Wildlife: While driving home last night, we saw these little points of light floating above the road ahead of us, so we knew to slow 'way down for the small herd of Whitetail Deer up the hill.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: It has been colder this weekend. The thermometer outside says it is close to 50 F, but the wind makes a liar out of it. I'm doing a dozen chores outdoors to winterize the house -- BRRR!

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click to help!

Garage Sale Booty: A salt-and-pepper shaker in the shape of a telephone; Books -- The Ring of the Niblung, illustrated by Arthur Rackham. A copy once owned by a library, but otherwise complete and in full color; Sikh Festivals by Dr. Sukhbir Singh Kapoor, illustrated by color photos; The Photographic Illusion by Duane Michaels; Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks; Two nonfiction books by Issac Asimov -- ...Guide to Halley's Comet, and The Beginning and the End, which starts with a little essay about the REAL soldier/writer Cyrano DeBergerac (1619-1655), who was famous in his time for writing the fantasy Voyage to the Moon;
and FINALLY, Cyrano's illegitimate step-child Flash Gordon and the Caverns of Mongo by Alex Raymond (NOT!) -- a ghost-written pulp novelization with endpapers and a frontispiece by Robb Beebee. He may share his surname with lead-handed film director Ford Beebee, who oversaw the Flash Gordon chapter-serials, but I doubt there's a connection -- who knows?

Robb Beebee's Flash Gordon and the Caverns of Mongo from 1936
The dust jacket illustration and plot summary are included here:
Holloway's Flash Gordon Essay
Classic Comics stalwart Arthur Lortie researched connections between Robb and Ford Beebee
Ford was a descendant of the 49ers, and a lifelong Californian.
Robb lived in New York and was more often associated with religious publications.

Wildlife: Whitetail Deer are all over the neighborhood. I think that buck that ran in front of me the other night was killed a few nights later by traffic -- there's a big body laying on the side of the road in about the same spot where I had to hit my brakes.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: It's reasonably dry here today, but those clouds are threatening, and it's snowing on the border in Eureka, Montana.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click to help a half-dozen charities.

Media Watch: NPR tries to give us a window on the world, but it's rarely pretty -- Cruel shortages of doctors in Africa; Unconscionable neglect of the earthquake victims in Kashmir; Abyssmal depopulation and corruption in New Orleans; A Radio Tour of Krishna's city Vrindavan in India;
Well, THAT was nice -- warts and all -- but it had very little to do with the purported subject of belief in the the afterlife. Most religions, including the Hundustani veneration of Krishna, are much more about how we LIVE than they are about mystical cosmologies. National Public Radio
Speaking of India -- We saw the late Ismail Merchant and James Ivory's The Guru from 1969, starring Michael York and Rita Tushingham. The movie's depiction of York as a Rock Star is pretty weak, but that's probably the writer's fault -- when he and Tushingham act as normal English people they are very convincing. Overall, it's a fairly good, though very slight, film.
Here's what James Ivory says about it:
The Guru seems now to be a brightly colored fairy tale, a kind of 1960s fable, in which a muddled young urchin prince is deposited, via Air India's flying carpet, in a land of broad rivers, oriental domes, and harems full of plotting ladies. In this ever-so-puzzling kingdom, ruled over by an insecure despot who can thunder one moment and summon up divine music the next, our urchin prince has many strange adventures. There are witches who cast evil spells, magic amulets, a courtesan who is strangled by her own strings of pearls, cups containing mind-altering brews, and ancient seers who deal out both encouragement and fierce rebuke.
At the end of all his trials, the young prince, now enlightened, boards his magic carpet to return to his own far off land. He is sheltering his treasure in his arms - the simple, good-hearted maiden he has set free from her imprisoning dreams, and who loves him. The Guru, the most unseen and mysterious of our movies, was Merchant Ivory's version of a sixties trip. To me anyway, it holds up as well - though some might say no better than - any of the others of the genre that have survived. -J.I.


Classic Sri Krishna
Krishna on Wikipedia

Wildlife: I seem to be out and about with the Whitetail Deer in the mornings lately.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: Rain, with snow above 5000 feet. The sun came out briefly about noon.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Click to help people, forests and animals.

