Arghh, Matey! It's been another long week -- a fast thunderstorm gave us some drama, and brought out the first of the Autumn leaves, knocking some off the trees in the process.
Today is Talk Like A Pirate Day also.

Sitemeter Sez: Phoenix, Arizona; Kailua Kona, Hawaii; Naperville, Illinois; Sundsvall, Sweden; High Wycombe, UK; Hempstead, New York; Merrick, New York; Levittown, New York; City of London, UK; Staten Island, New York; Lund, Sweden; Staten Island, New York; Carle Place, New York, and Anchorage, Alaska.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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 including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Silly-ass jokes about Roswell, New Mexico on Trash A Go Go III (So You Think You Can Dance) -- they were auditioning "weird" contestants in Phoenix, Arizona, which isn't exactly far from Roswell, but hardly near it either. I'm glad they're not wallowing in the failures anymore. The audience learns a little something during each show about the world of dancers. BTW -- The late singer/songwriter John (Denver) Deutschendorfer was born in Roswell about the time of the UFOs. He was from a military family associated with the air base there, and died in an ultra-light airplane accident near Monterrey, California. (see below)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974) -- on a gold DVD, licensed for a presentation to Phi Theta Kappa, our campus honor society. Damn! That movie is so funny on so many levels. Plot and cohesion are rarely in play, but I can't say I even care. What a talented ensemble! I'm happy to say that an audience of young adults laughed their asses off almost two generations after the release of the film. It was a success in the USA during its first run, although most of the country was unfamiliar with the group, or their BBC TV show, at the time.

Ch-ch-changes: Mary Travers of Peter, Paul, and Mary passed away after a long fight with lukemia. She sang lead on their hit single Leaving On A Jet Plane, written by John Denver (see above). They helped make Folk Music very popular, and blazed the way forward for Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, and others. When I was in Junior High School a neighbor of mine, Margaret Butterfield, sang Peter, Paul, and Mary songs around the Salt Lake area, and sang them very well indeed. Her younger peers, like me, picked up electric instruments a few years later and tried doing the same with Rolling Stones and Beatles tunes, mirroring the international pop music scene on a much smaller scale.

No knights on this day -- PIRATES ONLY!

My pirate name is Capt. Olaf Laughslast Laughsbest.
(We're all captains on THIS SHIP!)

Is it the weekend already? That was a short but active interval from the last one!
Over 2000 students came down with H1N1 (Swine Flu) at Washington State University, about 400 miles away from here. Luckily, they were all minor, but annoying, cases and nobody was hospitalized or died. Did I mention that the community college where I work has its highest enrollment ever?

Sitemeter Sez: Hicksville, New York; (Yes, there IS such a place.) Hempstead, New York; Hampton, Virginia; Oakland, California; Anchorage, Alaska; Aldeburgh, UK; Oakland, California, and Cramlington, UK.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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 including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

News and Events at Flathead Community College

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

President Obama gave two speeches this last week, which both brought out the crazies who'll never support him (or good sense) anyway, and put the majority of this country on alert that ignoring grim reality isn't an option for sane people. Obama can certainly lead, but everyone's going to have to do their share to work our way out of this recession -- including standing up FOR good ideas and AGAINST bad ones, like those put forth by racists and goofball ideologues who simply want our government to fail, or dumb-assed schemes like madated "junk insurance" which wouldn't pay upfront costs of illness anyway, placing a double burden on afflicted persons.

The crazies are marching in Washington D.C. today, led by former congrssional kingpin Dick Armey, one of the architects of this recession. Too much ugly in one place.

Media Watch: An audition show for Trash A Go Go III (AKA: So You Think You Can Dance) Not bad -- no wallowing in the bad or inept. The notion of an audition SHOWING what a performer can do came through, and the judges' panel was fairly humorous.
Trash A Go Go I (AKA: Dancing with the Stars) will start soon, with the corrupt ex-congressman 'Bug Man' Tom Delay, a major leader of the aforementioned crazies who have benefitted from bankrupting their own country, as a contestant. I'm boycotting that show while he's on, and telling ABC so.
No, I didn't watch America's Got Talent -- don't ever want to see it again either. Somewhere else, Simon Cowell, the producer, reminded people what an ass he is by joking about The Beatles, with Ringo in particular, never making it through a talent contest. Probably true, considering that gatekeepers like Cowell suppress creativity rather than encourage it, by patronizing sentimentality and Lowest Common Denominators.
So Cowell was joking, big deal -- the hubbub brought out a rant by one of my favorite rant-meisters, Mary Scott O'Connor. (Google her name.) I agree with her mostly, and sometimes not at all, but she can spin out colorfully enraged verbage like nobody else.

