SCOPE for Wed. Jan. 7,2004. The Voice of the Missoula Creative Community

Today is Wednesday, January 7. On this frigid date in 1789 the newly constituted United States selected the presidential Electors whose vote on February 4 would determine the first President and Vice-President of the fledgling democracy. A total of 69 Electors were chosen, each having two votes, at least one of which had to be cast for a person outside their state. The results, announced on April 6 were 69 for George Washington, 34 for John Adams and 35 scattered among 10 other candidates, including one named Clinton, the lone Democrat-Republican among the others who were nominal Federalists or without party affiliation. That Clinton was from New York, where he served nine terms as Governor and served twice as Vice-President of the United States under Presidents #3 and #4. He was no kin to President #42. As for who will be President #44, if any, stay tuned until November this year — or 2008.

General Interest items

#1a – The Missoula Cultural Council’s annual Cultural Achievement Awards will be presented during a January 16 luncheon program at the St. Patrick’s Hospital Conference Center to these honorees: Gerald Doty, still teaching music at age 94; Rudy Autio, the internationally renowned artist; Sheryl Noethe, poet and teacher; and Geoff Badenoch, whose public service and private participation in the arts has greatly enriched the texture of Missoula culture. A new category of awards is being added this year by the Missoula Business Committee for the Arts. Southgate Mall and Rockin’ Rudy’s will be recognized for their continuous support of arts and cultural organizations.

#1c – Each person attending the luncheon — there were about 250 last year — will receive a Culture Kit decorated by student artists that contains information about Missoula cultural organizations and events. Some bags will also have free tickets and other “goodies.” They’re all included in the $20 luncheon program ticket which can be reserved now at 721-9620 or

#1d – Also in the “Culture Kit” will be application forms for the second collection of office furniture and equipment to be offered through the Missoula Business Committee for the Arts in-kind donation program. The first go-around resulted in 15 Missoula non-profits receiving a lot of items they might otherwise not afford. The new selection includes filing cabinets in all sizes, desks, chairs, and more.

#1f – Information about the featured awards luncheon speakers is posted in the BCA section of the MCC website at http://www.missoulacultural.org John Hampton, the Portland industrialist and arts patron, is expected to draw parallels between Missoula as a “Creative Community” and his hometown where he has richly endowed the opera, art museum, and other cultural organizations. He was also a prime organizer of the Oregon Cultural Trust which raises private money to support the arts and humanities in that state. He will be introduced by Judith Jedlicka, President and CEO of the national Business Committee for the Arts, who was instrumental in having Missoula accepted as an affiliate of that support agency.

#1g – There’ll be a special musical divertissement at the January 16 MCC awards luncheon, but it’s being keep under wraps until it happens. The luncheon buffet begins at 11:30. Tickets for the luncheon program can be reserved at 721-9620 or [email protected] Seating is limited so early reservations are advised. Local businesses are again sponsoring tables to accommodate their employees and guests from arts and cultural organizations.

#1h – The Western Montana Fund Raisers Association luncheon at the Doubletree Hotel this Friday will include a video Speaking of Money: A Guide to Fund Raising for Nonprofit Board Members. Cost is $10 for members, $13 for non-members. Reservations need to be made today at 243-4609.

#1i – According to a recent poll conducted by the University of Massachusetts for the Boston Foundation, corporations that give money to not-for-profit institutions are not just doing a good deed, they’re often making a shrewd business decision. Of the 401 people questioned, 63 percent said they would be influenced to some extent to patronize a company that supported a not-for-profit organization that they indicated considered important. More than three-quarters of the respondents indicated that they want to live where corporations support arts and cultural organizations. For more information, visit http://www.tbf.org.

#1j – MetLife Foundation, funded by the insurance conglomerate, has awarded 17 art museums grants totaling $500,000 in the first year of the three-year program, Museum Connections Program. The grants support programs that increase interaction between museums and people in their communities, not only exposing the cultural resources found in museums to a broader segment of society, but weaving art into the fabric of their lives in new and meaningful ways. For more information, visit http://www.metlife.org.

