Last Best Blog

This is the weblog page of Last Best News. Here you will find some news, perhaps, but also lots of commentary, opinion and satire. Just so you know.

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A few words on the Montana of Jim Harrison

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Harrison

In an AP story about the death of Jim Harrison that ran in the Billings Gazette this morning, there is no mention of Livingston, though the headline does say, “‘Legends of the Fall'” author Jim Harrison, formerly of Livingston, dies at 78.'”

I might be wrong, but I don’t think he was a “former” resident of Livingston. I believe he had residences in Michigan, Arizona and the Paradise Valley, and that for the past 14 years he spent much of his time near Livingston. To give proper weight, then, to the influence of Montana on one of the great writers of our age, you could start with this Wall Street Journal article from 2009, which goes into considerable detail about Harrison’s house and its setting in the Paradise Valley. It includes this priceless paragraph:

“Sun drenches the big open kitchen, where Mr. Harrison and guests occasionally cook elaborate, multi-course meals—many featuring birds and game he’s hunted himself. Earlier this summer, Anthony Bourdain, chef and host of the Travel Channel’s food show ‘No Reservations,’ visited Mr. Harrison’s home during a trip to Livingston. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Jim Harrison, Livingston, Paradise Valley, Pete Dexter

The Flathead Beacon, another model for journalism’s future

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Adding to my Prairie Lights column on the growing online newspaper scene in Montana, here’s a good article from the Columbia Journalism Review about the Flathead Beacon. The Beacon is a weekly newspaper published in Kalispell, so it doesn’t quite fit in with the other news outlets I wrote about, but the Beacon also happens to have a really strong Web presence. The online Beacon is slick, clean and easy to use, with a feel something like that of the Missoula Independent’s website. Both, it goes without saying, are far better than what the designers at Lee or Gannett have come up with. The Beacon and the Indy show what happens when you start with the readers, not your ad department, in mind. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Columbia Journalism Review, Flathead Beacon, Maury Povich

Montana Mint’s pizza contest down to ‘Sweet 16’

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Voting is underway for the Montana Mint Second Annual March Madness Pizza Bracket Contest. Last year, you may recall, the winner was Eugene’s Pizza in Glasgow. The contest, sponsored by Montana Mint, the website whose stated mission is to “bring the best of Montana to the internet,” went live on March 16 this year. It is now down to the “Sweet 16.” Voting has already been so heavy, according to a press release from Montana Mint, that the website crashed and was down for nearly an hour on Friday. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Eugene's Pizza, March Madness Pizza Bracket Contest, Montana Mint

Atlantic writers visit the Aabergs in Chester

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Hills

Writing on The Altantic magazine’s website, Deborah Fallows pays a fine tribute to composer-pianist Philip Aaberg, and a fine tribute to Chester, the Hi-Line town where Aaberg was born and where he now lives again. The piece is part of American Futures, a project I had not previously heard of. It involves Fallows and her husband, longtime Atlantic contributor James Fallows, flying all over the country in a single-engine plane, sort of a technologically upgraded version of “Travels with Charley.” Here’s a good excerpt from the article, which also has plenty of links to Aaberg’s music:

“Aaberg says, ‘I love this land. There is something about this country that really opens me up.’ Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Chester, Deborah Fallows, James Fallows, Philip Aaberg, The Atlantic

From Seattle, a reminder of why newspapers matter

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A few weeks back I wrote about how newspapers used to believe it was their obligation to watch paint dry—to keep a close eye on the process of local government. Danny Westneat, a columnist for The Seattle Times, has written a piece that perfectly illustrates why such coverage is important. Last fall, at the end of a long, dry city council agenda in the Seattle suburb of Kent, he wrote, there was “a mysterious bit marked only as ‘Property Negotiations, as per RCW 42.30.110(1)(c).'” When that item came up, the mayor announced that the council was going into a closed executive session and he asked everyone in the audience to leave. The few people in attendance accordingly left, and when the council returned from its secret session it quickly voted to sell a 10-acre public park to a developer, who planned to put a housing subdivision there. No one learned of this until four months later, when the “lone newspaper left in the area, a weekly with only two reporters covering a city of 125,000, broke the news.” Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Danny Westneat, Kent, Seattle Times

A sad look at the legions of older ex-journalists

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Scene

I don’t want to be too depressing on a Saturday morning, but maybe if you never worked in the newspaper business this story will only be interesting, rather than terribly sad. It’s about how tens of thousands of older reporters, editors and photographers have been put out to pasture in recent years as the newspaper industry has withered with accelerating speed. Most of the examples deal with people who worked at much bigger papers than we have here in Montana, but their stories sound awfully familiar. One trend mentioned in the article is that women are being targeted disproportionately when it comes to layoffs. “One woman downsized from the Post,” the writer said, “told me that she ‘always got good reviews and often got raises’ in all of her years at the paper. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Bill Moyers, Craigslist, Lee Enterprises, Missoulian, Nation, Sherry Devlin

Roundup artist finishes portrait of ‘Angel of Downtown’

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When I wrote a few days ago about the passing of Dwight Raup, I mentioned that Coila Evans, an artist in Roundup, was working on a portrait of Dwight. Her finished project is at left, and here’s a tribute to Dwight, whom she called “the Angel of Downtown,” that Coila posted on her Facebook page:

“I always looked for and looked forward to seeing Dwight when I went downtown… I find myself still looking forward to seeing him every day in the studio. I have been finding myself mesmerized by the kindness and knowing look in his eyes, and haunted by the dark lines and deep colourful creases I never seemed to notice as much in life. “It makes me wonder if I just see people the way I want to see them … Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Coila Evans, downtown Billings, Dwight Raup, Limber Tree

Montana Mint, statewide readers pick top athletes

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Rushmore

Over at Montana Mint, the results are in. As we reported recently, the popular all-things-Montana blog asked the public to help find the four greatest athletes in Montana history—the Mount Rushmore of Montana sports. With more than 2,500 votes cast, the four are Dave Dickenson, Larry Krystkowiak, Dave McNally and Evel Knievel. As the Montana Mint noted, “The winners all represent different sports and different hometowns: Dickenson (Football/Great Falls), Krystkowiak (Basketball/Missoula), McNally (Baseball/Billings), and Evel Knievel (Stunts/Butte).” So now we know that “stunts” is officially a sport. Continue Reading →

Filed under: Last Best Blog, Dave Dickenson, Dave McNally, Evel Knievel, Larry Krystkowiak, Montana Mint