Autumn is certainly in force -- snow on our mountains and leaves which are changing colors. Eagles sighted, instead of Ospreys.

Sitemeter Sez: Mountain View, California; Clichy, Ile-de-France; Kongsvinger, Norway; South Burlington, Vermont; Albany, New York; Montreal, Quebec; Vilnius, Lithuania; Newark, Delaware; Oakland, California; Anchorage, Alaska; Oxford, UK; Charleston, West Virginia; Paris, Ile-de-France; Doha, Qatar, and Warsaw, Poland.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




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.

News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork, with Katie Duck as my muse.)

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Fame (2009) directed by Kevin Tancharoen and what appeared to be a committee of market researchers and ass-kissers. Alan Parker's original back in 1980 had an engaging spirit, which is almost totally missing in this tediously manipulative remake. There is an echo in the unlikely, but fun, cafeteria sequence, though. I liked the performances of young actors Collins Pennie, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle, and Naturi Naughton. Show-biz veterans Bebe Neuwirth, Debbie Allen, Kelsey Grammar, and Charles Dutton were alright. I was very disappointed at the shallowness of the role played by first-class dancer Kherington Payne -- the choreography was second rate, her few lines were cringingly banal, and there were almost no plot points connecting her character's appearances. The very WORST aspect of this lousy film was the repeated riff that teachers chose their jobs because they couldn't succeed in the 'real world.' Attractive personalities Kherington and Anna Maria both portrayed students who quit their exclusive school, or flunked out, because they got good jobs in the entertainment industry. Fuck those stupid sentiments! Renowned teacher Debbie Allen wouldn't even have a career if she wasn't a good dancer to begin with. I wonder what she thinks about working in a movie which brands her a failure? (She had no control over the film, of course -- very few actors do.)

Commercials with flashes of Kherington Payne's dancing led me to give 2009's version of Fame a try. I have damned it with the proverbial faint praise (above), but if you MUST see that thing, wait for the DVD and rent it -- I doubt you'll have to wait very long.

It has been gray and somewhat rainy all week -- considering we had lightning-caused forest fires nearby, that a good thing, although frost on my windshield yesterday was kind of depressing..

Sitemeter Sez: Clichy, Ile-de-France; Kongsvinger, Norway; South Burlington, Vermont; Albany, New York; Montreal, Quebec; Vilnius, Lithuania; Newark, Delaware; Oakland, California; Mountain View, California; Anchorage, Alaska; Oxford, UK; Charleston, West Virginia; Paris, Ile-de-France; Doha, Qatar, and Warsaw, Poland.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




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.

News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork.)

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Bollywood movies -- Hamesha (1997) by director Sanjay Gupta (NOT the CNN doctor/commentator.) The high-quality cast sent Gupta's ridiculous reincarnated-lovers plot far into the background. Saif Ali Khan was the leading man, beautiful Kajol Mukherjee was excellent as the leading lady, and Aditya Pancholi played a truly loathsome villain. Although he is and was an accomplished filmmaker by any standard, Gupta's penchant for sadism and bleak violence was apparent a decade ago. There were several tributes to Alfred Hitchcock throughout the film -- especially references to Vertigo. Farah Khan, Shah Rukh Khan's current director of choice (no, they're not related), was the choreographer. Kajol Mukherjee's career has been justly successful -- she, her sister Tanisha, and her cousin Rani are real actors, transcending their good looks in creating believable characters. Kajol is also married to another versatile actor, Ajay Devgan. Bollywood may have its quirks, but the acting in its movies has always appealed to me.

Trash A Go Go -- Is Bug Man still on Dancing With The Stars? I'm not tuning in until that corrupt bastard is GONE! The other dancing show was pretty good in showing how auditions work -- Cat Deeley was very appealing when she goofed around with prospective contestants in the waiting line, dressed for comfort.

The Dancer and the Clown

(left) Katie Appenzeller started using the professional name Katie Duck sometime in 1976, about the time this picture was taken. (Right) Stan Edwards used the name Jango long before I ever met him. I am personally responsible for beginning the fateful alliance of Friends Roadshow and Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe in 1974 at the International Mime Festival in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Stan believed in us, we went to Europe because of his efforts on our behalf. Katie Duck & Jango performed many times together as a team. I have been in cyber-touch with Katie for many years now, and have recently joined Jango's Face Book site. I'm doing two art projects concerning Katie and her work also.

