Four snowstorms blew through the Western USA, but very little of it was left where I live because it melted or soaked away. An Arctic blast followed, and we're enduring sub-zero temperatures all weekend. I'll make sure to put out a lot of seed and suet for the birds! We were too far north to see Comet McNaught this week -- it hugged the horizon at 40 degrees, and we're 9 degrees closer to the pole. The mountains probably helped hide it from me as I searched in the bitter cold too. (Dare I say "It was all for McNaught?")

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 as the days get longer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: New shows opening at Hockaday Museum of Art next week.

Media Watch: TCM played some more Busby Berkeley movies from the end of his run with Warner Bros/First National. The longer he sat in the director's seat, the more prosaic his work seemed to become. I don't like his MGM Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney films at all, nor do I like For Me and My Gal (Gene Kelly's movie debut). I find it ironic that someone who made jokes about turn-of-the-century theater had his biggest commercial successes with dreary re-vamps of the same cliches he made fun of. The Gangs All Here is a remarkable exception, though -- you can argue that Berkeley imitated himself, but he did it in Technicolor! I might also mention that his specialty numbers retained their edge into the 50's, but I was very sorry to read how his carelessness caused Esther Williams' broken neck in Million Dollar Mermaid, and some near accidents in Easy to Love. You might blame alcohol, and you might be right.
I watched a Richard Lester movie that I never knew existed -- It's Trad, Dad!, a British teen exploitation flick shot around 1962. I appreciated it being nearly 90% musical acts. The plot was so bare-bones and stupid that Lester wasted only as much time as it deserved. It's a pity he couldn't play this trick more often. His characters were sketchy, but comical. He used literally dozens of visual tricks to make the many songs interesting -- a little scrapbook of divergent thinking from the man I consider to be a major Godfather of Music Video. Here's a list of the singers and groups from the credits -- Helen Shapiro, Craig Douglas, and John Leyton all sang and acted a bit. The Brook Brothers were a suited-up, pomaded, song and dance duo who LOOKED like they were related, but I wondered about that very stiff trio called Paris Sisters. There were loads of U.K. bands playing antique Jazz: The Dukes of Dixieland; Chris Barber & Ottlie Patterson; Bob Wallis; Terry Lightfoot; a deadpan funny bunch called The Temperance 7, which reminded me of Geoff Stevens' New Vaudeville Band (Winchester Cathedral, anyone?) ; and Mr. Acker Bilk, who became an international star with Stranger on the Shore. There were some first-rank American Rock & Rollers in the mix: Chubby Checker; Del Shannon; Gary U.S. Bonds; a smokin' performance by Gene McDaniels; and Gene Vincent dressed in coveralls, leaning on a mop with dancers all around him -- trying to recover from the car crash which made his short life very painful, and killed Eddie Cochran outright. The movie ended with one of Sounds Incorporated's two sax players blowing a screaming solo -- I remember seeing them on American TV a few years after this film was made -- excellent instrumental Rock, showy and well-played -- always a welcome addition to Shindig.

Real Books: Finished Lord of the Rings for this season. I first read it 40 years ago, and lost count of how many times I've succumed to J.R.R. Tolkien's spell. My friend Brian W. Aldiss wrote some insightful criticism of this work in Trillion Year Spree, especially in comparison with Mervyn Peake's brilliant Gormanghast. Brian was correct, but Tolkien's wonderous magic still enchants me.

Ballantine's Lord of the Rings covers by Barbara Remington


Prof. Tolkien's personal appeal on the cover of Ballantine's Fellowship of the Ring convinced me to buy it at Sam Weller's Books in downtown Salt Lake City during the winter of 1966. While waiting for the bus home, I read the introduction, and let the endpaper maps guide my imagination to Middle Earth as I sat on a stool at the old-fashioned counter of Walgreen's Drug Store in a snowstorm. Like the professor, I had many duties I did not neglect, and didn't get to Mount Doom until early in the Summer, but I was certainly ready for the quest to finish by then. The Appendix rekindled my enthusiasm for Tolkien's fantasy world, though, and I followed Bilbo Baggins through The Hobbit with unflagging delight. I've been happy to participate in the phenomenon of Heroic Fantasy rising from our cultural unconcious to inspire further generations of readers and creators -- far beyond the ken of the scholarly acolytes who conjured it's spirit in the pubs of Oxford.

