Thursday, May 07, 2009

Lots of rainy days lately -- the skies tend to clear up around noon, though. Canadian Geese are nesting at the Slough, and the Osprey are vying for territory.

Sitemeter Sez: Chicago, Illinois, Flushing, New York, Manchester, UK; Bronx, New York; Moscow, Russia; Newark, New Jersey; Austin, Texas; Houston, Texas; Nesbit, Mississippi, Mobile, Alabama, Copenhagen, Denmark; Mexico City, Mexico; Madrid, Spain; Eatontown, New Jersey; Bors, Sweden, and Puteaux, Ile-de-France.

MUCH 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: Montana On The Move, New Artists, are on display at the Hockaday Museum of Art. We're also showing Seldom Seen II and Larry Johnson's photos of local characters.
Dan Fagre's show has come down for awhile, but will go up again in May -- it is about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park, and is a true labor of love by Fagre and other scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and recent decades.

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go let a good dancer leave, instead of the inept cowboy. I can't really blame the judges this time, but L'il Kim and Derek Hough shouldn't have gone. That guest-dance around the Macy's star was too much ass-kissing for my liking (that chain-store sponsors these things, but REALLY!) The comedy was pretty funny, for a change, and the pro competition wasn't too bad -- the Man from Mars partnered with the bulgy Bionic Soap Opera Announcer, and the Russian Lady made the formerly-clumsy Track Star actually DANCE! If Tony and Melissa aren't just getting by on topical anesthetic, they have a chance to win. BTW -- I liked the Jazz singer after he warmed up a little.

Concerts: The great social activist and folk singer Pete Seeger celebrated his 90th birthday earlier in the week with a big concert at Madison Square Garden.
Some of the guest performers included: Ben Harper, Joan Baez, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Tom Paxton, Richie Havens, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Emmylou Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Morello, Rufus Wainwright (plus his mom & aunt the McGarrigle Sisters). Ani DiFranco rewrote "Which Side Are You On?" to include lyrics condemning Reagonomics and boosting feminism. Michael Franti added a rap to "Dear Mr. President." Bela Fleck and Tony Trischka did a banjo duet.

From NY Daily News:
Seeger himself didn't sing during the 4-1/2 hour event, but he did lead the audience through songs like "Amazing Grace" and "Goodnight, Irene." Of course, Seeger's whole point was always to get the audience to do the crooning, to therefore democratize the music and stress plain voices as the most true. The crowd used theirs loudly and often, and, in so doing, gave Seeger his ultimate birthday gift - uniting people in song.


George Clinton & P-Funk are on the road again!
Story/photo by Leigh Armstrong, Tampa Bay Times April 24, 2009

Even after years and years of being a music legend, George Clinton still portrays an awesome energy that can't easily be matched...
After waiting around for nearly 90 minutes, the band finally started to go on stage. With the entire stage of Jannus (St. Petersburg, Florida) crowded with performers of Parliament Funkadelic, Star Child came on in his signature diaper and blazer to get people pumped up for Clinton ...
Starting out with Pump it Up, the band immediately went insane with the groove and audience soon followed. From his guttural voice to the barking at women, Clinton has not lost any of his edge. And the P-Funk All-Stars' performance is so often emulated by other bands, but none can quite catch the true spirit of the music that they represent. Honestly, there's only one way to describe seeing George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic.

Funky.


Set List: From jsoul99 -- The show was only 2 hours last night The band got on stage @ 9pm and venue pulled the plug at 11:00pm. George came on for first song standing on the verge. The band was In rock mode last night straight funkadelic
The whole band was there except richie
(Percussionist Richie Nagan)
here is the set list what I can recall from memory
standing on verge/pump it up/ bustin loose
you got a thang
red hot mama
make my funk the p-funk
we want the funk
up 4 the down stroke
bounce to this
shoot your shot
get down like james brown
maggot brain
one nation under groove
(marcy griffin song)

venue pulled the plug


My friend Michael Hampton, digitized from a news photo of the St. Petersburg gig.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

The cold weather dropped over a meter of snow around Browning, Montana -- just on the other side of the mountains from here. Those poor people on the Blackfeet Reservation didn't need THAT. May Day looked more like March or early April.

Sitemeter Sez: Santa Barbara, California; Oakland, California; Stafford, Virginia; Sherman, Texas; Columbia Falls, Montana; Amsterdam, Holland, and Dublin, Ireland.

MUCH 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: Montana On The Move, New Artists, are on display at the Hockaday Museum of Art, but we're also showing Seldom Seen II and Larry Johnson's photos of local characters.
Dan Fagre's show has come down for awhile, but will go up again in May -- it is about the vanishing glaciers of Glacier National Park, and is a true labor of love by Fagre and other scientists from the USGS. Here's another website comparing glacier photos from the early 20th Century and recent decades.

Media Watch: The Metropolitan Opera season may have ridden into the Twilight of the Gods, but Lyric Opera of Chicago presented Manon (1884) by Jules Massenet. I might have written about this longish song-fest before, but it is an example of the aesthetics of Belle Époque Paris. If there had been a real Phantom of the Opera, this work would express his world -- one of rich men riding roughshod over the young, beautiful, but no-so-wealthy. Phantom Erik was mainly a Stage Door Johnny, after all.
Zombie Honeymoon (2004)on DVD -- not the worst movie I've ever seen, but I can't recommend it to anybody, because it's too %$#@! stupid to be horrifying or funny.
I'm watching Hellboy II (2008) by Guglielmo Del Toro a little later -- I like my junk to have good taste, at least.

Of Monstrous French Patrons, Beauties, and Beasts

(L to R) Beatutiful Linda Hamilton and latex-mug specialist Ron Perlman, star of Hellboy II, in their Comic-bookish Beauty and the Beast TV series. Josette Day and Jean Marais in Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, yet another French tale of patronage and power over young women, first written down in the 1740's.