Ch-ch-changes: The great comedy writer Larry Gelbart passed on yesterday. Before we get to his great accomplishments, he wrote blog posts like I do, and Mary Scott O'Connor used to, on Daily Kos. His best-known success was the anti-war TV version of M*A*S*H, but after starting out in radio, he was a major force in the 50's as one of Sid Caesar's team of writers -- along with Neil Simon, Mel Brooks, performer Carl Reiner, Woody Allen, Selma Diamond, and about ten other geniuses. He did Broadway with the magnificent Zero Mostel, a Hollywood movie with Dustin Hoffman, and many other projects.

Time for a cold shower under the waterfall!

I'm going to be tossing an anonymous figure into my water video -- just a few generic, very- filtered frames for a human focus.

The week of of Mondays is over, they even borrowed one from the following week -- tomorrow is the USA's version of Labor Day.

Sitemeter Sez: Toms River, New Jersey; Montreal, Quebec; Detroit, Michigan; Birmingham, UK, and my secret admirer in Louth, Ireland.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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 including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Netflix's Bollywood movies have been disappointing lately, but Naqaab (2007) had some virtues. The acting by veterans Bobby Deol and Akshaye Khanna was pretty good, though patchy. Newcomer Urvashi Sharma looked like she might be an experienced model, and the Internet told me I was right! Plastic surgery is rife in the Indian film industry, and she may have caught her nose in some of it, rather than her lips, as is too common nowadays. None of my business, really, but I wish that fad would end. Most of the flick was shot in the concrete craziness of Dubai, on the Arabian Peninsula, which has been built up like a monstrous movie set itself in the last generation.

I think I'm going to dip into this collection of 50 Horror Classics -- only the worst is good enough!
Update: One Corpse Too Many with Jack (Tin Man) Hailey and Bela Lugosi -- D-grade murder mystery in a mansion honeycombed with secret passages; A Shriek In The Night starring young Ginger Rogers in a C-grade mystery. Monster from a Prehistoric Planet starring guys in rubber suits echoing Rodan and Gorgo.

Intersecting Lives:

A postcard from the Friends Roadshow, published circa 1974, showing them outside of the Shaffy Theater in Amsterdam, Holland with their portable stage and multi-talented company. The guy in red is Jango, Lenny is next to him, and Robbie is at the other end of the line. My young friend Justin in front was only about 10 years old, and it sure looks like beautiful Helene sitting on the bricks. I can only guess who the others are in this photo, but a copy of it rode with us on the Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe bus from coast to coast in 1975, displayed right next to the driver's seat!

A whole WEEK of Mondays as we start classes at the community college!
Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Sitemeter Sez: Salt Lake City, Utah (Brine Shrimp seeker); Rock Hill, South Carolina; Baltimore, Maryland; New Delhi, India; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Madrid, Spain; Paris, Ile-de-France; Castro Valley, California; Fort Worth, Texas, and Middletown, New Jersey.

The Mime Troupe Saga continues: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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 including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: I enjoyed watching the So You Think You Can Dance highlight show -- especially Chelsea Hightower's performances. She's on Trash A Go Go now, and does all-right!
%$#@! America's Got Talent is a horrible show. I should really quit watching the sunuvaburch. Pimps in cowboy hats crooning Unchained Melody, church creatures who they're afraid to cross, and worst of all, David Hasselhoff singing. The one act I liked, "Acrodunk," was voted off -- they can entertain any sports arena in the country, though. GO FOR IT GUYS!

Reconstituted Imagery

In 1975, I spent a whole day and night in Paul McCarthy's office drawing a poster for the Mime Troupe's performance at U.S.C. -- listening to Reggae classics like The Harder They Come soundtrack, and the Wailers' Burning album, which were both fairly new at the time. Natty Dread would be released about a six weeks later, and Bob Marley would be an international superstar the next year.
I've remembered the composition of this poster well enough, but lost all copies of it years ago. For the Mime Troupe saga, I decided to make this digital reconstruction, showing my blue-pencil drafting, and marks which resemble black-ink stippling by my rapidiograph pen. The poster would have looked like this at about 11 P.M. and I would have printed the completely-inked version by 10 A.M.
http://theatrex.net/theatre/mt_pt6/home02.htm

Hot today -- went up to Glacier National Park to shoot some video, but didn't see any major wildlife. Trail of the Cedars was lovely as always.
Then and Now -- Disappearing Glaciers of Glacier National Park.

