Whitetail Deer are still living around here -- a spiked buck was eating alongside Woodland Avenue last night. Blue Jays and Chickadees were spotted over the weekend by the slough.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Mitchellstown, Victoria; Jamaica, New York; Bridgewater, Massachusetts; Manchester, Michigan; Brisbane, Queensland; Toronto, Ontario; Santiago, Chile; Winnipeg, Manitoba; Carlsbad, California; Eugene, Oregon; Orlando, Florida; Londrina, Brazil; South Gardiner, Maine; Richmond, Texas; Hamilton, Ontario; Pinellas Park, Florida; Round Lake, Illinois; Lake Worth, Florida; Washington, D.C; Toronto, Ontario; Los Alamitos, California; Oakland, California; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Droitwich, Worcestershire; Stockholm, Sweden; Portland, Oregon, and Jyvskyl, Finland.

New revisions 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!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in 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: The Hockaday Museum of Art's Autumn Salon, with 116 pieces on display. We also have Crown of the Continent and Ace of Diamonds gracing our walls. Looks like another art run to Eastern Montana in mid-December.

Media Watch: The Beatles AKA "The White Album" was released FORTY years ago. It was a double-record set full of new material by the most popular entertainers on the planet. Magical Mystery Tour preceeded it, but it was primarily a collection of singles -- some very adventurous singles like Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane, and I Am The Walrus, but some half-baked clunkers too. It was definitely an anticlimax after 1967's masterpiece, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. The Fab Four had succeeded in 1966 with a similar idea called Yesterday and Today, between Rubber Soul and Revolver, but Mystery just wasn't very strong. For this reason, and others, A new Beatles album was eagerly anticipated by many millions of music fans. I was one of them, and enjoyed this sprawling production over many years -- mostly because of the variety of its tracks. It is supposedly The Beatles best-selling album, according to the White Album Listening Party running on Montana Public Radio. There's been a lot said about that record, but I'm going to try to convey my perceptions from the days when it was new:
I remember my first time listening to "White Album" as a whole -- it was also my first quarter at college, and I was driving up to the University of Utah Library on a gray Sunday to study for a Monday exam, when Rock and Roll stalwart KNAK AM Radio announced it would track through the whole four-sided record less than a week after it's official release. I delayed studying for two hours, (KNAK ran news and commercials as well) while DJ Gary Waldron introduced the latest Beatle music to me, and the whole Salt Lake Valley. I wasn't really alone in that car -- many thousands were listening too.
Side Four
1. "Revolution 1" -- "Wooley" Waldron started with this for some reason. This is a slower, chunkier version of John Lennon's brash single from the summer of '68.
2. "Honey Pie" -- Paul McCartney's music-hall loon-outs were fresh and fun then.
3. "Savoy Truffle" -- George Harrison had a wit about him, and "you are what you eat" was a popular catch-phrase of the time.
4. "Cry Baby Cry" -- is and was unmemorable. I was NOT smoking pot that day.
5. "Revolution 9" -- Waldron skipped this one, but we listeners made him pay by requesting it for the next two years -- a real mish-mash that only seemed to make sense if you were stoned. (What a good excuse!)
6. "Good Night" -- Wooley played it last, although it was only 2 in the afternoon when he finished.
Side One
1. "Back in the U.S.S.R." -- The Beatles were always a good Rock & Roll band.
2. "Dear Prudence" This song is much deeper than the opening cut.
3. "Glass Onion" I enjoyed the various references, but I couldn't figure out if Lennon was saying something or nothing. I often confused this song with Savoy Truffle.
4. "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" -- An immediate favorite of mine. I fancied myself a bass player at the time, and played along with this one when I bought my own copy.
5. "Wild Honey Pie" -- The DJ may have skipped this cut too -- it's just filler.
6. "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill" -- Satire on the Imperial mindset by Lennon. Of course he wasn't pointing out our own society's hypocrisy was he?
7. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" -- George Harrison hit his stride with this song.
8. "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" -- Is it OK to laugh, John? I wasn't really sure.
Side Two
1. "Martha My Dear" -- Sixteenth-inch deep McCartney cuteness.
2. "I'm So Tired" -- Another well-crafted Lennon downer, from the author of Help!
3. "Blackbird" -- McCartney at his best. A very pleasant listening experience.
4. "Piggies" -- Harrison could do satire too, and we'd all read Animal Farm.
5. "Rocky Raccoon" -- Everybody laughed at this one, especially the dig at Dylan.
6. "Don't Pass Me By" -- Ringo seemed to be a fun guy, and his songs were fun too.
7. "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" -- The biggest laugh on the album.
8. "I Will" -- When McCartney was good, he was VERY good!
9. "Julia" -- The DJ reminded all of us that Julia was the name of Lennon's mother.
Side Three
1. "Birthday" -- Another big laugher, followed by ...
2. "Yer Blues" -- Merrie Ole John Lennon, inviting us to laugh once more, as he screamed in near-mortal musical agony. (See below)
3. "Mother Nature's Son" -- Never liked this one, sorry Paul.
4. "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" -- I 'got' the drug reference, and was happy to rock-out after McCartney's dull spot, but I thought John Lennon was kidding -- he wasn't.
5. "Sexy Sadie" -- Lennon could be boring too.
6. "Helter Skelter" -- Paul McCartney's turn to ROCK! He outdid himself here.
7. "Long, Long, Long" -- Harrison got stuck behind Helter Skelter.

