was somebody different from the corrupt, divisive snake he's always been. Next, the Houston Opera presented Samuel Barber's Billy Budd -- for which I have little patience. It still sounds like a comedy troupe's parody of an opera to me.
Let's lighten up with Trash A Go Go, punctuated by expensive prime-time adverts featuring Dance Music Diva Lady GaGa. Maurice was eliminated, so Cheryl Burke's going to do guest spots with competent partners. Julianne Hough got out of the hospital for a jitterbug with her brother, who has the inside track for winning it all this season.
Pimping ABC's Country Music Association Awards, Brad Paisley was the musical guest. During Paisley's first number, Lacey and Benji Schwimmer did a sibling dance that was every bit as good as the Houghs' duet in Paisley's second performance. Paisley plays a very clever, nuanced lead guitar, which saved his dull-assed opening song. Afterward he dug into Louis Jordan's classic boogie-woogie Let The Good Times Roll and rocked the airwaves. I've noticed that the Country Music Fashion Police seem to be enforcing images of "Anorexic Blonde" for women, featuring VERY DEEP cleavage, and "Hat Rack" for men, featuring VERY BIG hats. There are a few exceptions, but they ARE exceptions, or legacies, like the fans' beloved Reba McIntyre.



(Click to enlarge)
Digitally-redrawn images of New York musician and singer Stefani Germanotta performing her ever-evolving persona of Lady GaGa. It seems like she's been gradually covering up her body since the obviously hot summer of 2007 -- in her latest commercial she wore a red cat-suit, styled like a super heroine. I wouldn't be surprised to learn she was related to The Incredibles. Her self-proclaimed exhibitionism may turn heads at first, but her main appeal relies on good songs and good singing, so I wish her nothing but success in her quest to conquer the entertainment world "one sequin at a time!"