Two of the Bald Eagles seem to be paired up -- I hope they all find enough to eat. We are supposed to get several waves of storms this week, but they are dropping only miniscule amounts of snow. Have I told you what this moisture does to the roads? Oh yeah -- as Little Richard sings: slippin' and a slidin'

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 as the days get longer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Updates on the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website.

Media Watch: We are re-watching TCM's Busby Berkeley mini-thon from the other night. I might as well list my favorites from this lot:
1) 42nd Street (1932)
One of the very few backstage musicals with an echo of truth.
2) Footlight Parade (1933)
James Cagney and Ruby Keeler dance together! The acting is excellent too.
3) Dames (1934)
Might as well have been called "Gold Diggers of 1934." Berkeley's pieces are pretty cartoonish, but Hugh Herbert and Zasu Pitts are hilarious!

4) Gold Diggers of 1933
I like Ned Sparks' crabby but warm-hearted character, plus a couple of production numbers, but it's a step down IMHO.
5) Gold Diggers of 1935
Except for Winifred Shaw singing Lullaby of Broadway, I can take or leave this bonehead comedy, although the actors do their jobs OK. Ruby Keeler is missing -- but she and Powell did three more films together: Flirtation Walk, Shipmates Forever, where Keeler looks physically ill, but Powell's first-rate acting bouys up the flick, and finally Colleen, with Joan Blondell, Hugh Herbert, and one of my LEAST favorite actors from the 30's, Jack Oakie.
Go into Your Dance (shown the other night) and Wonderbar feature Al Jolson, the guy whose stardom helped sell movies with sound to the public. Berkeley made another string of flicks with another New York comic actor, Eddie Cantor, for Sam Goldwyn's rival studio -- some of which belong in Berkeley's 'Top Ten.' However, the same can't be said of either of Jolson's two Berkeley movies. They occupy a very strange place in both showmen's histories -- crime and criminals, sex and alcohol abuse, and showbiz's seamy backside are primary elements of their plots.
Ruby Keeler takes a bullet meant for Jolson, and we're not really sure if Mrs. Jolson is dying or not in the dressing room during the finale, while her old man is out singing Go into Your Dance onstage. (The dialog SAYS they've called the doctor!)
In Wonderbar, the radiant Dolores Del Rio joins the Warner Bros./Busby Berkeley stock company for a few pictures. She stabs her philandering lover during their act, and Jolson not only covers up the crime, but stands aside to aid her real affections for Dick Powell. The movie is structured in long set-pieces, and entertainment of one form or another fills more than 80% of the running time, unlike most Berkeley flicks. This finale has Jolson Going to Heaven on a Mule, in his trademark blackface -- overblown in itself, plus demeaning, insulting, and almost unwatchable now. It was a substantial hit at the time it was made though.
Try this Busby Berkeley Website

Two Bald Eagles on Middle Foy's Lake. It was hard seeing the aereation pond -- lots of meltwater and rain on the ice. It's been well above freezing since Tuesday -- during the day. At night all that water ices up the roads.

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 as the days get longer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Updates on the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website.

Media Watch: TCM's theme was songwriters last night -- 1946's Night and Day starred Cary Grant as Cole Porter. There was very little truth in the story, however his career DID obsess him sometimes, and his horse accident was a turning point in his life -- a very bad turn, since he was never free of pain again. Kevin Kline's turn as Cole Porter in the recent De-Lovely reveals a little more social reality, but the critical detail of Porter's wife being eight years older, and the nature of their partnership were abandoned in favor of someone's idea of drama, or perhaps marketing, since Ashley Judd played Linda Porter, or some dam' thing. Cole Porter in Wikipedia
Mary Martin and Monty Wooley both played themselves, and they stole the 42nd Street plotline of a chorus girl ("Gracie," played by Jane Wyman) giving her big break to a talented neighbor (Martin) in the line. Ginny Simms sang at least four of Porter's biggest songs. Carlos Ramírez sang a beautiful version of Begin the Beguine, someone named Blanka sang Easy to Love. Dancers included: Milada Mladova, George Zoritch, Adam DeGatano, Jayne DeGatano, Estelle Sloan, Dorothy Costello and Ruth Costello. This flick was loaded with 40's fashions and 40's hair. I liked the production numbers, even though they were all militantly mid-40's in style too. There was a string of extremely fictionalized musical biographies made by the major Hollywood studios, with the best talent of the time behind and in front of the cameras. It's incomprehensible to me why they all stink so badly, but they do.
Four of the best movies by my man Busby Berkeley were shown right afterwards -- 42nd Street, Golddiggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, and Dames, followed by Gold Diggers of 1935 and the bizzare Go into Your Dance, starring Ruby Keeler and her husband Al Jolson. Character actors from WB/First National's stock company abound!