So KNAK's Gary (Wooley) Waldron finally played "Good Night," and I went off to study -- Damn if I know which subject it happened to be after all this time, but I've always remembered that Sunday!

I've never regretted a single visit I've made to a library, even the solitary trip described above. The library at the University of Utah was big, and is bigger still today, but I solidified my education there. It really didn't take long before I enjoyed some very good times at college -- the actual U of U Library is the background for this assemblage of 60's era dancers, looking much like me and my friends, enjoying each others' company. We played as hard as we worked, and you can safely bet at least one Beatles song roared out of those unseen speakers!

I really don't have to write about November 22, 1963 but I will. For some reason, I was uncharacteristically late for history class at Jackson Junior High School in Salt Lake City, Utah when my neighbor Cal Noyce, standing in the strangely-empty halls said "President Kennedy is dead!" I wanted to punch him in the mouth, since he often pulled stupid practical jokes, but he was serious, and put up with my own stupid state of denial long enough to convince me of the truth. When I got to class, the girls were all crying and everyone was in shock -- the next few days were a leaden haze of sadness as Oswald was killed, and the whole funeral was televised. What I remember most about the interminable telecast was Charles DeGaulle leading a group of dignitaries as they walked behind the cassion bearing Kennedy's body through Washington DC. At Arlington Cemetary, the bugler made some errors playing Taps, but I never heard anyone say anything about it then, or since.
Most of our Junior High, including myself, had seen John F. Kennedy in person when his motorcade drove near our school the previous month. We lined US Highway 40 two blocks south of us, and cheered as he stood up in his convertable as he approached a freeway underpass. He was a remarkably handsome man -- much better looking than most pictures show him, and he waved joyfully at the kids waiting to see him on that sunny October morning.
A few weeks after JFK's visit, the President of South Viet Nam, and his brother, were assassinated by their fellow U.S. allies. Four and a half years afterward we lost Martin Luther King to a racist's bullet, and Robert Kennedy's senseless`murder on the night of my high school graduation guaranteed that thousands more Americans would die unnecessarily in Southeast Asia. Sadly and ironically, I had seen RFK speak at a campaign rally barely six weeks earlier, promising to get us out of Viet Nam. After the police riots in Chicago that summer, I was definitely radicalized by late 1968.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Waterloo, Ontario; Edmonton, Alberta; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Winchester, Massachusetts; Washington, DC; Igualada, Spain (near Barcelona); Bucharest, Romania; New York City, New York; Bridgewater, Massachusetts; Sydney, Australia; Tappan, New York; Los Angeles, California; London, Ontario; Orlando, Florida; Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (nice place!); Riverside, California; Columbia Falls, Montana; Vancouver, British Columbia; San Francisco, California (my favorite big city); Windsor, Ontario (Detroit's next door neighbor); Tokyo, Japan; Queen Creek, Arizona; Seattle, Washington; Birkirkara, Malta, Saint-Dizier, France and Fort Washington, Maryland.

New revisions 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!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in 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: The Hockaday Museum of Art's Autumn Salon, with 116 pieces on display. We also have Crown of the Continent and Ace of Diamonds gracing our walls. Looks like another art run to Eastern Montana in mid-December.

Media Watch: The Laramie Project on DVD -- even better with professional actors, but I must say that the stage play continues to affect hearts and minds in very positive ways wherever it is performed. Matthew Shepard's life has made a difference in the world.
Inexplicably, the vile Phelps homophobe cult is still around, despite his many defeats at the hands of decent people across the political spectrum -- once they demonstrated at performances of The Laramie Project, but now they make nasty scenes at the funerals of our country's young soldiers. Why anybody wants to spread and deepen hatred is beyond my understanding.