Another week of Mondays, like next week promises to be. The Geese are flying south and the Osprey are starting to vacate their nests.

Sitemeter Sez: Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; Blonay, Switzerland; Louth, Ireland (I love ya' -- whomever you are); Seattle, Washington; Anchorage, Alaska; Presque Isle, Maine; Irvine, California; Herndon, Virginia; Gerda Reeb in New Zealand; Sundsvall, Sweden; Lake Jackson, Texas, and Phoenix, Arizona.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




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.

News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Is indicted former congressman Tom Delay off of Trash A Go Go I yet? I know they've had ex-cons like Jerry Spinger, Li'l Kim, and several rehab patients like Michael Irvin and Lawrence Taylor, but a stooge for sex-traffickers, and unapoligetic office-seller like the "criminalization of politics" bug man is a dreadful low point. Dancing Behind Gray Bars would be a better venue.
President Obama lifted the quality of Sunday Morning TV by being on five of the normally-lousy pundit shows last weekend. He also added some humor to the Late Show Monday on CBS -- too bad he can't crack jokes at the UN and G20 meetings later this week.

Update: Friday September 25, 2009

I understand Edyta's partner went out first, along with funky Macy Gray -- Oh well, the pros get losers as well as winners. The bug man reportedly danced with Cheryl.

Arghh, Matey! It's been another long week -- a fast thunderstorm gave us some drama, and brought out the first of the Autumn leaves, knocking some off the trees in the process.
Today is Talk Like A Pirate Day also.

Sitemeter Sez: Phoenix, Arizona; Kailua Kona, Hawaii; Naperville, Illinois; Sundsvall, Sweden; High Wycombe, UK; Hempstead, New York; Merrick, New York; Levittown, New York; City of London, UK; Staten Island, New York; Lund, Sweden; Staten Island, New York; Carle Place, New York, and Anchorage, Alaska.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




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.

News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Silly-ass jokes about Roswell, New Mexico on Trash A Go Go III (So You Think You Can Dance) -- they were auditioning "weird" contestants in Phoenix, Arizona, which isn't exactly far from Roswell, but hardly near it either. I'm glad they're not wallowing in the failures anymore. The audience learns a little something during each show about the world of dancers. BTW -- The late singer/songwriter John (Denver) Deutschendorfer was born in Roswell about the time of the UFOs. He was from a military family associated with the air base there, and died in an ultra-light airplane accident near Monterrey, California. (see below)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974) -- on a gold DVD, licensed for a presentation to Phi Theta Kappa, our campus honor society. Damn! That movie is so funny on so many levels. Plot and cohesion are rarely in play, but I can't say I even care. What a talented ensemble! I'm happy to say that an audience of young adults laughed their asses off almost two generations after the release of the film. It was a success in the USA during its first run, although most of the country was unfamiliar with the group, or their BBC TV show, at the time.

Ch-ch-changes: Mary Travers of Peter, Paul, and Mary passed away after a long fight with lukemia. She sang lead on their hit single Leaving On A Jet Plane, written by John Denver (see above). They helped make Folk Music very popular, and blazed the way forward for Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, and others. When I was in Junior High School a neighbor of mine, Margaret Butterfield, sang Peter, Paul, and Mary songs around the Salt Lake area, and sang them very well indeed. Her younger peers, like me, picked up electric instruments a few years later and tried doing the same with Rolling Stones and Beatles tunes, mirroring the international pop music scene on a much smaller scale.

No knights on this day -- PIRATES ONLY!

My pirate name is Capt. Olaf Laughslast Laughsbest.
(We're all captains on THIS SHIP!)

Is it the weekend already? That was a short but active interval from the last one!
Over 2000 students came down with H1N1 (Swine Flu) at Washington State University, about 400 miles away from here. Luckily, they were all minor, but annoying, cases and nobody was hospitalized or died. Did I mention that the community college where I work has its highest enrollment ever?

Sitemeter Sez: Hicksville, New York; (Yes, there IS such a place.) Hempstead, New York; Hampton, Virginia; Oakland, California; Anchorage, Alaska; Aldeburgh, UK; Oakland, California, and Cramlington, UK.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




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.