On the Literary Landscape

#2a – The 20th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering takes place in Elko NV January 24-31. It has become the centerpiece for the Youth Western Culture Festival January 19-31 which includes an art exhibit and other cultural events as described at http://www.westernfolklife.org Montana will stage a preview of sorts with the Montana Cowboy Poetry Wintercamp in Big Timber January 16-18. Info on that event is available at 932-4227.

#2b – Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation has become this year’s surprise No. 1 best seller in Britain and is expected to do well in the United States when it appears here in April. It’s a sprightly volume that leads the reader through the valley of the shadow of comma splice; refers to the apostrophe as "our long-suffering little friend"; makes a rousing case for the semicolon’s usefulness in, among other things, "calling a bunch of brawling commas to attention"; and describes US President Woodrow Wilson’s hatred of the hyphen, which he called "the most un-American thing in the world." It’s a humorous approach to the much abused subject of punctuation, which the SCOPE scribe is guilty of mistreating.

The Art Scene

#3a – The Art Museum of Missoula website at http://www.artmissoula.org will allow you to preview and bid on works that will be auctioned at the 32nd annual Benefit Art Auction on Saturday, February 7. The works go on display at the Art Museum on January 23 when a 6 – 8 PM reception will be had for the donating artists. Reservations for the auction can be made at 728-0447. Cost is $65/single, $125/couple and $600 for a table of 10.

#3b – Art in the Public Interest is a nonprofit organization that supports the belief that the arts are an integral part of a healthy culture, and that community-based arts provide significant value both to communities and artists. Learn more at http://www.apionline.org/index.html

#3c – Family Gallery Walk and Hands-On Project with Missoula artist Sheila Miles takes place this Saturday starting at 10 AM at the Art Museum of Missoula. Miles will discusses the work in her current exhibition there and then create an art work inspired by those narrative paintings. Children under age 8 must be accompanied by an adult. Cost: $5/person. Register online.

#3e – Shayna Schapp, a young artist who recently moved to Missoula from Rochester NY has her work on exhibit at the rt-est Gallery, a new artist with a good eye for natural beauty. Shayna Schapp moved , New York. One of her arts interests is color Polaroid images. Find out more about the rt-est studio gallery and Schapp’s work at 829-3420 or

#3f – The new exhibit at Gallery Saintonge, 210 N. Higgins, that opens January 15 will be Final Exposure: Portraits from Death Row. The show features 27 black & white photographs by Lou Jones of men and women on death row in 11 states. The images featured in the show are from a book of the same title that combines the portrait of each inmate with an interview by Jones, who lives in Boston MA. He has exhibited in galleries throughout the United States.

Musical Notes, Stage Cues and Miscellaneous

#4a – Whether you like this arctic weather or not, the Montana Natural History Center will let you do something about it. Well, at least learn about it from Bryan Yeaton of NPR’s The Weather Notebook

Who’ll be at the Missoula Public Library tomorrow night in a free program at 7-8 PM. Then on Saturday from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM at the MNHC at Fort Missoula, a “What is Winter” volunteer training outing digs into winter ecology. There’s a small fee for the mostly outdoor session but it’s free to current volunteers Call 327-0405 to register and learn more at http://www.TheNatureCenter.org

#4b – A Chorus Line musical, which plays at MCT January 22-25 and January 28-February 1, is still hoofing it after a quarter century of dancing and prancing. It opened April 15, 1975 and ran for 6,137 performances in NYC. Now it’s staged all over the world, having picked up a trunk full of awards in several categories, including the Marvin Hamlisch music. Call 728-7529 for tickets & information on the MCT production and learn all about the show at http://www.musicals101.com/chorus.htm

Cultural Tourism Directions

#5a – Michael Marsolek, MCC president and KUFM program director, leaves today with wife Karen on an excursion to the South Pacific. They’ll visit Palmerston North as “ambassadors at large” for the two cultural and commercial tours that arrive in Missoula’s Sister City in late March. The Montana World Trade Center will open an art exhibit there on March 29 to show work by Missoula and Montana artists as a means of opening doors to commercial contacts. The Missoula Cultural Council-sponsored 14-day tour itinerary is now complete and priced. Information on the tours can be had at 243-6982 or 721-9620 and you can review the MCC itinerary in the Newsstand at http://www.missoulacultural.org/

The Creative Community

#6a – The theme of the January 16 awards luncheon is Missoula, the Creative Community. WMQ Studio, which is collaborating with the Missoula Cultural Council to “brand” Missoula with that image, will offer a preview of a video/DVD/CD that can be used by businesses and cultural organizations to promote their products through that “brand.”