U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama said these words November 4, 2008: This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

Lightening Up: I heard from an old friend named Crimson Rose over a deep chasm in time -- she attended the International Mime Festival in 1974, along with me, my theater company, Friends Roadshow, and other visually-oriented artists. Among other things, she took a look at my web page of the event and made a nice comment. I am very impressed that she could spare the time -- she enjoys a distinguished career as a member of the LLC for Black Rock City (Burning Man), and is their Director of Art Management. She's also a director of Black Rock Arts Foundation, the non-profit wing of Burning Man. At night she performs with real fire, singly and in groups. Her work has inspired uncounted thousands of people to get up and make their expressions concrete and real. I'm honored to renew her acquaintence.

Shamanistically Yours ...

Crimson Rose in her incarnation as Fire Goddess, reinterpreted from a website entitled Play with Fire. I encourage you to look at her relaxed, easy-on-the-eye watercolors too.

A cold wind is blowing instead of the warm wind. No wildlife sightings this last week in the neighborhood -- maybe the Turkeys are hiding until after Thanksgiving.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Ottawa, Ontario; Wallingford, Connecticut; City of London, UK (Where they have the cool Tower Bridge); Providence, Rhode Island; Vina, California; Louth, Ireland (Comment sometime -- Chris? Rachelle? Roseanne?) Newbury Park, California; Toronto, Ontario; Columbia Falls, Montana; Calhoun, Georgia; Montreal, Quebec; Rochester, New York; San Antonio, Texas; Manchester, Connecticut; Columbus, Ohio; Hyde Park, New York (Home of FDR); Cincinnati, Ohio; Gateshead, UK; Key Biscayne, Florida; Rockland, Ontario; Los Angeles, California; Canby, Oregon, and Whitefish, Montana.

New revisions 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!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in 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: The Hockaday Museum of Art's Autumn Salon, with 116 pieces on display. We also have Crown of the Continent and Ace of Diamonds gracing our walls. Looks like another art run to Eastern Montana in mid-December.

Media Watch: I saw The Rape of Europa movie last night. There were some nice details shown of Adele Bloch-Bauer's portrait for sure (see previous posts), but what impressed me most was the filmmakers letting the insane death toll of WWII tell its own story. The tale of the Mona Lisa hiding in obscurity in the French countryside was appealing, but there was more pathos than anything in this very important film.

"The Rape of Europa" by Valentin Serov (1865-1911) -- a preliminary sketch of the famous 1910 painting, featuring fellow Russian Francophile Ida Rubinstein, High Patroness of Our Blog, going along with Zeus' bull from Phonecia to Achaean Greece. This was the time when she was La Belle of Belle Epoch Paris. Thirty years later, because of her Ashkinazi heritage, her collections of art and books were plundered by Nazi looters after she fled from France to London (via Casablanca). Since most of them were on paper, rather than paintings or sculptures, their trail has grown cold over time.

Early Winter with a mini-Chinook wind warming the air. The highest mountains are snowy, but it's pretty brown everywhere else.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Burlington, Massachusetts; Eatontown, New Jersey; NYC, New York; Tongmoe, Korea; Salt Lake City, Utah (Former Hometown); Columbia Falls, Montana; Chicago, Illinois; North Arlington, New Jersey; Bridgewater, Massachusetts; Billings, Montana; Alingss, Sweden; Vienna, Austria; Prescott, Arizona; Genoa, Italy; Bedford, Bedfordshire; Gif-sur-Yvette, France; Towanda, Kansas; Victoria, British Columbia; Olney, Maryland (There's an Olney up here, too.); Toronto, Ontario; Sacramento, California; Brandon, South Dakota; Rio De Janeiro, Brazil; Millville, New Jersey; Sandy, Utah (Southeast part of Salt Lake Valley) and Memphis, Tennessee (Long distance information, give me ...)

Check out ROCK against Reaganomics 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!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in 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.
A reader sent me a comment about yet another charity game site called AIDtoCHILDREN.com -- it is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art's Autumn Salon, with 116 pieces on display. We also have Crown of the Continent and Ace of Diamonds gracing our walls. Looks like I'm making another art run to Eastern Montana in mid-December.

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go -- even with Julianne Hough back on board again, Cody missed the finals next week. The results show was crowded, but OK -- Aretha Franklin was classy, two other professional singers sang some good songs, and Ms. Hough as a singer surprised me with the quality of her voice, in a very positive way. (I'm not running out to buy any records of hers, though.) The Kids' Kompetition was fun as usual, and I liked seeing professional dancers in front of all that music. I've rooted for Brooke Burke all along, and I'm still rooting for her.
The Progressive Blogosphere was up in arms about Spineless Harry Reid and Wholly-about Joe Lieberman yesterday. It was a setback for the change we need and voted for, but our votes just don't seem to count in the so-called collegial U.S. Senate. There were some in our number reminding us about President Obama's strategy of inclusiveness in order to achieve his goals, and ours. I sure hope they are right.