News and Events at Flathead Community College

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

President Obama gave two speeches this last week, which both brought out the crazies who'll never support him (or good sense) anyway, and put the majority of this country on alert that ignoring grim reality isn't an option for sane people. Obama can certainly lead, but everyone's going to have to do their share to work our way out of this recession -- including standing up FOR good ideas and AGAINST bad ones, like those put forth by racists and goofball ideologues who simply want our government to fail, or dumb-assed schemes like madated "junk insurance" which wouldn't pay upfront costs of illness anyway, placing a double burden on afflicted persons.

The crazies are marching in Washington D.C. today, led by former congrssional kingpin Dick Armey, one of the architects of this recession. Too much ugly in one place.

Media Watch: An audition show for Trash A Go Go III (AKA: So You Think You Can Dance) Not bad -- no wallowing in the bad or inept. The notion of an audition SHOWING what a performer can do came through, and the judges' panel was fairly humorous.
Trash A Go Go I (AKA: Dancing with the Stars) will start soon, with the corrupt ex-congressman 'Bug Man' Tom Delay, a major leader of the aforementioned crazies who have benefitted from bankrupting their own country, as a contestant. I'm boycotting that show while he's on, and telling ABC so.
No, I didn't watch America's Got Talent -- don't ever want to see it again either. Somewhere else, Simon Cowell, the producer, reminded people what an ass he is by joking about The Beatles, with Ringo in particular, never making it through a talent contest. Probably true, considering that gatekeepers like Cowell suppress creativity rather than encourage it, by patronizing sentimentality and Lowest Common Denominators.
So Cowell was joking, big deal -- the hubbub brought out a rant by one of my favorite rant-meisters, Mary Scott O'Connor. (Google her name.) I agree with her mostly, and sometimes not at all, but she can spin out colorfully enraged verbage like nobody else.

Ch-ch-changes: The great comedy writer Larry Gelbart passed on yesterday. Before we get to his great accomplishments, he wrote blog posts like I do, and Mary Scott O'Connor used to, on Daily Kos. His best-known success was the anti-war TV version of M*A*S*H, but after starting out in radio, he was a major force in the 50's as one of Sid Caesar's team of writers -- along with Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, performer Carl Reiner, Woody Allen, Selma Diamond, and about ten other geniuses. He did Broadway with the magnificent Zero Mostel, a Hollywood movie with Dustin Hoffman, and many other projects.

Time for a cold shower under the waterfall!

I'm going to be tossing an anonymous figure into my water video -- just a few generic, very- filtered frames for a human focus.

The week of of Mondays is over, they even borrowed one from the following week -- tomorrow is the USA's version of Labor Day.

Sitemeter Sez: Toms River, New Jersey; Montreal, Quebec; Detroit, Michigan; Birmingham, UK, and my secret admirer in Louth, Ireland.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




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.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Netflix's Bollywood movies have been disappointing lately, but Naqaab (2007) had some virtues. The acting by veterans Bobby Deol and Akshaye Khanna was pretty good, though patchy. Newcomer Urvashi Sharma looked like she might be an experienced model, and the Internet told me I was right! Plastic surgery is rife in the Indian film industry, and she may have caught her nose in some of it, rather than her lips, as is too common nowadays. None of my business, really, but I wish that fad would end. Most of the flick was shot in the concrete craziness of Dubai, on the Arabian Peninsula, which has been built up like a monstrous movie set itself in the last generation.

I think I'm going to dip into this collection of 50 Horror Classics -- only the worst is good enough!
Update: One Corpse Too Many with Jack (Tin Man) Hailey and Bela Lugosi -- D-grade murder mystery in a mansion honeycombed with secret passages; A Shriek In The Night starring young Ginger Rogers in a C-grade mystery. Monster from a Prehistoric Planet starring guys in rubber suits echoing Rodan and Gorgo.

Intersecting Lives:

A postcard from the Friends Roadshow, published circa 1974, showing them outside of the Shaffy Theater in Amsterdam, Holland with their portable stage and multi-talented company. The guy in red is Jango, Lenny is next to him, and Robbie is at the other end of the line. My young friend Justin in front was only about 10 years old, and it sure looks like beautiful Helene sitting on the bricks. I can only guess who the others are in this photo, but a copy of it rode with us on the Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe bus from coast to coast in 1975, displayed right next to the driver's seat!