Detail from a fairly quick photo of my Homage to Busby Berkley print. At the center is a stand-up lobby cut-out that we bought in three pieces at an antiques sale in Spokane, Washington.

Happy New Year! We counted birds for the Audubon Society out of our windows yesterday -- Chickadees and Juncos were the winners, but two Bald Eagles showed up too. We've had icy gray midwinter weather.

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 as the days get longer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Look for updates on the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website.

Media Watch: Speaking of weather, the annual Tournament of Roses Parade was blessed with sunshine and warmth, over 1200 miles away in Pasadena, California. I still enjoy watching live broadcasts like this, even though ex-Presidents' funerals make their way onto the air too. I heard Christina Aguilera roaring through a live mic over couple of songs' worth of canned music in Times Square on New Year's Eve -- good touch. Producer/host Dick Clark has recovered enough from his stroke to talk a little, but he sounded gruff. It obviously wasn't near as easy as it used to be for him.
TCM found some obscure Sci-Fi flicks from the 50's and ran them on New Years Day, after a spate of Marx Brothers films. There were some I'd never even heard of, and I can't wait to wallow in that drek after we finish taping them. The Blob is the last one -- it's theme was written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach, but that low-grade hit song was NOT the real start of their fertile partnership. They didn't formally join up for another few years.
The Lord of the Rings as we know it, took form after Tolkien was rewriting the whole thing backwards -- after finally completing the story for C. S. Lewis and his other friends, who gathered together weekly as "The Inklings." I bought and read ex-Inkling Christopher Tolkien's collection of his father's drafts. What might seem to be a continuation of The Hobbit metamorphing into a Heroic Fantasy version of War and Peace is constructed in almost the opposite manner. I appreciate Prof. Tolkien trying to adjust his narrative style to suit the characters and situations -- there are glimmers of William Morris, Sir Walter Scott, and the Icelandic Sagas, but the writer who was following these literary lights actually knew and understood their works. Tolkien's OWN voice is still my favorite element -- the Truesilver of the tale.


One more go-round with Ace Books!

Name Those Characters! Some reviewer once mentioned that "...at least (Jack Gaughan) had read the book." as a way of belittling Barbara Remington's Ballantine covers. He didn't read very carefully -- Fellowship of the Ring has Gandalf front and center, but I can't identify anyone else. Those hooded guys maybe work, but there were no swordsmen wearing pointy hats. Two Towers shows a flying Nazgul , but he's riding a black Pegasus rather than a Pterodactyl. Return of the King makes an effort to evoke elements of the book -- I see Gandalf, a Gondorian, some figure with an axe whom might be Gimli, and a couple of smaller sword-bearing figures befitting the tale. The big hooded creature could be Sauron, Saruman, or a Ringwraith, lurking behind a spikey towering stone. I tend to favor subjectivity in commercial art, so I approve of Gaughan's third cover. However, Remington's work was even MORE subjective. I especially enjoyed the spell it cast on Fellowship of the Ring's cover. IMHO -- BRem's overall design possessed a colorfully bold pizzazz which outstripped Gaughan's somewhat hackneyed imagination.

