It has rained on and off for the last few days -- GOOD! However, there is an outdoor Macbeth at the college tonight, and I'd rather have it stay outdoors.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Aliso Viejo, California; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Louth, Ireland (shoot me a comment!); Charleston, West Virginia; San Diego, California; Denver, Colorado; Raleigh, North Carolina; Plano, Texas; Quillota, Chile;
Guatemala City, Guatemala; East Retford, UK; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Ludvika, Sweden; Memphis, Tennessee and Saint-Gratien, Ile-de-France (that you, Clara?)

Check out 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.





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

In The Community: Current shows at the Hockaday Museum of Art include Rails, Trails, and A Road -- honoring the 75th Anniversary of Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park, plus Ace Powell -- Ace of Diamonds and Native American Interpretations from our permanent collection.
Museums & Music -- our final Sunday of the Summer will be a party spread out between us and the other two county museums.

Media Watch: Kerri Walsh and and Misty May-Treanor of the USA continued their four-year winning streak in Women's Beach Vollyball at the Olympics, against a fierce Chinese squad who took both Silver and Bronze against other world champions.

A highly digitized impression of Vollyball champions Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor, celebrating the action of this fast-paced sport. Why is ANYONE worried about what they're wearing or not? Keep your eye on the ball, like the athletes do!

I spent an uncomfortable, muggy night with forest fire smoke greeting me in the morning, bourne by a west wind. By midday the same wind brought clouds and much-needed rain. A whole flock of rather large Ravens were checking out the campus -- normally we see them in pairs. Maybe they were migrating through.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Cincinnati, Ohio; Commack, New York; Golden, Colorado; Corona, New York; Bremerton, Washington; Sundsvall, Sweden; Goose Creek, South Carolina; Dallas, Texas; Madrid, Spain; Ramsey, New Jersey; Nieuwkoop, Holland; Farmingdale, New Jersey; Wallingford, Connecticut; San Francisco, California and Paris, Ile-de-France.

Check out 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.





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

In The Community: Current shows at the Hockaday Museum of Art include Rails, Trails, and A Road -- honoring the 75th Anniversary of Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park, plus Ace Powell -- Ace of Diamonds and Native American Interpretations from our permanent collection.
Museums & Music -- our final Sunday of the Summer will be a party spread out between us and the other two county museums. I saw musician Andre Floyd out on the town -- he'll be playing that day over at the Central School Museum.

Media Watch: The Olympics have been generally entertaining, plus it has been easy to find coverage, unlike some other years. There's a lot of tape delay and editing with occasional live segments. Men's Beach Vollyball players don't show as much skin as woman volleyballers, but they play with equal enthusiasm. NBC was showing a close match between USA and Swiss teams, but then broke away for swimming and other sports. That's basically OK, but they were still promising to show the end of the game over an hour later -- pimping actually, and I gave up watching because I wasn't going to be held hostage until midnight just so I could see what the damn network had on tape -- their attempt at showbiz drama made me lose interest, and no, I haven't even bothered to look up who won. I only cared for a little while, and I don't care now. Ya' blew it clowns!

Relax & Attack! Relax & Attack!
A digital mash-up from photos of Women's Beach Volleyball
champs from Brazil and the USA.
Click for a slightly larger image.

Hot enough for you? Damn near 40 Degrees (C) all week here at latitude 49 North! The sunsets have been beautiful, the nearby forest fire seems to be under control, the Osprey are still catching fish, but I'm ready for some rain.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Alpharetta, Georgia; Frankfurt Am Main, Germany; Harwood Heights, Illinois; Marlborough, Connecticut; Sacramento, California; Melbourne, Victoria; Bangor, Maine (searching for the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus); Williamsburg, Virginia; Aliso Viejo, California; Schertz, Texas; Sacramento, California; Chassey-ls-Montbozon, France; Jamaica, New York and Cleveland, Ohio.

Check out 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.





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

In The Community: Current shows at the Hockaday Museum of Art include Rails, Trails, and A Road -- honoring the 75th Anniversary of Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park, plus Ace Powell -- Ace of Diamonds and Native American Interpretations from our permanent collection.
Museums & Music -- our final Sunday of the Summer will be a party spread out between the other two county museums.

Road Pictures

Click for a larger image
The east front of the Rocky Mountains, part of the Two Medicine area of Glacier National Park. The community was once named Midvale, but the Great Northern built the original Glacier Park Lodge about a kilometer to the west, and renamed the station Glacier Park in 1909. The town is now named East Glacier.