Go to the Light, Stephani -- Go to the Light!

Another digital collage of New York musician/singer Stefani Germanotta as the fiberglass-white-haired version of Lady GaGa. She plays a lot with lights and microphones in her act while she dances.

Getting colder -- we've missed snow in the valley so far, but Winter is settling in. The slough has hosted migratory waterfowl, but it is slowly freezing. At least we had an Autumn that lasted a reasonable time.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Chittenango, New York; Somewhere in the United Kingdom; Hradec Krlov, Czech Republic; Lansing, Michigan; Fairfield, Alabama; West Point, New York (reading my Armastice Day post); Oakland, California; Jamaica, New York; Moncton, New Brunswick; Oxford Junction, Nova Scotia; Columbia Falls, Montana; Bratislava, Slovakia; Columbus, Ohio; Rockville Centre, New York; Abu Dhabi, UAE; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Cortlandt Manor, New York; Columbia Falls, Montana; Barcelona, Spain; Petaling Jaya, Maylaya; Sydney, Australia; Baltimore, Maryland; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Wilkesboro, North Carolina; Los Altos, California; Atlanta, Georgia; Fort Lee, New Jersey and Newport, Rhode Island.

Check out ROCK against Reaganomics 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!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in 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.

In The Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art's Autumn Salon, with 116 pieces on display. We also have Crown of the Continent and Ace of Diamonds gracing our walls.

We hosted a web-based Positive Aging Conference at the college which showed that Internet technology itself is far from mature. There was one funny anecdote told about supposed long-living inhabitants of the Cacasus Mountains -- it was easy to lie about one's age on the census in early Soviet times, so many 20-somethings avoided impressment in the Red Army by recording their birthdays as happening 40 years earlier. When rumors of numerous 100 year olds circulated in the 1960s, investigators found a lot of men who weren't quite THAT old.
The keys to long life seem to be purposeful living, mild climate, physical activity, lots of vegetables, preventitive medicine, and lucky genetics. Only a few small population around the globe are fortunate to experience all these factors in their local cultures -- but the rest of us are certainly able to learn from them.

Media Watch: National Public Radio was kind of a downer this Saturday morning -- besides news about the world economic crisis, there was an analysis of Buddy Can You Spare A Dime, the lamenting hit song from the Great Depression. The Department of Homeland Security was one of the sponsors, pushing a program to rat-out, uh -- identify employability of immigrants. Soon afterwards, PBS and NPR's outspoken enemy and nemesis Newt Gingrich was spewing his partisan lies unchallenged, as if he was somebody different from the corrupt, divisive snake he's always been. Next, the Houston Opera presented Samuel Barber's Billy Budd -- for which I have little patience. It still sounds like a comedy troupe's parody of an opera to me.
Let's lighten up with Trash A Go Go, punctuated by expensive prime-time adverts featuring Dance Music Diva Lady GaGa. Maurice was eliminated, so Cheryl Burke's going to do guest spots with competent partners. Julianne Hough got out of the hospital for a jitterbug with her brother, who has the inside track for winning it all this season.
Pimping ABC's Country Music Association Awards, Brad Paisley was the musical guest. During Paisley's first number, Lacey and Benji Schwimmer did a sibling dance that was every bit as good as the Houghs' duet in Paisley's second performance. Paisley plays a very clever, nuanced lead guitar, which saved his dull-assed opening song. Afterward he dug into Louis Jordan's classic boogie-woogie Let The Good Times Roll and rocked the airwaves. I've noticed that the Country Music Fashion Police seem to be enforcing images of "Anorexic Blonde" for women, featuring VERY DEEP cleavage, and "Hat Rack" for men, featuring VERY BIG hats. There are a few exceptions, but they ARE exceptions, or legacies, like the fans' beloved Reba McIntyre.



(Click to enlarge)
Digitally-redrawn images of New York musician and singer Stefani Germanotta performing her ever-evolving persona of Lady GaGa. It seems like she's been gradually covering up her body since the obviously hot summer of 2007 -- in her latest commercial she wore a red cat-suit, styled like a super heroine. I wouldn't be surprised to learn she was related to The Incredibles. Her self-proclaimed exhibitionism may turn heads at first, but her main appeal relies on good songs and good singing, so I wish her nothing but success in her quest to conquer the entertainment world "one sequin at a time!"

