Cold winds from the mountains, and lots of snow falling above 1000 meters (3000 ft) -- this lion of a March is almost over and no lamb in sight. Thanks to everyone who came by for Ada Lovelace Day. The most fun thing to happen was when one of my dedicatees read it, and wrote a comment. Just scroll down one post to read my Ada-essay.

What's Going On NOW?

Swans, Canadian Geese, and migrating Ducks on Church Slough, between Somers and Kalispell, Montana on Sunday, March 29, 2009. Those are the Rocky Mountains and the Bob Marshall Wilderness looming behind through the falling snow.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from City of London, UK; Newquay, Cornwall, UK; Chicago, Illinois; Makati, Philippines; Laval, Quebec; Northampton, Massachusetts; Baytown, Texas; Wallingford, Connecticut; Mountain View, California; Millington, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Ottawa, Ontario; Whitefish, Montana; Stuhr, Germany; Evanston, Illinois; Rochester, New York; Dublin, Ireland; Raleigh, North Carolina; Franklin, Tennessee; Nashville, Tennessee; Franklin, Tennessee; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Eindhoven, Holland; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Helena, Montana; Spokane, Washington (HI KRIS!!); Maidenhead, UK; Louth, Ireland; Portland, Oregon; Cary, North Carolina; Sandy, Utah; Sunnyvale, California; Northbrook, Illinois; Houston, Texas; Stockholm, Sweden; Paris, France; Teckomatorp, Sweden; Roubaix, France; Grand Rapids, Minnesota and Frankfort, Kentucky.


Some more history 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!
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: Dan Fagre's show at the Hockaday Museum of Art about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park is a true labor of love by himself and other scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and recent decades. The Auction of Miniatures is up NOW -- get over there and bid.

FVCC's Honors Symposium was Communist China — The Cultural Revolution presented by Major Kwok Chiu, United States Military Academy at West Point. He had a lot to talk about! The insanity that was Mao's Cultural Revolution could not be told without describing the Korean War, Stalin's death, and the horrors of 'The Great Leap Forward.'
Next, and last, on April 2 — “China Today” presented by Eric Pei, FVCC Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence; Visiting Professor, Liaoning University, Shenyang, China.

I also ran tech for ANOTHER home-buyers workshop, plus operated a 'food-cam' at the Chef's Table dinner, so that the diners could see the food being prepared from a long way back -- literally kept me on my toes through the whole meal, since the camera was set so high.

Media Watch: Silly -- Trash A Go Go pads their results show by making the WORST dancers dance again -- bad idea. Nobody wants a double-shot of Schlub. Let the good dancers do their bonus re-dance. It is fun, entertaining, and a nice reward for a job well-done.

Arthur Rackham's illustration of the Rhinemaidens circa 1910. Wagner wove many legends and tales together in his Ring libretto. I contend that one of Wagner's threads was the living saga of patron Mad King Ludwig, and all the castle-building which forced his dethronement. Wagner's version of amoral, petulant Wotan, and the bargains he made and broke while building Valhalla cost that King more than he wanted to pay too.
Magnificent -- Das Rheingold by Richard Wagner on the Met Opera broadcast. So fine! I listened to the whole thing, a long intertwining of lush melodies.
The big bass/baritone voice of Wotan was James Morris. My favorites were the Rhine Maidens -- Yvonne Naef, Jill Grove, and Kim Begley. The literally objectified goddess Freia was Wendy Bryn Harmer, and there were THREE villains, besides the double-dealing, imperious asshole-in-the-sky Wotan, of course, Alberich: Richard Paul Fink, Fasolt: Franz-Josef Selig, and ole dragon-breath himself Fafner, as sung by John Tomlinson.
What's next? Oooo! L'Elisir d'amore by Donzetti -- That's Elixer of Love, which makes a lot of trouble in the World of Opera. Here we go again, ultra-bombast at its bombastic best in Die Walküre, with its famous ride, so beloved by Robert Duvall. Siegfried after that, with that pesky Elixer of Love Potion Number Nine making all sorts of trouble, oh wait, nine is the number of Walküren. And the last of the Ring Cycle, Götterdämmerung! What more needs to be said?