Thanks to all my steady readers and linkers -- Sitemeter tells me you've been visiting!

It took awhile, but I finally published a chronicle of the Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe, which includes glimpses of the scene in which we worked in the early to late 70's. My goal was to have it done before the Holidays, and I did it -- but the people involved have been busy with seasonal responsibilities, so I'm just going to have to wait for the feedback to really begin.
Check out the Handy Table of Contents.

Due to several requests, I've also created a team blog, open to all participants in the Great SL Mime Troupe, and our fellow-travelers.

The Mime Troupe Online Saga and MORE: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

In Celebration of the Ballet Russes Centenary

Ida Rubinstein, High Patroness of this Blog as she was photographed in 1909 -- The Toast of Gay Paris!

The Theater X-Net project is very important, and takes a lot of my attention, as a result this blog is going on hiatus for an indefinite period of time, at least for new postings. As always, feel free to link from this site!

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Ida Rubinstein, High Patroness of this Blog, channeling her friend Sarah Bernhardt's portrayal of "Camille" in 1923.

Beautiful Autumn weather and full Hunter's Moon. A report of a Bald Eagle at the slough as well.

Sitemeter Sez: Marseille, France; New Braunfels, Texas; Oostburg, Netherlands; Hyde Park, New York, and San Luis Obispo, California

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go I and II -- The later show is missing something to make it compelling this season. I didn't agree with the judges' decisions about which contestants to send home. Those two things aren't necessarily connected. The former show was entertaining over two nights -- Was that Candy Dulfer playing sax behind Rod Stewart? (Maybe, maybe not -- she's working in Europe later this week, according to her site.) Alex and Edyta looked GREAT dancing with one another. Colbie Caillat, and her band 1) Were brave enough to play live on network TV; 2) Looked like they'd rolled outta the tour truck ten minutes earlier in a venue where everyone else was preened like a poodle in a kennel show. Mark & Derek's song wasn't memorable at all -- the whole production came off looking and sounding like bad Bollywood, but I'm glad 1) The two men danced well; 2) Lip-sync'd, so we weren't subjected to any singing lousier than the lousy singing on the record.

A re-digitized portion of a gig photo featuring saxophonist Candy Dulfer in the Czech Republic five years ago, or so. (I knew her dad, Hans Dulfer, slightly, and her teacher, Rosa King in the late 70's.)

The weather has been actually OK, for Autumn -- I'll take it!

I did an out-and-back drive to Ferney, Canada yesterday. It was pretty funny sight at the border when the mountains turned bright white on the Canadian side.

A Mountain Sheep overlooking the Elk River off of Highway 3, near Ferney, B.C.

Sitemeter Sez: Ft Mitchell, Kentucky; Somewhere, Canada; Glenwood Landing, New York; South San Francisco, California (stayed a LONG time); Woodbridge, Virginia; Downingtown, Pennsylvania; Middlesbrough, UK (been there -- on the edge of the North York Moors), and Anchorage, Alaska.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (she uses her married name now) was OK in Steve Martin's dreadful Pink Panther 2. Y'know? I put up with A Shot In The Dark, and the very first Pink Panther back in 1964, but got bored with 'em. I hated Alan Arkin's Inspector Clouseau, even though it wasn't totally HIS fault that the movie was so bad.
I also saw Ashwarya and her husband Abhishek on Oprah Winfrey's talk show. Good luck with doing Western movies, Mrs. Bachchan!
Montana NPR had Houston Grand Opera performing Beatrice and Benedict (1862) by Hector Berlioz -- more like an operetta based on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing -- Beatrice was Joyce DiDonato, and Benedict was Norman Reinhardt. How about Shakespeare's major characters? Hero: Ailish Tynan, Ursule: Leann Sandel-Pantaleo, and Don Pedro: Ryan McKinny. It was in English, with a fair amount of spoken humor, plus lots of pleasant choral work to accompany Berlioz's duets and arias.

Nocturne from Berlioz's Beatrice and Benedict -- detail from a print by Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904).

Gray and cold all week, with very dark mornings which will get even DARKER after DST ends this Sunday. The Deer have been greeting me on Woodland Drive again.

Sitemeter Sez: Anchorage, Alaska; East Greenville, Pennsylvania; Oakland, California; Borden, Ontario; Belgrade, Montana, and Morgantown, West Virginia.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: I had a good time visiting the Hockaday Museum as a guest artist, rather than an employee, last night. Didn't get to talk to everyone I wanted to speak with, but almost did.
Trash A Go Go I and II Double eliminations on BOTH shows. It's dangerous to be associated with the name "Sabrina" on Trash A Go Go I, but at least they got rid of one of the male schlubs, even though the football player was acting like he wanted to go instead. I'm not fond of Trash A Go Go II's results show at all -- don't know how to "fix" it either, except by using guest stars, and eliminating biological sex as criteria in the final six.

