Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: 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! Spitfires of the Spaceways
Watch Dale Arden rescue Flash Gordon for a change!
Charity Alert: Make a Post-Equinox resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day.
In The Community: Still sick as a Dawg, but new updates are coming to the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website.
Media Watch: Book TV: Alexander Cockburn held forth for three hours on In Depth. He has standards, a point of view, and a dedication to Reality which is depressingly rare nowadays. I hardly agree with everything he says, but he is worth listening to, and tries to act as a good example of what Journalism purports itself to be. He runs a website called Counterpunch. One assertation of his with which I concur is that the Popular Media are in the pocket of the Right Wing for a lot of economic and social reasons, to the detriment of their quality and credibility. He also had some words of caution to a 16 year old about how limiting Cynicism could be, and counselled making common cause with others when trying to solve problems. He was spot-on in describing how candidates for public office, especially the Presidency, spend months demonstrating how beholden they are to the current system. (My perspective: as if they are asking permission before putting themselves forward for what is ironically supposedly a job for a leader.)
I'm having a hard time watching After Words, featuring Jerry Scahill's report on the terrifying phenomenon of the Blackwater mercinary army. It is hard to avoid the feeling of despair in the face of so much money and power devoted to the destruction of our country's laws and interests. There are thousands of these mercinaries under arms in the Middle East, working for Blackwater and other contractors. What kind of monstrosities are we going to leave behind us in Iraq? Are they coming home with our troops? They are not subject to our laws, so what is their place in our country's future?
Actor Johnathan Rhys-Meyers is all over Showtime Networks. He played a fairly good Elvis Presley in a grim melodrama which traced the career of the first Rock & Roll Star from truck driver, to musician, to cultural phenomenon, through the U.S. Army, to a dead-end movie career, and finally a redeeming return to performing music. Everybody now knows that life on The Road killed him less than ten years later, but I remember those promising days when he rediscovered the talent which put him on top in the first place. It's a damn shame that he couldn't restructure his own life to sustain his health, or bring him happiness. His entourage may bear some blame in the matter, but nobody really knows exactly when Presley lost command of himself. The two concert movies he put out in the early 70's show a less-than-concerned lounge lizard, but his satellite concert from Hawaii in 1973 was pretty darn good, corny as it may have been. Presley's last TV broadcast in 1977 was nothing less than a horror show -- he looked like a man about to die -- a familiar voice climbing out of a grotesque sack of fat, topped by greasy hair, whose mottled skin had fallen away from it's old anchor points.
Right now I'm watching an turgid interpretation of James Goldman's Lion In Winter with the great Glenn Close, the admirable Patrick Stewart, and whole lotta bad decisions bringing the whole production down, including Rhys-Meyers' cookie-cutter characterization of a courtier/prince.
The intrigues around the life stories of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine are dizzying in their far-ranging importance in history. That living members of one family had so much to fight each other for beggars the imagination. Their interfamilial wars began with the suspicious death of William II, continuing through the first three Crusades, and civil strife which marked Stephen's reign. Henry I's heir through Matilda and Richard Plantagenet became Henry II, a hyper-ambitious feudal lord who gambled big -- win or lose. The exraordinarily ruthless Richard I was the most powerful of his sons when he died. War and disease did more than any dramatic tet a tetes or silly plots set forth in Goldman's play to establish the succession. Childless Richard spared the life of his treasonous, but procreative, brother John I, who nearly lost the throne at Rundemeade. Nearly-as-weak Henry III was desposed, yet restored by his remarkable son Edward I, who was almost the reincarnation of his great-grandfather Henry II in wit, strength, and fortune. "Longshanks" conquered most of his neighboring lands, whether he had feudal rights or not. He couldn't hold them all, but was unstoppable on the battlefield until he died of natural causes going after Robert Bruce in Scotland.
The same bloody high-stakes game of feudal treachery took the life of Edward II -- whose son (almost by error) Edward III seemed to over-compensate by starting the disasterous Hundred Years War, as if the Great Plague wasn't enough affliction for England and France. English Royalty won many battles, but in the end they lost their holdings on the continent, and the patrilineage of their family. Edward III outlived the Black Prince, but grandson Richard II was desposed and died in the morass of his own personal treacheries. The remaining Plantagenet relatives battled between heirs often named Lancaster and York, aided and abetted by cousins on both sides. Henry Tudor (VII) was a descendent of Edward III (through his mother) -- so was his trophy-queen. I stand by my assertion that the remaining English nobility, amalgamated as Parliament, wanted no more of these stupid wars of succession and supported this remaining branch of Royalty through thick and thin, even when they had a chance to shed the Monarchy after egomaniacal Charles I refused to keep his bargains.
Oliver Cromwell's republic was a singularity in British History, but I believe it represented the ultimate decisive power of Parliament, which reached back to the establishment of the Tudor Dynasty -- even absolute despots required cooperation by the nobility to enforce their rule. The fact that Queen Mary's consort Phillip II of Spain was kept from England's throne speaks volumes for Parliament's actual influence over events, as did the statesmanlike Restoration a century later -- and even more statesmanlike Glorious Revolution after Charles II's dumb arrogant brother loused things up again. Parliament eventually stripped all ruling powers from the Royal House, making the peace of the realm less vulnerable to inter-family feuds. Our American Revolution was partially caused by King George III and his cronies meddling in governmental affairs. Wise English politicians have tried to keep the Royals at arms-length since then.
Guess What? Showtime is featuring Johnathan Rhys-Davis as Henry VIII in a mini-series called The Tudors, starting later -- good luck making that scary, brutal Renaissance man into a romantic lead! Maybe this story should be attempted though -- his reign was the foundation of the Protestant English state which became the British Empire. The hulking daunting physique and impetuously dire intelligence of that relentless man were components of Henry VIII's dominating character -- I can't really see him as a skinny hollow-eyed 21st Century stock actor.
The History Channel re-ran their overview of the often-ridiculous back-stories in Dan Brown's DaVinci Code. My friend Clara McBride does theatrical events in Paris set around locations found in Brown's book, so there has been some useful fun generated by that second-rate thriller. The City of Lights is an intriguing character in other works of literature, high and low, so her company has a lot of material to play with!
The things you'll watch when you're sick -- TCM showed a string of Charlie Chase movies from the 20's. I remember when Chase hosted his own films on TV in the late 50's/ early 60's in a syndicated series called the Funny Manns , pretending he was showing home movies of relatives named Mann. Maybe he wasn't the most famous silent clown, but he sure was good at silly-assed visual slapstick.
Theatre/Theater: BINDLESTIFF FAMILY CIRKUS at The Roxbury Arts Group
April 21, 2007 Roxbury, NY ROXBURY ARTS GROUP Vega Mountain Road, Roxbury, NY 12474
Family show at 2 pm, Adult show at 8 pm. For more information call (607) 326-7908
The Cirkus is coming to Roxbury, NY. Bindlestiff will present two performances. An afternoon show that is the perfect family event. The evening show is disigned for an older audience. Joine Mr. Pennygaff, Philomena, and Benjamin Ickies for a spectacular evening of entertainment. For the young audience: Cirkus Variety show at 2 pm. $5 children under 12 and $10 for adults.
For adults: "From the Gutter To the Glitter: A Night Out with the Bindlestiffs", a raucous look into the history of America's illegitimate theater traditions: circus, sideshow, vaudeville, burlesque, medicine shows, casino shows, and television game shows. 8 pm $12
Image of Ringmistress Philomena from a video on The Bindlestiff's Website.
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