Weather: Low clouds and lotsa scattered showers as far as you can see. The fire season is officially a "wash-out" this year. Good! After the month-long smoke of August 2003, I enjoy the change. (The house painter is coming NEXT week.)

Wildlife: A squirrel was chasing a raven across the lawn here at the college. The bird got bored with that game and flew away.

Charity Alert: The Animal Rescue Site : Feed an Animal in Need

In the Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art is doing TWO events tonight -- an auction, plus staying open for "Fun Friday." I'm going to shoot pictures all over the valley!
Hockaday Museum of Art - Prime visual arts resource in Flathead Valley of Northwest Montana.

Media Watch: I finished a book about J.R.R. Tolkien's experiences just before and after World War I. Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth by John Garth. It went on a bit about details within The Book of Lost Tales, but was otherwise well-paced. I learned much more about the origins of his writings and mythological interests.
One of the very first passages I ever read by Tolkien was in the introduction to Lord of the Rings:
One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.
This book has Tolkien's calligraphic imprint on the cover, and is published by Houghton-Mifflin. The very personal information inside leads me to believe that it is countenanced by Christopher Tolkien and his family.

Charity Alert: Do this FIRST! The Hunger Site : Give Food for Free to Hungry People in the World

Wildlife: It's been easier to see deer beside the road on the way to work, as Autumn approaches. They were scarce all summer.

Weather: Pink morning, heavy clouds, but no rain so far -- will the house painter show up?

Media Watch: SciFi Network showed a misbegotten remake of I Married A Monster From Outer Space. The 1958 original was dull, but this humorless cowflop was even worse. Congrats to the late actors Susan Cabot and Thomas Tryon for doing their level best in the 50's as "...this hack sitting next to the camera wouldn't let us change a line," to quote Tryon, who retired from acting ten years later to write popular novels. (The movie based on Tryon's best-selling book The Other was shown a few days earlier on FLIX Network. )
I saw part of Pay It Forward with Helen Hunt, Diane Lane, Hayley Jo Osment, and some other good actors in a slightly better-than-average TV movie from 2001. A thunderstorm interrupted the satellite signal, and we couldn't see how it ended.

Back from Vacation! Did you miss me? Since nobody reads this blog as yet, consider that a joke. Synopsis:
We drove across Montana, North Dakota, and into Northern Minnesota along Highway 2 -- a long freakin' stretch that I wouldn't recommend to anyone.
We stayed in Crookston, Minnesota for a few days doing family research. Many thanks to the Polk County Historical Museum and the Polk County Records Department for their enthusiastic assistance!
The trip down to Minneapolis/St. Paul wasn't near as nice, but we snagged almost two dozen Bollywood videos and CDs in Northern Minneapolis along a row of (East) Indian markets. The rest of the day generally sucked, except for a strangely delightful trip to the Mall of America that night.
Our last stop in Minnesota was the Spam Museum on our way out of there -- fun place.
All through South Dakota on the way back, we encountered groups of motorcycles coming from and going to the Sturgis Rally in the Black Hills. It spread a whole new layer of interest over the kitchy tourist traps on our route -- from the Corn Palace to Devil's Tower.
It took a day and a half of hard, fast driving to get home from Devil's Tower, but the cats were waiting for us!

Weather: Rainy and dark -- our house painter is supposed to start today.

Wildlife: The birds are very unhappy about our removing the feeders on the deck and the eaves for repainting.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site : Give Food for Free to Hungry People in the World

In the Community: I had to videotape at the college, and pack up a traveling show at the art museum before I was even unpacked myself!

Media Watch: Thanks to the Weather Channel for all the help on the road! Gawd! Some of those Bollywood DVDs have subtitles that lag by minutes relative to the dialog.

Weather: Dry and warm -- if you think there's no pollution here, you're wrong. The valley is filling up with dust and car exhaust. The ol' "Big Sky" has a lot of brown in it's blue.

Wildlife: Cedar Waxwings are moving in to the neighborhood -- we usually see them in fall. The Canada Geese are starting to migrate too -- our local goslings are getting awfully big, and might join the exodus soon.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site : Give Food for Free to Hungry People in the World