Media Watch: The Snake River Outlaws on Montana Public Radio, from live radio broadcasts recorded in Missoula, Montana around 1953. Sentimental hybrid Honky-Tonk from the myth-loving west of my childhood. We had similar shows in Salt Lake City on KDYL and KSL when I was a toddler.

Om Shanti Om -- a fairly new film by Farah Khan, starring Bollywood's equivalent of Cary Grant, Shah Rukh Khan. His co-star is a young model named Deepika Padukone, a delightfully capable actor and dancer. This director also did Main Hoon Na, an action film with Suniel Shetty and the aforementioned Mr. Khan (no relation). I like Farah Khan's visual style, and since she's also a choreographer, I liked the dances best. The film has some bright moments, and is very entertaining most of the time, but I prefered Main Hoon Na.
That being said, there's some crazy fun associated with Om Shanti Om that would be hard to duplicate in other movies -- particularly a supposed post-awards party with about thirty major Bollywood movie stars looning it up. The goofy awards ceremony itself was pretty funny too, with some clever pokes in the metaphorical ribs to major hits like Dhoom and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Shah Rukh Khan at the age of 42 is still able to convincingly play a thirty-year old -- his physique was ultra-trim and muscular, and pictures of his ripped and toned body were used to promote the film. He looks a touch too mature in the face to carry off a twenty - something, though. (Cameo visitor Sanjay Duit, Bollywood's Robert Mitchum, often portrays a lot of much younger men in his own films, but that is a whole other subject.) Gauri Khan, the star's real-world wife, is one of the producers, and the family could have done a whole lot worse than this colorful spectacle.
Om Shanti Om relies on a lot of movie in-jokes, which makes sense since it is set in the world of movie-making. I don't know Indian films near well enough to understand all the references though. There was a drama buried amongst the fun, which wasn't too bad, but there were a few holes which could have been filled much better than they were. I didn't appreciate the villain being named Mikee, for one, and discerned Phantom of the Opera vibes here and there, but it was much more supernatural than that.

Farah Khan also choreographed Shakira's appearance on the 2006 MTV Music Awards. This high-quality singer/dancer from Colombia is living proof that real talent can still be popular.

Turn and face the strange CHANGES: Producer Jerry Wexler, one of popular music's greatest innovators passed away on August 15 at the age of 91. From his Wiki site:
During his time as an editor, reporter, and writer for Billboard Magazine, Wexler coined the term "rhythm and blues." He became a partner in Atlantic Records in 1953. There followed classic recordings with Ray Charles, the Drifters and Ruth Brown. With Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegün, he built up Atlantic Records into a major force. In the 1960s, he ... recorded Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and oversaw production of Dusty Springfield's highly acclaimed Dusty in Memphis album. He also cultivated a tight relationship with Stax Records, (and) was an enormous proponent of the then-developing Muscle Shoals Sound...
I have a copy of Rhythm & Blues In New Orleans by John Broven -- on pages xxi to xxiii, there are quotations about the musical concept funky, reportedly created by NOLA drummer Earl Palmer and passed around the industry by Jerry Wexler, NOLA saxman Red Tyler and others. The old gentleman had an ear!

We need some rainfall -- no doubt about it. It is hot, but the place I'm renting is cool from all the foilage around it. Deer were jumping the rock walls at Conrad Mansion last evening.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Levallois-Perret, France; Buffalo, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Ballston Spa, New York; Toledo, Ohio; Clifton, New Jersey; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Topeka, Kansas; London, England; Doorn, Holland; Maplewood, New Jersey; Pompano Beach, Florida; Newport News, Virginia; Sammamish, Washington; Amarillo, Texas; Bolton, UK, and Blythe, California.

Check out 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.





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

In The Community: The college will be starting Autumn Semester in earnest -- just as soon as Summer Semester ends in equal earnest.
Current shows at the Hockaday Museum of Art include Rails, Trails, and A Road -- honoring the 75th Anniversary of Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park, plus Ace Powell -- Ace of Diamonds and Native American Interpretations from our permanent collection.
Museums & Music -- our final Sunday of the Summer will be a party spread between the other two county museums.

Road Photos, featuring THE ROAD:

Click for a larger image.
US Highway 2 through Northern Montana -- parallel to the Burlington/Santa Fe/Great Northern Railway tracks, also known as The Highline. It goes all the way from Seattle to Minneapolis, but after ten hours, I turned south at Culbertson to go to Sidney, which was MUCH greener.