Media Watch: Thanks to a tip on DailyKos.com, I saw Joe Wilson on CSPAN last night while dishing out Halloween treats.
I wish I could stay as focused and rational while fighting the unprincipled thieves and liars who are his enemies.
From the senators who make false claims about his reports, to the journalists who repeat known lies to his face, just so that they'll be heard one more time, the scale of the machinery of retribution is massive, and it is awe-inspiring to see someone standing up to all that abuse.
His greatest point remains partially obscured by the drama of his plight -- the people who manipulated false intelligence to preconcieved ends, and cavalierly exposed top-secret information for political payback struck a literal blow on the safety of everyone in our country. It shouldn't be a partisan issue -- boundaries and laws have been violated by those responsible for maintaining them.

One Halloween film I WISH was on TV last night:

Patricia Laffan as the Devil Girl From Mars
with her walking refrigerator -- uh, robot guardian

Wildlife: The mini-herd of Whitetail Deer ran in front of me on the way into work this morning -- I saw them in plenty of time. Last night I had to hit the brakes on Foy's Lake Road when a buck leaped in front of us on the way home.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: Rain again, after a mild weekend.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Help these charities by clicking.

Media Watch: We saw the new Antonio Banderas/Catherine Zeta-Jones Zorro movie with our houseguest yesterday. It was a comic-book flick for sure, and fairly fun, but I must say I've read many better-plotted comic books. Zorro's horse had the best scenes -- lots of CGI and matting to make the stunts look good.
All that cattiness aside, this is the kind of movie I like:

Wildlife: As Daylight Savings Time ends, I'm going to have to be extra-careful watching for deer in the dark evenings. There's no hunting in my neighborhood, so they just wander as they please.



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: Real rain, not just condensing fog.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Help a handful of charities by clicking.

In The Community: Opening reception for Members Only Salon, and a dual show with ceramicist Kristi Brothers and photographer Michael Coe. Our Crown of the Continent exhibit includes a half-dozen Winold Reiss portraits, and some dandy photos by T.J. Hileman, Roland Reed, and Marshall Noice. The Hockaday Museum's Website
I didn't get into TOO much trouble for my satirical faux postcards.

Media Watch: Dawg-assed movies all over the tube! I love Halloween for this. The Student Senate at FVCC has a 5 DVD collection of public domain howlers that they are showing tonight at a community party -- we double-checked on the Web -- royalty free films, every one of 'em. Only the WORST is GOOD enough for Halloween TV!
Retro Film Media International Public domain movies -- From Metropolis to Cat Women of the Moon.


The View from Lone Pine State Park --
Rapidly-spreading urban sprawl of Kalispell, Montana

Wildlife: Between Bozeman and Butte, Montana I saw what seemed to be a small Deer off the freeway -- when I got closer it turned out to be a very shaggy Coyote, almost big enough to be a Wolf, but the wrong color!



Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Weather: Sunny and dry all the way to the Swan River -- then it got foggy all the way into Kalispell, and is still foggy today.

Charity Alert: The Hunger Site Six charities get helped by your computer clicks.

In The Community: The Road Trip is over -- Opening reception for Members Only Salon this Thursday at the Hockaday Museum of Art (see image below). The Hockaday Museum's Website

Media Watch: They still have NFL Football on AM radio -- Philadelphia was having a hard time against San Diego, but they finally won. There were several "Oldies" shows on the FM, playing a long-arranged string of old hits. A local DJ in Bozeman sneaked in Little Green Bag by the George Baker Selection from 1970:
(Whispering, somewhat rapping vocals, near-reggae rhythm guitar)
Lookin' back on the track for a little green bag -- Got to find just that kind or losin' my mind -- Outta sight in the night, outta sight in the day -- Lookin' back on the track, gonna do it my way -- Outta sight in the night, outta sight in the day -- Lookin' back on the track, gonna do it my way --Lookin' back
(Full-out Tom Jones-style lounge vocals, with a lead guitar repeating the melody)
Lookin' for some happiness but there is only loneliness to find -- Jump to the left, turn to the right -- Lookin' upstairs, lookin' behind -- Lookin' for some happiness but there is only loneliness to find -- Jump to the left, turn to the right -- Lookin' upstairs, lookin' behind
(Repeat the whole crazy mess and fade out.)


From Espresso and the Enigmatic Landscape by Michael Evans
These images express elements of irony and tension between the needs of our society and the capacity of Montana's famous landscapes to endure us. I am inside all this scenery -- these are not detached views of somebody else's world. The viewer is welcome to laugh or wonder -- I did both while making these virtual postcards.