Two of MY favorite dancers:

(R to L) Patsy D'Roubay (that's French!) and Hillary Elmore onstage in the late 1970's, choreography by Debra Ryals. Hillary also toured with Katie Duck in Tunisia.

Ugh! Snowing today -- at least it's late October rather than early October.

Sitemeter Sez: Woodbridge, Virginia; Newark, Delaware; Everett, Washington; Fairbanks, Alaska; Salt Lake City, Utah; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Great Falls, Montana and Mesa, Arizona.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. The Autumn Salon reception is next Thursday. (see below)

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go I and II The latter show had an introductory episode where their top twenty dancers showed their stuff in their own style -- very good idea. I liked the Hip-Hop piece the best, but the Coldplay dance was excellent too. Adam the movie-maker/choreographer is a positive addition to the panel of judges. (Was that Lady GaGa in the audience with all those famous choreographers?)
Ah-HA! They caught Donny Osmond hiding behind Kym Johnson's skill, after he got away with it last week on Trash A Go Go I. I still think Mya is their best contestant, but they're hitting her with the old double standard. To heck with Marathon dancing too -- it's impossible to video, and the TV audience loses out.

Now For Something Completely Different:

The male members of Friends Roadshow at Brederode Castle, North Holland 1976 -- (L to R) Sean Bergin, Dave Roe, Rick Parets, Bobby Clark, Davy Norkett, Stan Edwards, Ced Curtis, Tom Derry, Ed Baker, Ted Van Zutphen (THANKS TED), Michael Novotny, and Carl Holmer. This was an annual venue sponsored by a local psychiatric hospital/school -- my group played there the year before and Tumbleweeds from San Francisco was there a year later. All were large, somewhat contentious, groups -- come to your OWN conclusions!

Nice, but gradually darkening, Autumn weather. I haven't looked for, or seen, much wildlife lately.

Sitemeter Sez: Santa Rosa, California; Columbia Falls, Montana; Mountain View, California; Fresh Meadows, New York; Richland, Washington; San Diego, California, and Los Angeles, California.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. The Autumn Salon reception is next Thursday. (see below)

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go I and II -- No schlubs went home on the first show, just a rather introverted Olympic swimmer who deserved to stay. Kym Johnson did a BEAUTIFUL Argentine Tango which dragged slightly-better-than-schlub Donny Osmond to undeserved heights. Chelsea Hightower did the same for her skateboarding schlub. The talented cover girl stumbled at a critical moment. I really LIKE Nora Jones, but didn't get a charge out of the kinda-clumsy dual guitars in Come Away With Me. I thought the Michael Jackson tribute would have been better if it was more like ten minutes long -- they have some fabulous dancers, need I say. Commercial TV has some stupid limits.
I put up with some of the second show just to see who their top twenty dancers turned out to be. The way the summer season ended didn't please me at all, but I liked it until the final. Hmmm -- three dancers from the Salt Lake auditions made their final group. It WAS good to see the old Capitol Theater on TV -- heard Sinead O'Connor sing there a year or so back.

From Green Rocky Mountain Canyons:

The Pathfinder
Digital watercolor by Michael R. Evans 2009 (click to enlarge)
Dappled forest light is the real subject of this print – playing over our un-named model and surrounding foliage. She has hiked the Rocky Mountains in Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana – tirelessly investigating infinite vistas over uncounted ridges. Here she pauses to reconnoiter and investigate directions she’ll lead the small group who awaits her word.

The New Moon is upon us, and fine Autumn weather. I've been able to winterize my house now that it isn't a death-sentence on my throat to go outside.

Sitemeter Sez: Vienna, Austria and Montreal, Quebec.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I got my Autumn Salon artwork in on time!)
The Flathead County Library's Big Read this year, focuing on Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, featured James W. Loewen, an author who witnessed the corrosion caused by institutional racism in Mississippi. He identified periods of time where relations between the races in Amerika were better and worse -- especially "The Nadir," between 1890 and 1940, where discrimination and outright murder were part of our country's legal code. "Jim," as he prefers to be called also touched on the books which made him famous -- like Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, but he had to catch the Amtrak that night, and his presentation was necessarily shortened.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

My Own Dam' Media: Coast To Coast To Europe -- The latest chapter of the Mime Troupe Saga, featuring our 1975 stay-over at Friends Roadshow's farm in Milan, Michigan, on our way to the first Festival of Fools.
Jango Edwards wrote a response on his Face Book page about it today:

OH MY GOD...If you are really interested in how the Nouveau Clown Tribe, Salt Lake Mime Troupe, Festival of Fools and Jango Edwards and the Friends Roadshow really started they here is a taste of "The Clown Bible," The Scriptures According to Michael Evans. I love it, Mike -- you're a mother_____ for details and the drawings are priceless....don't stop my friend. You have to go to the link and hit the tab at the bottom of the page PREVIOUS PAGE until your at the beginning.
The last sentence is good advice, Stan! Are age and detail the reasons you're using the term "Clown Bible?" You know a heck of a lot more about the field than I do.