Media Watch: Did I write about satellite radio on my trip last weekend? Too bad -- I'm writing about it now! The rolling windswept plains weren't much for scenery, but they served me well for listening to Jazz and Blues. Gary Burton was as good a host as he was before, playing some music by Carla Bley with a personal story about this great contemporary composer. Charles Mingus continues to satisfy the deepest depths of my soul, as he did when I discovered him for myself at the age of sixteen. John Coltrane and Miles Davis were just magical in their creativity. One special treat was Muddy Waters singing The Blues Had A Baby (And They Named It Rock & Roll) another was the Newport Jazz Festival recording of Got My Mojo Working from 1957 -- one more tune I enjoyed in my teenaged years, thanks to the Salt Lake Public Library.
The second hop between Sidney and Lewistown had its musical highlight with a performance of Puccini's La Bohème from 2003. I prefer the interplay between wild Musetta and Marcello rather than doomed Mimi and pathetic Rudolfo, but my vote doesn't count. Gloom seems to dominate Opera. It is very interesting to me that Arturo Toscanini conducted the premiere in 1896 -- his life overlapped mine slightly, and his very NAME meant Classical Music when I was a kid. In the 50's, Opera was often treated as an artifact of an indefinitely distant past, even though Puccini had passed away only three decades previously.
As sad evidence, Billy Budd (1951) by Benjamin Britten was on the radio the following day. Whatever the motivation for it, that English-language drama sounded like a second-rate comedy troupe's take-down of an opera -- the music is atonal, the words are cringingly melodramatic, or outright laughable, despite its tragedy and the subtext of repressed homosexuality. Gotta change the station -- Ahhhh, Duke Ellington does the trick! They still program a lot of Jackie Wilson on Channel 5 too -- one of the BEST singers who ever graced the airwaves.
One more fun anomaly came to my ears on the BBC -- a correspondent told about The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, a long-sought novel by Alexandre Dumas Sr. The great popular author was writing one more serial before he died, and quite a few episodes had been published in French newspapers -- well they finally found his lost manuscript, and some brave soul will attempt to finish the story.

You mean Three Musketeers Dumas?

Click for a somewhat larger image.
My favorite Constance -- Raquel Welch in a digital jam from a couple of modeling sessions, plus her excellent acting in Richard Lester's Three (Four) Musketeers.

Perfect summery weather -- however there's a lightning-caused forest fire southwest of us, along the fastest road to Idaho and Washington. I've seen almost a half-dozen spotty fawns around the area since I got back. Last Monday I drove up to Glacier National Park -- the Going To The Sun Road is in the midst of reconstruction, but it is still fun!

Roadwork in Glacier Nat'l Park on Monday, Aug. 11, 2008 -- they've taken all the old asphalt away, and have blown up a few overhanging rocks. This section, between the Loop and Haystack, will be repaved in September.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Dallas, Texas; East Lansing, Michigan; Ipswich, England; Louth, Ireland; Fort Worth, Texas; Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia; Fairfax, Virginia; Stratford, Connecticut; Reykjavk, Iceland; New York City, New York; Cascade, Montana; Tacoma, Washington; Charlottesville, Virginia; Silver Spring, Maryland; Seattle, Washington; Chicago, Illinois; Morgantown, West Virginia; Great Falls, Montana (stayed awhile); Charlotte, North Carolina; Rio De Janeiro, Brazil; Los Angeles, California; Cape Town, Western Cape; Oxford, England; Toronto, Ontario and Cardiff, Wales.

Check out 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.





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

In The Community: Current shows at the Hockaday Museum of Art include Rails, Trails, and A Road -- honoring the 75th Anniversary of Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park, plus Ace Powell -- Ace of Diamonds and Native American Interpretations from our permanent collection.

Media Watch: So You Think You Can Dance showed some excellent choreography this season. The announcer and judges showed some personality for a change, and my favorite dancer won the grand prize. In fact, their final ten contestants were all first-rate dancers.

More Road Photos:

Click to enlarge images
Charlie and Nancy Russell's home (L) and art studio (R) in Great Falls, Montana. Part of the Charles M. Russell Museum in a pleasant neighborhood on the north side of town.

Three days on the road, but I finally made it home tonight! I saw many Rough-Legged Hawks, a Pheasant couple, Mule Deer, Horses and Cattle along the way. Sidney, Montana is a remarkably pleasant community on the North Dakota border -- Sandy and Leanne of the MonDak Heritage Center were very friendly and helpful to me. Lewistown was unusually stately for a Central Montana town, with a tidy business district, well-kept neighborhoods, plus plenty of shady trees and water -- many thanks to Corinna and Jeniffer at the museum! I saw ONE more in Great Falls this morning -- the Charles M. Russell Museum, which includes the old cowboy's home and studio.