Media Watch: Ugh! Mo (I love the 70's, 80's, 90's) Rocca as a correspondent at the political conventions -- with people like Larry King pretending to laugh at his lines. I reluctantly admit to getting used to Pauley Shore about ten years ago, but I can't say I welcome even MORE smug whiners on TV news shows. Speaking of has-beens from previous decades, I saw Donnie (New Kids On The Block) Wahlberg in a fragment of some crappy crime flick.
Books -- Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care by John McWhorter isn't as reactionary as the title sounds!
Before It Happens to You by Jonathan Bernstein M.D. recommends taking a combination of aspirin, ACE-inhibitors, statins, and beta blockers as a preventitive regimen against future heart attacks or strokes. Of course I'm thinking about it -- you are much worse-off after a coronary failure, if not crippled or dead.
Poplorica By Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger is very informative and entertaining!
Poplorica Main Menu Page
Quote: Pop culture meets pop reference in this irreverent tour of surprising twentieth-century events and inventions that forever changed the way we live. Journalists Smith and Kiger forage through technology, business, entertainment, sports and sociology in these lively, eclectic profiles of twenty unusual events, inventions and individuals that irrevocably altered modern life. They reveal the real stories and significance of events as unheralded as Alfred Kinsey's disastrous honeymoon, Betty Ford's intervention, and the birth of celebrity voyeurism, as well as the invention of Big Bertha golf clubs, pantyhose, super-absorbent disposable diapers, and permanent press clothes They measure the social impact of TV dinners, black velvet paintings, and the spectacular maneuver that forever changed sports (Dr. J's slam-dunk) -- in provocative essays guaranteed to educate, illuminate and entertain.

Wildlife: Awoke in the night last Friday to the sounds of loud splashing and growling cats. I went outside with a flashlight, and there were a half-dozen baby racoons sitting in our box feeder, devouring the sunflower seeds. We took their picture as they posed for us. Mama Racoon was down on the lawn, and yes, the box feeder was EMPTY in the morning. They haven't been back since. (We've refilled it!)
Yesterday there were two sightings of Osprey fishing.
This morning a huge Bald Eagle perched itself on the west side of Middle Foy's Lake.

Charity Alert: The Animal Rescue Site : Feed an Animal in Need

Weather: Generally hot, but this is Montana -- some scattered leaves are turning yellow and red.

Media Watch: What am I reading? Juggling three books, and I can't remember a single title.
The art museum's website is up-to-date: Hockaday Museum of Art - Prime visual arts resource in Flathead Valley of Northwest Montana. We've been working our tails off there!
I've re-listed the Northwestern Montana Historical Society's Looking Back on Ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6912861292
Ridiculous -- Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital was put out of it's misery the other week, with a re-animator hook in it's tail. (Leave this zombie in the ground!) That decapitated guy never got his head back either -- too bad -- Jesus II shoulda performed a miracle for him when he was resurrected. ABC.com: Kingdom Hospital
Sublime -- Trio Network re-ran Lonesome Highway, A History of Country Music, which was actually produced by BBC Bristol. There was some good footage of Hank Williams, Lefty Frizell, and others. They skipped a lot of the popular side of the industry in favor of a few key figures, and finished the series with alotta praise heaped upon Gillian Welch. I saw her live in Salt Lake a few years ago, and she was PHENOMENAL!
TRIO: pop, culture, tv.

Wildlife: Regular visits by hummingbirds, especially in the evening. It looks like the Loons have moved back to Big Foy's Lake -- distant calls, but no sightings for weeks.

Weather: A perfect summer day on Tuesday. Clouds are gathering on the western horizon today.

Charity Alert: The Rainforest Site: Help Save Our Rainforests!

In The Community: "Procrastination Blues" at the Hockaday -- Monday was supposed to be the deadline for the Lens On Montana photo show. The pictures shoulda been ready to hang too. Well, a whole lotta stuff came in Tuesday, with almost as many excuses as there were photos! They'll all be hanging up by August 5th. Hockaday Museum of Art - Prime visual arts resource in Flathead Valley of Northwest Montana.

Media Watch: Speak Easily from 1932 with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante. An outhouse special -- it's really sad that Keaton, who made some of the greatest films of all time, fell so far down after his heyday in the 20's. You can blame alcoholism, I guess, for some of his problems -- but that movie just plain sucked -- it was about a theatre show that sucked too. You'd think they could do better with Jimmy Durante in the cast, but they didn't.
It bore a family resemblance to 42nd Street, being a backstage comedy -- there was even a blustery artistic director ala Warner Baxter (musta been a social stereotype then), but that's damning it with very faint praise.
It was part of a TCM series of flicks featuring Thelma Todd -- she was sexy, beautiful, and funny, but is famous today mostly for being found dead in a still-unsolved Hollywood mystery.
Other movies she made included Horsefeathers and Monkey Business with the Marx Brothers, plus the first movie version of Dashell Hammett's Maltese Falcon, featuring Bebe Daniels, Ricardo Cortez, Dudley Digges, and Una Merkel.
One web page: Denny Jackson's Thelma Todd Page
Another page: Thelma Todd