The 1975 Festival of Fools revitalized Friends Roadshow and the Amsterdam Theater Scene. (The Mime Troupe went through a VERY temporary hiatus.) By 1977 we had outclassed the stodgy Holland Festival in quality and attendance. The economics of Theatre later suffered during the Reagan/Thatcher years, but the key theatrical entities we built then endure today!

It looks a little more like Autumn, but our leaves were blighted by the near-zero cold, and may not change color that much before falling. The thumbnail-thin waning moon was sure beautiful yesterday morning!

Sitemeter Sez: Burlington, New Jersey; Mountain View, California (showing up a lot); South Pasadena, California; Columbus, Ohio, and Sherman, Texas.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I got my Autumn Salon artwork in on time, along with colleauge Susie Arthur Guthrie.)
The Flathead County Library's Big Read this year, focuing on Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, featured James W. Loewen, an author who witnessed the corrosion caused by institutional racism in Mississippi. He identified periods of time where relations between the races in Amerika were better and worse -- especially "The Nadir," between 1890 and 1940, where discrimination and outright murder were part of our country's legal code. "Jim," as he prefers to be called also touched on the books which made him famous -- like Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, but he had to catch the Amtrack that night, and his presentation was necessarily shortened.
Jim was introduced to the crowd by Bruce Guthrie (Susie's husband), who had hosted Loewen in his own History class that afternoon at Flathead High School. Good going, Bruce!

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

High & Low Media: The San Francisco Opera is doing Verdi's tuneful tear-jerker La Traviata (1854) as I write. I've mentioned it before, but this story of a "professional" woman loving a young "innocent" has haunted the performing arts for a very long time. This production has the action set during the so-called Roaring 20's, but I've neither heard any Jazz, nor has anyone danced the Charleston yet. (Not expecting these things either.)

Party at the Marquis' mansion! From the San Francisco Opera's website -- those 'flappers' may look like they're wearing armor, but this time period is excellent as a setting for this sad tale. History shows that too many mistresses of rich and famous plutocrats died of preventable diseases -- the right scholar could investigate their cases.
Like last week's Tosca, the lead female role was brilliantly interpreted by Sarah Bernhardt on the "legitimate stage" -- in the drama we know as Camille. I daresay there's an echo of this riff in the publicity-driven affairs between pornstars and other showbiz figures today. Speaking of which, the mixed martial artist is OFF Trash A Go Go I, leaving at least two talentless schlubs ready to go next. There are too many contestants this season IMHO.

A Dam' Meteor over A'Dam!

A meteor burned up over the Netherlands last night, and some pictures were taken of the event. Astronomers call this kind of phenomenon a bollide.

WOW! That was a nasty cold snap -- broke an outdoor water pipe at my house (fixed now), and generally messed up Autumn. I had to plug in my car for a few nights too.

Sitemeter Sez: My unknown pal from Louth, Ireland; Trenton, New Jersey; Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, Anchorage, Alaska; Silver Spring, Maryland; Columbia Falls, Montana; Somewhere in the UK, and Mountain View, California.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork, with Katie Duck as my muse.)
Prom Night In Mississipi on the big screens tonight, kicking off the Flathead County Library's Big Read this year, focused on Harper Lee's great novel To Kill A Mockingbird, and the society which exists around its themes , even today.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Congratulations: President Barack Hussein Obama for his Nobel Peace Prize. ('Nuff Said!)

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go is safe to watch now, without GOP Bugmen invading my TV. However, there are some sorry male schlubs still prancing around on that stage! Singer Mya is by far the most graceful of the celebrities, and couple of other women are showing promise. They had a few Charleston dances, which permitted comic actor Melissa Joan Hart and professional hambone Donny Osmond to slide through the week. I'm not sure if I want to subject myself to a lot of yelling and crying on Trash A Go Go II while they winnow the final 20 dancers out of a hundred or more. Speaking of which, I hope Shakira's performances are better tonight than the last time I saw her on network TV -- the music was lip-synched, the solo choreography was slow, and a bit more fetishistic than sexy, which didn't suit this international star's style at all.