Ninety years ago today, the guns fell silent on the killing fields of World War One. The British blockade of Germany would continue until the Central Powers signed humiliating terms of peace, which almost guaranteed hostilities in the next generation. The Ch'ing Dynasty had fallen, as had the German, Austria/Hungary, Ottoman, and Russian Empires. The French and British Empires would never recover their former strength. The U.S. and Japanese Empires were ruled by creditor states, but the spreading worldwide depression would affect them in just over a decade. An Influenza pandemic was killing millions of people with germs, as the so-called Great War had killed millions more with steel, lead, and famine. On the Western Front, anywhere from 5000 to 50,000 soldiers had died almost every day for over four years. It was worth celebrating the end of THAT particular slaughter with a holiday, but our world is still embroiled in some deadly messes inherited from those days, compounded by our cultures' seeming inability to learn from their old imperialist mistakes.
I think the best way to honor our veterans is to keep our society's promises to them when they return from duty, and even more importantly, run our various nations with wisdom and compassion.
U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama said these words last Tuesday: This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

Sitemeter Sez: A visitor from England posted a very nice comment -- Guildford said ... I just came across your blog about and wanted to drop you a note telling you how impressed I was with the information you have posted here. I have a site Guildford Eye http://www.guildfordeye.com/index.php so I know what I'm talking about when I say your site is top-notch! Keep up the great work, you are providing a great resource on the Internet here! Thank You!

Check out ROCK against Reaganomics 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!
NEW --Launching NOW! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and Cellulose to Celluloid, Flash Gordon in 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: 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.

In The Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art's Autumn Salon, with 116 pieces on display. We also have Crown of the Continent and Ace of Diamonds gracing our walls.

THE RAPE OF EUROPA returns to Signature’s Stadium 14 Theaters Thursday, November 20
Showtimes: 3:30pm & 6:00pm


Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustave Klimdt -- one of the featured stories in Rape of Europa.

The Hockaday Museum of Art presented the film on November 2; however, problems with equipment prevented a full run of the 117 minute feature. Signature Theaters is donating its largest auditorium for the Nov 20 showings.
The Hockaday Museum and Signature Theaters extend their apologies to all who purchased tickets for the November 2 event, and will honor their ticket stubs for admission to either showing (3:30pm / 6:00pm) on November 20
Tickets may be purchased in advance at Signature Theatres. They may also be purchased at the door. General admission $15 / H.S. & College students $5
The Hockaday Museum thanks Signature Theaters, Bet Harim Jewish Community of the Flathead Valley, The Flathead Beacon, Ernest & Anne Steiner, Tedrowe & Jill Watkins, Anonymous donor, J. Scott Wheeler, Rabbi Allen Secher and Buz Meyer for their sponsorship and support!
Additional information: Produced in 2007, “The Rape of Europa” takes the audience on an epic journey through seven countries and into the violent whirlwind of ideological fanaticism, greed, and warfare that threatened to wipe out the artistic heritage of Europe. For twelve long years, the Nazis looted and destroyed art on a scale unprecedented in history. Fighting back, heroic young museum officials and art historians from America and across Europe mounted a miraculous campaign to rescue and return the millions of art works displaced by the war. Now more than sixty years later, the legacy of this tragic history continues to play out as families of looted collectors recover major works of art, conservators repair battle damage, and nations fight over the fate of ill-gotten spoils of war. Joan Allen narrates this breathtaking chronicle about the battle over the very survival of centuries of western culture.
Also portrayed, the untold story of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section of the military. Known by other GI’s as the “Monument Men” this section was formed by the US military to help identify and protect Europe ’s art and monuments from damage during the war. Civilian museum directors, curators and art historians, volunteered for service and were attached to units on the front line. They were among the first troops to arrive in war zones to effect temporary repairs to damaged structures and remove art from further risk. The Monument Men ultimately participated in what became the greatest treasure hunt in history, finding tens of thousands of artworks stolen by Hitler for the museum he intended to build in Linz , Austria . Robert Edsel, producer of “The Rape of Europa” said of the Monument Men, “Their role in protecting, rescuing and returning Europe ’s greatest art treasures is the last untold chapter of World War II. It is time to tell their story.”

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go -- Brooke Burke danced very well. The only contest remaining is for Number Two, and I think it is wide open. None of the remaining men are consistent. I read that Kym Johnson had an injured shoulder, but danced anyway -- she WAS good, but then again, she's a true professional. Many strong men "danced" with Warren Sapp on the football field and suffered much more than injured shoulders.