Sitemeter Sez: Visitors from Buenos Aires, Argentina; Whittier, California; Sudbury, Ontario; Fairfield, California; Kearny, New Jersey; Clarksville, Tennessee; Crawley, UK; Missouri City, Texas; Rotterdam, Holland; Mesa, Arizona; Meriden, Connecticut; Winston Salem, North Carolina (lookin' for the P-FUNK!); Sarnia, Ontario; Cherry Hill, New Jersey; Spring, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; Lake Havasu City, Arizona and Chattanooga, Tennessee (Choo-choo Ch-boogie!)

Check out 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.





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

In The Community: My mad dash to Sidney, Montana at the far East end of Montana for the Hockaday Museum of Art is DONE! The next two transport trips for Cawdrey's show won't be near as intense.
Our current exibits are Rails, Trails, and A Road -- honoring the 75th Anniversary of Going To The Sun Road in Glacier National Park, plus Ace Powell -- Ace of Diamonds and Native American Interpretations from our permanent collection.

Media Watch: Watched old movies as I winded down from the road or tried to sleep.

I put up with a couple of WWII movies -- one was a strange technicolor flick about Navy flight surgeons in 1940 San Diego starring Errol Flynn and Fred McMurray. Half the science they spoke about was probably classified during the next twelve months.
Guadalcanal Diary was a sad, jingoistic, approximation of one of the most critical military adventures in world history. The book, Guadalcanal Diary by Richard Tregaskis, was written by what we'd call an "embedded" reporter today. The Landmark Books version I read in 6th grade left a lot of the desperation and horror untold, but allowed some reality to remain between the covers. The movie from 1943 was as numbing as novacaine, and wasn't particularly entertaining either. There were many better war movies made in those days -- even some fairly crappy ones were better than this.
This series of pitched battles over a forward airbase, hurriedly cleared by Imperial troops in the jungles of the Solomon Islands, and seized by the USA, resulted in massive losses of irreplacable troops and ordinance on the Japanese side, but practical training, hard-won intelligence, and successful templates for amphibious assaults on the Allied side -- but the back-and-forth took most of a year, and the US could have been defeated at several junctures, before its industrial might was fully mobilized.
The miracle of Midway loomed large, since a sudden lack of aircraft carriers provoked the Japanese attempt to extend the reach of their ground-based planes -- nobody guessed that America's methodical response would eventually doom the whole Empire.

I also caught parts of two Doris Day films in the morning -- a very early effort from the year I was born called My Dream Is Yours. It was pretty bad, although Bugs Bunny made an appearence, and Eve Arden was her always-excellent self. TCM also showed Girl In The Glass Bottomed Boat (1966) -- Doris Day was 42 years old, and no girl. She had a grown son who was producing first-rate albums for Columbia Records. Whomever produced this flick made it a peep show featuring undignified glimpses of her unclothed body. (Hopefully using a stunt double at crucial moments.) Her movie career was starting to fall apart because of changing times and bad management decisions. She had earlier stepped into Marilyn Monroe's final role in a dreadful remake of My Favorite Wife.

Doris Day in her mermaid costume from The Glass Bottomed Boat. To be fair, she was in excellent physical shape, and looked strong, vital, and healthy, whatever they made her wear. This insensitive, sexist movie was more victimization than comedy. The knockabout humor was sub-slapstick, and the jokes were too humiliating to be fun. Despite Doris Day's bad experiences as censorship faded, my generation was capable of accepting "older women" as "sex symbols." Carol Baker, Angie Dickenson, and Anne Bancroft come to mind. Jayne Mansfield was well-known, and would have had more popular success if her movies hadn't been so exploitive and bad. Mitzi Gaynor, Julie Newmar, and Cyd Charisse were on TV just enough for us to know they were around -- but the nightclub scene where they thrived withered as the 60's ended.
The movie-going public included millions of teenagers like myself who had grown up seeing Doris Day as a star from our moms' generation. The more discerning of us knew her as a fine singer, but her style of Pop was passe in 1966. (I grew to defend her fabulous music, and still do!)
Most importantly for our drive-in demographic, the LAST thing we wanted to see on our movie screens were nude and semi-nude pictures of our MOMS -- especially a mom who had projected such a sugary image over the years. Boat was sold as a supposed spy flick, and Doris Day as Honor Blackman seemed embarassingly wrong.

Exhibit A1 -- Honor Blackman circa 1966
My favorite of all of 007's female co-stars. Some actresses were better than others at being comfortable in their skin.