Summer is Summer, and it's been fairly hot, but nothing like the 100+ temperatures of a few years back. Lots of Ospreys over the slough!

Sitemeter Sez: Oakland, California; Herndon, Virginia; Helena, Montana; Middletown, New Jersey; Helsingborg, Sweden; Mountain View, California; Chicago, Illinois; Wellington, New Zealand (Hi, Gerda); Orange, California; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Granger, Iowa; Oceanside, New York; Columbia Falls, Montana; Hartford, Connecticut; Palermo, Maine; Leighton Buzzard, UK; Pecs, Hungary; Watford, UK (been there); Washington, District of Columbia; Jacksonville, Florida, and Appleton, Wisconsin.

MORE New Mime Troupe 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: Don't miss Arts In The Park this weekend! Mark Ogle's remarkable retrospective at the Hockaday Museum of Art, plus Dan Fagre and Lisa McKeon's show is on the first level -- about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park, it is a true labor of love by scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and recent decades.
The Hockaday Museum of Art's Face Book Site (There's a link to the conventional website there.)

A statewide "town meeting" style videoconference about the USA's health care crisis. There were many advocates from different political views, and a few ignoramuses, but the consensus was clear: No more bankruptcies or losing homes because of injury or illness!

I was running the tech for guest speaker Joseph Lisle Williams when he presented a lecture at my college about surviving a bear attack in Glacier National Park 50 years ago. Don Dayton, the ranger who shot the bear and saved the young man's life was at the event too. If you want to read more about it, his sister wrote a blog about her brother and the lecture HERE.

The other month, I ran sound for Carol Buchanan's public discussion of her historical novel God's Thunderbolt -- The Vigilantes of Montana at the community college. Here's the link to a live-blog of the event.

Media Watch: I've already said a lot about Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, one of the best ten movies ever made IMHO, but I saw it again and wish to acknowledge some of the performers and their performances in that film: Ann Reinking was very brave in portraying a woman in a situation which was awfully similar to her real-life relationship with Fosse. Young Erzsebet Foldi was perfect in the role of a talented daughter of two brilliant dance artists. I understand she later worked with Twila Tharp. Leland Palmer wasn't Gwen Verdon, but she portrayed the choreographer's artistic soulmate with incredible power and emotional depth. Aerotica is simply one of the best filmed dances EVER, and I'd never dug into the cast list enough to realize that Sandahl Bergman sang and danced the lead in that fabulous piece. I've always wished her well, but I'm very happy that she has a secure place in Cinema History -- in the best sense.

Dancer Sandahl Bergman has had a varied career in entertainment, including sword-and-sorcery movies. Her debut in All That Jazz proved that she was an artist first and foremost.

So You Think You Can Dance? has a big problem -- the final four women are all better than the final four men. It is time to do eliminations which AREN'T based on a dancer's gender.

Speaking of trash television, America's Got Talent highlighted Susan Boyle last night in an interview with Meredith Vieira. Ms. Boyle was the British show's one significant discovery, and if she's able to make it on her talent, that would be a very good thing. They DID accept two break dance crews which I especially enjoyed from the MTV series -- Brake SK8 and Status Quo, AKA SQ Entertainment now. I will go on record saying that I very much dislike seeing so many failures and put-ons in a videotaped program. I don't think they're funny, and I'd rather see more of the good entertainers.

President Obama laid out the urgency of Health Care reform at his press conference last night. Most of the so-called reporters in the room looked like goddamned fools afterward, with their ignorant accusations and dimwitted comments disguised as questions. The insurance companies and big pharmaceutical companies are spending over 1.4 million dollars a day to derail reform, and it shows in the paid-off traditional media. I was glad the president said something about the stupid Louis Gates incident and its larger context too.