It looks a little more like Autumn, but our leaves were blighted by the near-zero cold, and may not change color that much before falling. The thumbnail-thin waning moon was sure beautiful yesterday morning!

Sitemeter Sez: Burlington, New Jersey; Mountain View, California (showing up a lot); South Pasadena, California; Columbus, Ohio, and Sherman, Texas.

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.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I got my Autumn Salon artwork in on time, along with colleauge Susie Arthur Guthrie.)
The Flathead County Library's Big Read this year, focuing on Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, featured James W. Loewen, an author who witnessed the corrosion caused by institutional racism in Mississippi. He identified periods of time where relations between the races in Amerika were better and worse -- especially "The Nadir," between 1890 and 1940, where discrimination and outright murder were part of our country's legal code. "Jim," as he prefers to be called also touched on the books which made him famous -- like Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, but he had to catch the Amtrack that night, and his presentation was necessarily shortened.
Jim was introduced to the crowd by Bruce Guthrie (Susie's husband), who had hosted Loewen in his own History class that afternoon at Flathead High School. Good going, Bruce!

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

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

High & Low Media: The San Francisco Opera is doing Verdi's tuneful tear-jerker La Traviata (1854) as I write. I've mentioned it before, but this story of a "professional" woman loving a young "innocent" has haunted the performing arts for a very long time. This production has the action set during the so-called Roaring 20's, but I've neither heard any Jazz, nor has anyone danced the Charleston yet. (Not expecting these things either.)

Party at the Marquis' mansion! From the San Francisco Opera's website -- those 'flappers' may look like they're wearing armor, but this time period is excellent as a setting for this sad tale. History shows that too many mistresses of rich and famous plutocrats died of preventable diseases -- the right scholar could investigate their cases.
Like last week's Tosca, the lead female role was brilliantly interpreted by Sarah Bernhardt on the "legitimate stage" -- in the drama we know as Camille. I daresay there's an echo of this riff in the publicity-driven affairs between pornstars and other showbiz figures today. Speaking of which, the mixed martial artist is OFF Trash A Go Go I, leaving at least two talentless schlubs ready to go next. There are too many contestants this season IMHO.

A Dam' Meteor over A'Dam!

A meteor burned up over the Netherlands last night, and some pictures were taken of the event. Astronomers call this kind of phenomenon a bollide.

WOW! That was a nasty cold snap -- broke an outdoor water pipe at my house (fixed now), and generally messed up Autumn. I had to plug in my car for a few nights too.

Sitemeter Sez: My unknown pal from Louth, Ireland; Trenton, New Jersey; Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, Anchorage, Alaska; Silver Spring, Maryland; Columbia Falls, Montana; Somewhere in the UK, and Mountain View, California.

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.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork, with Katie Duck as my muse.)
Prom Night In Mississipi on the big screens tonight, kicking off the Flathead County Library's Big Read this year, focused on Harper Lee's great novel To Kill A Mockingbird, and the society which exists around its themes , even today.

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

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Congratulations: President Barack Hussein Obama for his Nobel Peace Prize. ('Nuff Said!)

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go is safe to watch now, without GOP Bugmen invading my TV. However, there are some sorry male schlubs still prancing around on that stage! Singer Mya is by far the most graceful of the celebrities, and couple of other women are showing promise. They had a few Charleston dances, which permitted comic actor Melissa Joan Hart and professional hambone Donny Osmond to slide through the week. I'm not sure if I want to subject myself to a lot of yelling and crying on Trash A Go Go II while they winnow the final 20 dancers out of a hundred or more. Speaking of which, I hope Shakira's performances are better tonight than the last time I saw her on network TV -- the music was lip-synched, the solo choreography was slow, and a bit more fetishistic than sexy, which didn't suit this international star's style at all.

Real Crappy Movies: Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) gives amateurism a bad name. Actor/Wrestler Tor Johnson was reportedly a real nice guy who just went to work. The same riff of an A-Bomb turning a scientist into a monster was used by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee about a year later when Marvel Comics first published The Incredible Hulk -- I'm not going to say that Marvel stole from such a low-grade pile of radioactive dung. I'm not even sure Beast was released to the public so it COULD be stolen.
Roger Corman's Last Woman On Earth is pretty bad too -- virtually unwatchable. It was shot in Puerto Rico back-to-back with two other productions: Battle of Blood Island, and Creature From The Haunted Sea. The later is crude, even for a Corman flick, but is funnier than most of his work.

