Goldfinch at the box feeder! The deer are fat and sassy, but the local drivers are too careless in the mornings and after dusk -- they have to STOP and WAIT for those single-file lines of critters to finish crossing the road. You're not going to get to work any faster in a wrecked car!

NEW -- Modern Dance at: Theater X-Net

Featuring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
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!

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution during Springtime too! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: Cable channel FLIX showed The Space Vampires from about 1966 by fabulous horror director Mario Bava. I'm vague about the date because it was shot in Italy with a couple of American actors playing lead roles, and re-edited and dubbed in Hollywood by kitschy American-International Pictures. I think the dreadful rewriting job was by Ib (Robinson Crusoe On Mars) Melchoir.
However, Ridley Scott borrowed liberally from this film when he directed Alien 15 years later.
Fox Movie Channel played Bob Fosse's brilliant All That Jazz (1979) -- some of the best dancing ever committed to film. (See the picture below.)

In The Community: JEFFERSON"S WALL - AMERICA'S DEBATE OVER CHURCH AND STATE
A heartfelt acknowledgement from me to the audience in Kalispell, Montana who shows up for these events -- they come out to hear what our speakers have to say, no matter what their personal beliefs or preconceptions may be.
Discovery Institute flack David DeWolf roundly offended most of this audience with his verbal trickery and constant refusal to define what he meant by "Intelligent Design," and his appalling lack of examples of contributions this "movement" may have give to general knowledge -- especially in public classrooms, where his Institute DEMANDS that "I.D." be treated as the equal of science. He hinted at a couple of points, but the people wanted to hear more, and felt cheated when he repeatedly changed the subject when asked about his points of belief.
I refuse to outline his vacant arguements about "Darwinism" as an "Othodoxy," or his false equivalencies relative to the Dover, Pennsylvania decision, but there were people who showed up, evidence in hand, ready to refute him -- and did.
The audience became fed up with being treated like marks by a carnival barker. Many of them had dealt with lying 10 year olds caught in an inappropriate act, and they were frankly insulted to be recieving this kind of disrespectful treatment from a middle-aged law professor.
Next week, we are presenting Dr. Marci Hamilton, whose thesis will be that Law and the Common Good must prevail over issues particular to religions in a functional society.


Few artistic relationships have been as fruitful or tumultuous as the one between entertainment geniuses Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon. All That Jazz was a success, but it followed some trying times after the misfire of Lenny, and the barely non-flop status of Chicago in the mid 70's. Fosse's revue That's Dancing was kind of like a stage version of That's Entertainment -- dances to popular song hits -- hardly breaking new artistic ground, but paying his formidable bills. Jazz made references to Lenny, and Fosse's relationship to Verdon. She WAS able to play a twenty-something in Chicago -- possibly with the help of a perscription for Jazz's co-star Dexedrine; They both LOVED their daughter; Ann Reinking WAS his girlfriend; and Fosse did some of the BEST work of his life ("You sonofabitch," adds Gwen Verdon's character.) just before the near-fatal heart attack -- which he THEN incorporated into what would be his second-to-last movie.