Happy New Year's Weekend! We saw about a dozen Whitetail Deer on their customary turf below the painted "F" on the hillside above our neighborhood. There was a short thaw which might have exposed some fodder for them. Right now it's close to -20 C (+5 F) and the air is murky. Frost coats the branches of trees and the peanuts on our back deck, but doesn't slow down the Flickers, Magpies, and Woodpeckers. One of the Bald Eagles caught a fish in the aereation pond, and devoured it on the ice.

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 as the days get longer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Look for updates on the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website this week.

Media Watch: I happened to tune in to a live broadcast of James Brown's funeral in Augusta, Georgia around noon on Saturday. I still think it's miraculous that we are able to share events like this via electronic communications. His manager related one personal story of how Brown wrote Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud) from the podium. Mr. Brown's last wish was for people to try to love one another and do their best to raise themselves up. Al Sharpton relayed his words to Jesse Jackson and Michael Jackson -- convincing the latter to interrupt his exile in Dubai to attend the service. I can put aside my issues with certain celebrities to accept Brown's wish as my own for the New Year. I also checked out BET's Soul Brother No. 1 -- James Brown special for another look at his career. They played P-Funk music, quoted Bootsy Collins, and spent time with other musical successors too -- as well they should!

I read The Lord of the Rings every year around this time. J.R.R. Tolkien's fantastical spell still works for me as I willing suspend my disbelief for the experience of visiting Middle Earth. The magic begins in Tolkien's very personal forward to the 1966 edition -- names and scenarios from the author's long tale tantalizingly appear as he sketches out the chronology of how he wrote it. I think he was addressing those who had read the hardbound edition published ten years before, but those vivid glimpses also piqued his new readers' curiosity. The forward especially illuminates the character of the storyteller -- introduced in the third person by Prof. Tolkien, as well as a couple of personal insights into the gentleman himself as he laments lapses of copyright law and briefly addresses his critics and fans.
His storyteller persona unifies the entire sprawling narrative. The character of this storyteller is most perceivable in the Prologue and Book One, but gradually blends into the evolving tapestry of the novel, and is always there. The same storyteller guided his readers through The Hobbit as well, but was more prominent in the earlier novel. Tolkien's voice, derived from his real-life roles as father, friend, drinking buddy, and scholarly colleague is at the core of the story's appeal. Contrary to conventional cynicism, I believe that his avuncular personality was also a major factor in marketing the authorized version of Lord of the Rings to a public who were free to choose other publishers, but who made a phenomenal international success of the Ballantine paperbacks.
Tolkien, as author and public figure, astoundingly declared in his 1966 forward to the Ballantine edition: The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, major and minor, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or write it again, he will pass over these in silence ...
I have had a lot of fun with this line over the years, and actually enjoy spotting fancied defects here and there. The overall momentum of the story survives them all. The quotation above actually finishes with this comment: ...except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short. I choose to think he was pulling our collective leg, but only his surviving family knows for sure if that's the way he felt.
Some of the Lord of the Rings' most dramatic creations are the Ringwraiths, or Black Riders. They intrude on Frodo's idyllic walk through the Shire as his long adventure begins, and the Ringbearer spends much of the first book running away from them. These dark pursuers are compelling in their mysterious menace. There are limits on their power, though, otherwise our naive little heroes would have NO chance against them. Exactly what comprises their strengths and weaknesses are only hinted at by the storyteller. This long pursuit is my favorite part of the novel because of the way it introduces the landscapes and powers resident in Tolkien's world to the reader. It was MY introduction to Middle Earth, and the visual images I conjured in my mind's eye during that very first reading during those long winter nights of forty years ago have never been supplanted.
Later on, the Ringwraiths take to the air, becoming much more aggressive and almost too powerful to credibly challenge or defeat. In the wonderful appendix Tale of the Years, these Nazgul were even mightier, but never as terrifying or charismatic as at the beginning.