Betsy Jones-Moreland, singing star of Creature From The Haunted Sea and unfortunate object of male attentions in Last Woman On Earth. She was also a co-star, along with Abby Dalton and others, of Corman's early hit Viking Women vs. the Sea Serpent. I'm glad to say she had a long career playing various roles on TV, far from the great schlock-meister's reach.

Still too cold for early Autumn. Sleet and snow yesterday, something nasty moving in today.

Sitemeter Sez: Los Angeles, California; Mililani, Hawaii; El Centro, California; Mountain View, California; Elmendorf Afb, Alaska; Vigo, Spain; Columbia Falls, Montana; Richmond, Indiana; Harrison Township, Michigan, and Saint Charles, Illinois.

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.

In The Community: News and Events at Flathead Community College New website for the Hockaday Museum. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork, with Katie Duck as my muse.)
Prom Night In Mississipi on the big screens tonight, kicking off the Flathead County Library's Big Read this year, focused on Harper Lee's great novel To Kill A Mockingbird, and the society which exists around its themes , even today.

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

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Trash A Go Go -- the two dancing shows are going head-to-head in Prime Time. Now that Bug Man Delay is gone, I can watch Trash A Go Go I with a clear conscience. JabbaWocKeeZ was mostly good, but someone goofed around with their style. I saw a dozen ways the producers could have presented them better. They're weeding out other schlubs besides the gone-away human insect, so there's not much to report, except that I swear I saw porn-star Jenna Jameson in the crowd, flanked by black-clad bodyguards. I suspect the mixed-martial artist/bad dancer is her ol' man.
BTW -- I am NOT going to post pictures of Ms. Jameson here, but I'm not sorry to see her get time on mainstream TV, either. She may have a truly "dirty job," but the high demand for her work is proof that "somebody's gotta do it."
Trash A Go Go II had auditions in my old hometown of Salt Lake City. Ha Ha Ha -- there were a few contestants from Utah, but nobody from Salt Lake, where there are many, many dance schools, except a young lady who gigged with a burlesque group! (She didn't make it through the choreography round, though.) They ran another hour of tape from Las Vegas, the venue where they eventually choose twenty dancers out of almost two hundred for their final competition. (I might skip edited tears and yelling from Nevada next week for the REAL contest after that.)

An 2007 graphic for a Burlesque company in Salt Lake City:

There's over a million people in Salt Lake now -- plenty of room for Burlesque -- Gawd knows they have sleazier adult entertainment than THAT around town.

Send In The Clowns!

Theater/Theatre: My distant friend Stan "Jango" Edwards formally opened the Nouveau Clown Institute in Barcelona, Spain earlier this week. It is a fabulous location for an institution like this, which is very much needed to preserve and continue the Variety Arts. There are schools run by other theatrical masters too, but Jango is part of an international network of performers who have proven themselves repeatedly for audiences high and low -- they have earned the opportunity to have their say as well!

Stan Edwards in costume and whiteface, October 5, 2009 -- during the formal opening of Nouveau Clown Institute. Jango's old friend and patron Salvador Dali had a similar dream thirty-five years ago -- which was unfortunately frustrated by repeated breakdowns of the great artist's health during the last decade of his life.

Drat! It's way too cold for an early Autumn day. Single digit temperatures were forecast for this week, and I hope the weatherperson's wrong.

Sitemeter Sez: Columbia Falls, Montana; Richmond, Indiana; Harrison Township, Michigan; Saint Charles, Illinois; Sydney, Australia; Fairbanks, Alaska, and Topeka, Kansas.

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. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork, with Katie Duck as my muse.)

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

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Umrao Jaan (1981) starring Bhanurekha Ganesan AKA Rekha. I've really enjoyed her work in Bhoot (2003), Mil Gaya (2003), and Parineeta (2005). Wikipedia says she's been in 180 movies. That almost makes her an honorary member of the Bachchan clan! (Bollywood joke) All joking aside, Umrao Jaan was a very well-done movie about a girl who is kidnapped and sold into prostitution in 19th Century India. The costumes and settings are generally beautiful, but the story is very sad indeed. Her character becomes a courtesan -- who gains money, but no respect or love. Actors Farooq Shaikh and Naseeruddin Shah are solid in their respective roles as dithering prince and loathsome pimp.

Indian superstar Rekha Sharma, from Tamil Nadu, in a stylized classical pose. She fits any time period, though!