#6b – Sunday’s San Diego Union Tribune carried two feature articles about how that community is trying to embellish its reputation for creative activity that spurs economic development. John Eger, who heads the International Center for Communications at San Diego State University, writes that “cities across America are struggling to reinvent themselves for a new global, knowledge-based economy. The challenges to the status quo are enormous. As such, it may be time for cities …to be looking to our future, not basking in a nostalgic past.” For a copy of the article contact MCC.

#6c – The four-state Inland Northwest Economic Adjustment Strategy conference ending this noon in Missoula is taking a close look at the “creative clusters” that MCC has been fostering here, along with the Montana Associated Technology Roundtables organization. Watch SCOPE next week for an update.

The Cultural Environment

#7a – Eric O. Jacobsen is associate pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Missoula, is an acolyte of the Congress for the New Urbanism , and author of Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith. The book reflects his views of Missoula as a model of what urban life is all about, and what it ought to be. Former Missoula Mayor Daniel Kemmis, author of The Good City and the Good Life describes Jacobsen’s book as an “earnest and passionate set of reflections on the city and its significance to human spirituality. He combines theory, theology, and practice in a way that can help people gain a new understanding of their own relationship to their own cities.” One of Jacobsen’s main topics is “civic art” as an expression of a community’s values and way of life. You can get a free study guide to the book at http://www.brazospress.com/resources/ and you can learn about the Congress for the New Urbanism at http://www.cnu.org

#7b – The Washington Post online Sunday edition featured a report on Montana headlined It’s Home, Home at the Saloon For Many Montana Residents: Bars Are Still the Hub of Vast State’s Small-Town Life. “When there’s big trouble in small-town Montana, …it’s usually at the bar. Trouble, in fact, has no place else to go. Neither does gossip, companionship or heartbreak.” The Post writer depicts the saloon as a kind of salon, an architectural and sociological artifact that in many ways defines rural Montana, with its dwarfing expanse of plains and mountains, shrinking rural population and tradition of seeking answers to life’s persistent questions in a noisy, smoke-filled room with a view of grimy liquor bottles.” There are quotes from three Missoula authors — William Kittredge, Joan Melcher, and James Crumley — and Pat Williams, former Congressman turned teacher, who sagely observes that "Bars are an extension of the front porch.” You can read the article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52609-2004Jan3.html

Media and Web Watch

#10a – A David Brooks op-ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times observes that “The proliferation of media outlets and the segmentation of society have meant that it’s much easier for people to hive themselves off into like-minded cliques. Some people live in towns where nobody likes President Bush. Others listen to radio networks where nobody likes Bill Clinton. …In these communities, half-truths get circulated and exaggerated. …You get to choose your own reality. You get to believe what makes you feel good. You can ignore inconvenient facts so rigorously that your picture of the world is one big distortion.”

Finally, as a virtual escape from the icy grip of winter, consider the 26th Paris-Dakar Rally now under way on the hot desert sands of Africa. The annual motor madness began in France and will cover more than 6,900 miles before ending January 18 at Dakar in Senegal. Competing in the grueling race are 146 cars, 65 trucks, and 200 motorcycles, one of them driven by the only woman in the race, Patsy Quick, 37, who owns an antiques shop and who survived a crash in last year‘s event. Alas, a French blind man was not allowed to compete. Departing from France, the race winds its way southwards through Spain and then jumps across the Strait of Gibraltar to continue through the harsh African landscape. Mitsubishi Motors is the odds-on favorite to win again. You can win, at least in your imagination, if you buy the Dakar Rally video game. There’s no good website to follow the game but SCOPE will post the final results. As of today, two-time defending champion Hiroshi Masuoka is leading overall with his Mitsubishi Pajero Evo. Sorry, Jeep. Sorry, Humvee.