Real Crappy Movies: Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) gives amateurism a bad name. Actor/Wrestler Tor Johnson was reportedly a real nice guy who just went to work. The same riff of an A-Bomb turning a scientist into a monster was used by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee about a year later when Marvel Comics first published The Incredible Hulk -- I'm not going to say that Marvel stole from such a low-grade pile of radioactive dung. I'm not even sure Beast was released to the public so it COULD be stolen.
Roger Corman's Last Woman On Earth is pretty bad too -- virtually unwatchable. It was shot in Puerto Rico back-to-back with two other productions: Battle of Blood Island, and Creature From The Haunted Sea. The later is crude, even for a Corman flick, but is funnier than most of his work.

Betsy Jones-Moreland, singing star of Creature From The Haunted Sea and unfortunate object of male attentions in Last Woman On Earth. She was also a co-star, along with Abby Dalton and others, of Corman's early hit Viking Women vs. the Sea Serpent. I'm glad to say she had a long career playing various roles on TV, far from the great schlock-meister's reach.

Still too cold for early Autumn. Sleet and snow yesterday, something nasty moving in today.

Sitemeter Sez: Los Angeles, California; Mililani, Hawaii; El Centro, California; Mountain View, California; Elmendorf Afb, Alaska; Vigo, Spain; Columbia Falls, Montana; Richmond, Indiana; Harrison Township, Michigan, and Saint Charles, Illinois.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork, with Katie Duck as my muse.)
Prom Night In Mississipi on the big screens tonight, kicking off the Flathead County Library's Big Read this year, focused on Harper Lee's great novel To Kill A Mockingbird, and the society which exists around its themes , even today.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go -- the two dancing shows are going head-to-head in Prime Time. Now that Bug Man Delay is gone, I can watch Trash A Go Go I with a clear conscience. JabbaWocKeeZ was mostly good, but someone goofed around with their style. I saw a dozen ways the producers could have presented them better. They're weeding out other schlubs besides the gone-away human insect, so there's not much to report, except that I swear I saw porn-star Jenna Jameson in the crowd, flanked by black-clad bodyguards. I suspect the mixed-martial artist/bad dancer is her ol' man.
BTW -- I am NOT going to post pictures of Ms. Jameson here, but I'm not sorry to see her get time on mainstream TV, either. She may have a truly "dirty job," but the high demand for her work is proof that "somebody's gotta do it."
Trash A Go Go II had auditions in my old hometown of Salt Lake City. Ha Ha Ha -- there were a few contestants from Utah, but nobody from Salt Lake, where there are many, many dance schools, except a young lady who gigged with a burlesque group! (She didn't make it through the choreography round, though.) They ran another hour of tape from Las Vegas, the venue where they eventually choose twenty dancers out of almost two hundred for their final competition. (I might skip edited tears and yelling from Nevada next week for the REAL contest after that.)

An 2007 graphic for a Burlesque company in Salt Lake City:

There's over a million people in Salt Lake now -- plenty of room for Burlesque -- Gawd knows they have sleazier adult entertainment than THAT around town.

Send In The Clowns!

Theater/Theatre: My distant friend Stan "Jango" Edwards formally opened the Nouveau Clown Institute in Barcelona, Spain earlier this week. It is a fabulous location for an institution like this, which is very much needed to preserve and continue the Variety Arts. There are schools run by other theatrical masters too, but Jango is part of an international network of performers who have proven themselves repeatedly for audiences high and low -- they have earned the opportunity to have their say as well!

Stan Edwards in costume and whiteface, October 5, 2009 -- during the formal opening of Nouveau Clown Institute. Jango's old friend and patron Salvador Dali had a similar dream thirty-five years ago -- which was unfortunately frustrated by repeated breakdowns of the great artist's health during the last decade of his life.

Drat! It's way too cold for an early Autumn day. Single digit temperatures were forecast for this week, and I hope the weatherperson's wrong.

Sitemeter Sez: Columbia Falls, Montana; Richmond, Indiana; Harrison Township, Michigan; Saint Charles, Illinois; Sydney, Australia; Fairbanks, Alaska, and Topeka, Kansas.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork, with Katie Duck as my muse.)

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Umrao Jaan (1981) starring Bhanurekha Ganesan AKA Rekha. I've really enjoyed her work in Bhoot (2003), Mil Gaya (2003), and Parineeta (2005). Wikipedia says she's been in 180 movies. That almost makes her an honorary member of the Bachchan clan! (Bollywood joke) All joking aside, Umrao Jaan was a very well-done movie about a girl who is kidnapped and sold into prostitution in 19th Century India. The costumes and settings are generally beautiful, but the story is very sad indeed. Her character becomes a courtesan -- who gains money, but no respect or love. Actors Farooq Shaikh and Naseeruddin Shah are solid in their respective roles as dithering prince and loathsome pimp.

Indian superstar Rekha Sharma, from Tamil Nadu, in a stylized classical pose. She fits any time period, though!