Sitemeter Sez: Paris, Ile-de-France; City of London, UK; District Heights, Maryland; Mountain View, California; Lisbon, Portugal; Portland, Oregon; Los Angeles, California; San Andreas, California; Sidney, Ohio; Bozeman, Montana; Brandon, Florida; Dublin, Ireland (Eavan? Izzat you?); Flower Mound, Texas (Bluebells of course), and Anchorage, Alaska.

Another Mime Troupe Saga chapter: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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 including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

In The Community: Flathead Valley Community College starts classes TOMORROW! We're going to do a joint art show with the National Forest Service in a few weeks, and the Hockaday Museum will be involved too.

Media Watch: A sneak preview of Ken Burns' new PBS series -- The National Parks; America's Best Idea up in Whitefish. They showed segments from several episodes, and DID mention Glacier Nat'l Park more than once. Opening the scenic wonders of our nations greatest natural treasures to automobiles was mentioned as a bargain with the devil -- which it is, and we're still dealing with that fact.

The Forest's Spirit Endures!

Mother Earth was taken at the Trail of the Cedars in Glacier National Park. The hollow tree is still where it was before, but our model has moved to the Cascades since then!

Oh Man! It's been almost ten days, and I haven't posted anything here. The weather has been excellent, the college is getting ready to start classes early this year, I have some projects moving forward, but the wildlife haven't caught my eye much -- heckuva new waxing moon the last few nights, though.

Sitemeter Sez: Columbus, Ohio; Oakland, California; Rabat, Morocco; Paris, Ile-de-France; Maule, France; Sacramento, California; Flushing, New York; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Trondheim, Norway (origin of my mother's maternal family) and Manchester, UK.

Another Mime Troupe Saga chapter tonight: 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

Many thanks to Toni -- she sent me an autographed copy of Winter Season; A Dancer's Journal (1982) for making a video of her presentation at Harvard University about Ida!




Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!
MORE UPDATES! Outre Space Cinema -- Featuring: 1930's Rocketry, Spitfires of the Spaceways and especially Cellulose to Celluloid, Even more Flash Gordon comparisons from 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 including my efforts on his Flash Gordon Resources Page -- along with actual creators like Alex Raymond, Al Williamson, and others!

Charity Alert: Play the FreeRice Game -- improve your vocabulary, and donate food to the United Nations. 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. BTW -- AIDtoCHILDREN.com is a bit simpler than FreeRice Game.

In The Community: I photographed the Duck Races up at Whitefish, Montana last weekend -- good silly fun for a variety of charities.

Ch-ch-ch Changes: Senator Edward Kennedy died today from brain cancer at 77 years old. President Barack Obama honored him in an email sent to me as a member of Organizing For America.
The magnificent songwriter Ellie Greenwhich also passed away. She was able to sing quite well, but never caught on as a performer, as fellow Brill Building inmate Carole King did. Greenwich had a minor hit as a member of The Raindrops, but great songs like You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling and River Deep, Mountain High will be her true legacy.

Media Watch: Bollywood backwash -- Mere Baap Pehle Aap (2008). What do these good actors talk about when they go home after working in something like this? Akshaye Khanna in another Cary Grant-styled comedy, but not a very good one. Khanna repeated the essence of his spiel about love from 1999's Aa Ab Laut Chalen -- sad, sad. Paresh Rawal and Om Puri as dumb-ass clowns. Beautiful Genelia D'Souza as a not-very-admirable ingenue. Archana Puran Singh as a mean police inspector, and East/West ambassador Naseeruddin Shah as D'Souza's manipulative father. Plot? The less said the better. Lots of European woman dancers in the song sections, well maybe Aussies and Americans too. They're OK, but a certain 'flavor' was missing in the small movements, compared to Indian women -- something about their training, rather than their looks.

The Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe Saga Continues!

An illustration from Samuel Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Gustave Dore. I borrowed this image for a poster in the early spring of 1975, advertising our "Special Concert Prior To European Tour." We couldn't use the word "benefit," and were subject to other restrictions, but some very nice people helped us out in our time of need, and these angels were my tribute to THEM. The current online saga completes my account of our California Tour, and this picture belongs in the next chapter -- our coast to coast trek to NYC and the charter flight to Europe on Capitol Airlines.