It was just shy of being too hot to fence off the underside of my deck above the Slough. The cats had been hiding there, and creatures were bringing up things from the water which I didn't like seeing, plus the weeds were getting too lush. That chicken wire and black visquine plastic sheeting will take care of our problems!

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!
Spitfires of the Spaceways
UPDATED! Wilma Deering & Dale Arden to the rescue, plus hapless Aura II

Charity Alert: Make a resolution this Summer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: I'm facing a whole weekend at the Hockaday Museum of Art -- Jeff Wilson's show is coming down, and we're putting up some Ace Powell. There will be other changes in the office space, as well as the art.

Media Watch: At least there's Wimbledon on Network TV. When I first saw this tennis tournament in England I knew that the USA would like it, and it has. I was lucky enough to be watching when Arthur Ashe took the Men's Championship. It was a pity that his health failed and he died early -- Mr. Ashe was a brilliant athlete and a greater man.


A digital reinterpretation of Internet images in honor of the Wimbledon Tournament.

Another fine summer day! The Mallards in the Slough range in size from about six inches to almost 18 inches. It about time to take the canoe out there.

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!
Spitfires of the Spaceways
UPDATED! Wilma Deering and Dale Arden to the rescue -- plus Princess Aura II

Charity Alert: Make a resolution this Summer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art on Sunday -- that's my lot this summer. It was mellow, so I was able to lay some groundwork for a very busy upcoming weekend. Jeff Wilson is coming DOWN!

Media Watch: I haven't had Cable TV since I moved, but I'm going to look into it next month. Broadcast TV really stinks, so I'm reviewing my VHS tapes and DVDs more than usual -- I've been doing much-needed maintenance on my Web pages too.


Shirley Deane as the anemic Princess Aura II -- except for the grin, she almost looks spitfire-ish here, as she attempts to flee an attack by Ming's soldiers in her own Forest Kingdom. She's actually paying the price of being too smug and trusting of Lady Sonja, the female spy swiped right out of Dumas' Three Musketeers. To be fair to Ms. Deane, her character had already been pacified, unsexed, and gentrified by Alex Raymond in the newspaper strip. Hollywood was just following his profitable lead in the serial. However, there's something about that Unicorn horn which might make Dr. Freud scratch his head if he ever went to see Saturday Matinees.
 
Read about Princess Aura II's misadventures HERE!
 

Not too hot, but those convectional thunderstorms can bring high winds with them. Dry Bridge Slough had about six families of Ducks cruising the waters -- mostly Mallards.

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!
Spitfires of the Spaceways
UPDATED -- Wilma Deering and Dale Arden to the rescue!

Charity Alert: Make a resolution this Summer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: The Hilton Garden Inn event is finally over -- I was real flustered afterwards and missed an appointment. It could have been worse, but was still pretty bad. I also went over to the Hockaday Museum of Art to check my schedule and was busy for two and a half hours doing other things. I gotta get a day planner and find that PDA I put away.

Media Watch: That opera on local NPR station about those Carmelite nuns being executed during the French Reign of Terror in 1794 was tragic enough for the genre, but the music was far from compelling.


Delacroix's famous Liberty painting -- a metaphor of the French Revolution painted two generations later. I saw it myself in all it's greasy technicolor glory at The Louvre last August. This is a digital reinterpretation, referring to how we remember events in faded colors, with details that are unclear, and contexts which rise from the times when we reminisce.

Hot, with low clouds keeping the humidity high. Waterbirds were fishing in the sunset at Dry Bridge Slough

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!
Spitfires of the Spaceways
UPDATED -- Wilma Deering and Dale Arden to the rescue!

Charity Alert: Make a resolution this Summer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: The staff at the new Hilton Garden Inn has been friendly to me all week. Thursday was the hardest day yet, but it is over now.

Media Watch: Dream Girls on DVD -- sad story, but the outlines are true to many singing groups. There's a rumor that the Broadway play made Diana Ross so unhappy that she's never forgiven Mary Wilson for being a consultant on the project. Only Ms. Ross knows if that story's true, but the world won't forgive her if she refuses to re-form the Supremes while she, Mary, and Cindy Birdsong can still do all those good songs justice.
(...and if they sang with Motown's own studio band, the Funk Brothers -- THAT would be a joy to contemplate!)


Dry Bridge Slough, looking south -- it curves to the west a hundred or so yards further. We now own the house from which I took this photo.

Rain yesterday, with wind and lower temperatures continuing through today. A Great Blue Heron dipped down about twenty yards in front of us near the Flathead River while we were showing Tari DeWille the fish pond outside of Allen Jimmerson's studio.

We are closing on this property later in the week.
Do you think I'm excited? YES!

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!
Spitfires of the Spaceways
UPDATED -- Wilma Deering and Dale Arden to the rescue!

Charity Alert: Make a resolution this Summer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: The opening of the new Hilton Garden Inn turned out to be real fun! The Hockaday Museum of Art has a new source of publicity, and the whole local art scene will benefit from the exposure. I will be there as a technician from Wednesday through Friday as part of my duties for Flathead Valley Community College -- five days in one week!

Media Watch: Opera and Jazz on the radio, plus image-captures from DVDs of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, as I prepare for my update of Spitfires of the Spaceways.


(L to R) Princess Aura, as portrayed by Priscilla Lawson in the wonderfully barbaric 1936 Flash Gordon serial. Shirley Deane's helpless, sexless Princess Aura of 1940 was likely WRITTEN to be passive and dull by unimaginative hacks in the backlots of Hollywood. Deane unfortunately pales in comparison to Lawson's Spitfire of all Spaceway Spitfires!

The weather is trying to get hot again, but big thunderstorms are still moderating our temperatures. The Ducks don't mind at all.

See that causeway? That's Dry Bridge itself!

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 resolution this Summer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Security-mounting all those big paintings at the new Hilton Garden Inn was a lot more fun than I thought it would be! The Hockaday Museum of Art made some new friends, as did local painters Allen Jimmerson and Marshall Noice. The public forum will generate art sales long into the future as well. Special thanks to Tari, their Interior Designer.

Media Watch: Buster Crabbe's Buck Rogers from 1938 -- same production staff from the Flash Gordon serials -- with an insufferable teenage sidekick, and a rather interesting Wilma Deering, played by Big Band singer Constance Moore.


Once Lt./Col. Deering lets her hair down, all HELL breaks loose for Killer Kane's bad guys!