...like a simple-minded hobbit I feel that it is, while I am still alive, my property in justice unaffected by copyright laws. It seems to me a grave discourtesy, to say no more, to issue my book without even a polite note informing me of the project; dealings one might expect of Saruman in his decay rather than defenders of the West. -- J.R.R. Tolkien

Here are Jack Gaughan's covers for the (in)famous Ace reprints of Lord of the Rings. The opportunistic cut-rate American Science-Fiction publisher previously struck gold with unauthorized Edgar Rice Burroughs reprints a few years earlier. They took advantage of a technicality to put out this softcover version of Tolkien's best-seller about a decade after it's hardback release.
I saw these first on local retail shelves as a teenager, and put the book on my "future reading" list. Rival Ballantine Books negotiated an authorized edition with still-living J.R.R. Tolkien, as they had previously done with the late Burroughs' remaining family. The author's personal appeal was printed on the cover, and convinced me to buy it on sight. The media controversy itself helped introduce this remarkable work to an international audience, who embraced Tolkien, and his preferred publishers, in astoundingly unforseen numbers.
Tolkien's success prompted a huge income tax bill a few years later, which the professor settled by selling the movie rights to his unfilmable story. Even though both animated and mixed live-action flicks have been made, they do little justice to the original. HOWEVER -- millions more people buy and read Tolkien's books as a result.

Raccoon out on the rear deck -- mooching on bird food and a dish of cat crunchies we put out for the stray. We had some snow flurries after Christmas, some light rain, and some sunshine. I'm doing my driving mid-day, before the roads glaze over from that lethal combination at night.

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 as the days get longer to click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: Look for updates on theHockaday Museum of Art's Website this week.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year: Gotta do wut Preznunt Bush sez -- bought a buncha crap, and now I'm gonna take it back.

Media Watch: Ex-President Gerald Ford died at the age of 93. There's stories all over the media about him now. He replaced the corrupt Spiro Agnew as Vice President, and slept in the White House after Nixon resigned. For a year and a half the tititular heads of the USA were Ford and Rockefeller (Gerry and Nelson). I was out of the country for most of that time, but when I came back the corrosive so-called "Generation Gap" had mostly healed over. That was something, otherwise his tenure in office was pretty undistinguished -- in fact, the very Presidency was diminished by the abuses of Nixon and Johnson -- Ford was just the first in a parade of people who were just not big enough for the job. Carter was too narrow in those days to lead the way out of Amerika's morrass in the 70's, Reagan was a shallow frontman for thieves, while aides like Casey, Schultz, and Weinberger ran the government. Bush One was even worse, as the treasury was looted under the command of James Baker. Clinton might have been smart enough, but his party was too hopelessly compromised to wield power. Newt Gingrich took over Congress and tried to literally handcuff the president with perpetual Ken Starr investigations, while trying to prevent Clinton from functioning as Chief Executive by accusing him of creating diversions whenever a real crisis took place in the world. "Wag the dog!" was the smug Republican mantra. Clinton tried accomodating his enemies, but all they desired was to disgrace him. Bush Two was the sad result of the right wing's methodical tearing down of American institutions. "Tax and Spend Liberalism" became "Borrow and Steal Conservatism." The country as a whole is now reeling from graft and incompetence, and our ability to function in the world is seriously damaged -- the consequences are dire, and will get worse unless those whom we have chosen to lead include REALITY on their agendas.
In the meantime, the office of President of the United States continues to be held by a stooge, and the act of running for that office has become a humiliating dog and pony show where the candidates grovel for money and spout focus-group nonsense for cynical media who are only interested in sound-bites. Brilliant people like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rev. Jesse Jackson bray like jackasses when they go on display in this putrid arena. They, and others, undermine their good works by playing egotistical games, when they should be paying attention to the problems they are paid to solve. We need a whole new paradigm for the Presidency, and election to the office. Coarse circumstances will force changes if a responsible society doesn't decide what is best for themselves.

Some positive notes: Betty Ford is still alive, and has made enormous contributions to our society by her courage and integrity. The way she used her high social station to help repair addiction's damage to countless lives, including her own, demonstrated uncommon bravery. I will also say that Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter grew a great deal after the madness which is and was the White House almost destroyed them and their family. I'll even note that Nancy Reagan learned much from the ordeal with her husband's Alzheimer's Disease.


(Left) White House Press Secretary Ron Nessen announcing Nixon's imminent resignation in July 1974, as drawn by me from the TV screen in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. (Right) A fantasy sketch, done the next moment, of soon-to-be President Ford laughing his ass off about it all.