Autumn is certainly in force -- snow on our mountains and leaves which are changing colors. Eagles sighted, instead of Ospreys.

Sitemeter Sez: Mountain View, California; Clichy, Ile-de-France; Kongsvinger, Norway; South Burlington, Vermont; Albany, New York; Montreal, Quebec; Vilnius, Lithuania; Newark, Delaware; Oakland, California; Anchorage, Alaska; Oxford, UK; Charleston, West Virginia; Paris, Ile-de-France; Doha, Qatar, and Warsaw, Poland.

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. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork, with Katie Duck as my muse.)

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

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Fame (2009) directed by Kevin Tancharoen and what appeared to be a committee of market researchers and ass-kissers. Alan Parker's original back in 1980 had an engaging spirit, which is almost totally missing in this tediously manipulative remake. There is an echo in the unlikely, but fun, cafeteria sequence, though. I liked the performances of young actors Collins Pennie, Anna Maria Perez de Tagle, and Naturi Naughton. Show-biz veterans Bebe Neuwirth, Debbie Allen, Kelsey Grammar, and Charles Dutton were alright. I was very disappointed at the shallowness of the role played by first-class dancer Kherington Payne -- the choreography was second rate, her few lines were cringingly banal, and there were almost no plot points connecting her character's appearances. The very WORST aspect of this lousy film was the repeated riff that teachers chose their jobs because they couldn't succeed in the 'real world.' Attractive personalities Kherington and Anna Maria both portrayed students who quit their exclusive school, or flunked out, because they got good jobs in the entertainment industry. Fuck those stupid sentiments! Renowned teacher Debbie Allen wouldn't even have a career if she wasn't a good dancer to begin with. I wonder what she thinks about working in a movie which brands her a failure? (She had no control over the film, of course -- very few actors do.)

Commercials with flashes of Kherington Payne's dancing led me to give 2009's version of Fame a try. I have damned it with the proverbial faint praise (above), but if you MUST see that thing, wait for the DVD and rent it -- I doubt you'll have to wait very long.

It has been gray and somewhat rainy all week -- considering we had lightning-caused forest fires nearby, that a good thing, although frost on my windshield yesterday was kind of depressing..

Sitemeter Sez: Clichy, Ile-de-France; Kongsvinger, Norway; South Burlington, Vermont; Albany, New York; Montreal, Quebec; Vilnius, Lithuania; Newark, Delaware; Oakland, California; Mountain View, California; Anchorage, Alaska; Oxford, UK; Charleston, West Virginia; Paris, Ile-de-France; Doha, Qatar, and Warsaw, Poland.

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. (I'm working on my Autumn Salon artwork.)

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

Tears and Laughter about our broken health care system HERE

Media Watch: Bollywood movies -- Hamesha (1997) by director Sanjay Gupta (NOT the CNN doctor/commentator.) The high-quality cast sent Gupta's ridiculous reincarnated-lovers plot far into the background. Saif Ali Khan was the leading man, beautiful Kajol Mukherjee was excellent as the leading lady, and Aditya Pancholi played a truly loathsome villain. Although he is and was an accomplished filmmaker by any standard, Gupta's penchant for sadism and bleak violence was apparent a decade ago. There were several tributes to Alfred Hitchcock throughout the film -- especially references to Vertigo. Farah Khan, Shah Rukh Khan's current director of choice (no, they're not related), was the choreographer. Kajol Mukherjee's career has been justly successful -- she, her sister Tanisha, and her cousin Rani are real actors, transcending their good looks in creating believable characters. Kajol is also married to another versatile actor, Ajay Devgan. Bollywood may have its quirks, but the acting in its movies has always appealed to me.

Trash A Go Go -- Is Bug Man still on Dancing With The Stars? I'm not tuning in until that corrupt bastard is GONE! The other dancing show was pretty good in showing how auditions work -- Cat Deeley was very appealing when she goofed around with prospective contestants in the waiting line, dressed for comfort.

The Dancer and the Clown

(left) Katie Appenzeller started using the professional name Katie Duck sometime in 1976, about the time this picture was taken. (Right) Stan Edwards used the name Jango long before I ever met him. I am personally responsible for beginning the fateful alliance of Friends Roadshow and Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe in 1974 at the International Mime Festival in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Stan believed in us, we went to Europe because of his efforts on our behalf. Katie Duck & Jango performed many times together as a team. I have been in cyber-touch with Katie for many years now, and have recently joined Jango's Face Book site. I'm doing two art projects concerning Katie and her work also.