March came "in like a lamb" this year around the Flathead Valley. Robins feeding at FVCC. Migrating Canadian Geese would land if the waters weren't still frozen.

Sitemeter Sez: Amsterdam, Holland; Albany Creek, Australia; Vero Beach, Florida; La Porte, Indiana; Bogazici, Turkey (Lady Miss Kier played in their country -- they found a nice pic of her on this blog); Macau Island, China; Daytona Beach, Florida; Redmond, Washington; Somewhere, USA; Des Plaines, Illinois; Ghent, Belgium; Denver, Colorado; Dublin, California and Denver, Colorado.

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 -- UPDATED!





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 his recommendations -- HERE!

Charity Alert: Keep that Resolution to click on The Hunger Site every day. Also check into Terra Sigilata blog -- donate $$$ to cancer patients just by clicking onto the site.

In The Community: I've uploaded images of over half the items for our upcoming Auction of Miniaures on the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website, not including those beautiful postcard-sized mini-minis. When the rest of the artists bring their stuff in, I'll put them online too.
Check out Fall for Glacier too -- a fundraiser for several programs that make Glacier National Park even better!

Media Watch: Besides Verdi's excellent Otello (1897) on Live From The Metropolitan Opera, Montana Public Radio had an extensive interview with the great pianist Van Cliburn. It is the 50th anniversary of his triumph at the First Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow -- a good excuse as any to talk to one of America's stalwarts of Clasical Music. Gutless composer Dmitri Shostakovich was chairman of the competition in 1958, and he cleared Cliburn's award with the Soviet Premier first -- typical for him. The Cold War was thawing a bit, but I think that Stalin's death was more important than any artistic event in warming things up, although anything that helps people see each other as human beings makes a positive difference anytime.
I thought a certain point in Cliburn's story was interesting -- his mother (and teacher) extensivley studied piano with a man who had studied with Franz Liszt, so he was only separated from the magnificent Romantic composer by two generations.


From Russia With Love -- A Post-Romantic Vision:


(Click for a larger image.)
Ida Rubinstein, High Patroness of this Blog, in a partial reconstruction of one of her publicity pictures from 1912. The original was reversed and defaced by the Hearst newspaper syndicate to illustrate Alan Dale's rather laconic interview from her studio on the Rue Vanneau in Paris. A Rubinstein fan from Russia sent me a distorted scan of the undefaced image from a bound copy of Comoedia Illustre, advertising D'Annunzio's decadent La Pisanelle, ou Le Mort Parfumee (1913). I've brought out some details of her Maisson Worth outfit by laboriously combining the two pictures.