Cable Brings Outside Inside, Past To Present

Cox Cable will add two new channels to its lineup on June 30: Outdoor Life on channel 57 and The History Channel on channel 66.

Outdoor Life will be on the Expanded Service, which, despite its name, is the regular cable service that most people get.

The History Channel will be part of the Select Service, which costs $4.95 extra per month. (The Select Service is the package that includes such channels as Bravo, Encore, Court TV and Telemundo).

Outdoor Life is a 24-hour network featuring programming about camping, skiing, hunting, fishing, climbing, canoeing, backpacking, snowboarding, sailing and just about everything else connected with the outdoors. Just think of it as Marlin Perkins meets Curt Gowdy meets Warren Miller.

The network has 60 percent original programming and 40 percent “acquired” programming, which means syndicated or purchased programming. The channel is produced by the Times Mirror Co., which publishes many outdoors magazines, including, yes, Outdoor Life.

The History Channel is devoted to historical documentaries, movies, mini-series and other shows dedicated to educating and entertaining viewers about American history and world history.

As an aficionado of history myself, it might even make that Select Service worthwhile. That, and the Cartoon Network.

Dylan overkill

Is it just me, or does anybody else think we went just a little bit overboard on the Bob Dylan coverage last week? To me, the last straw came when one writer compared Dylan to Beethoven, Shakespeare and Prometheus.

What? Did Prometheus have a whiny voice and a brain toasted by the ‘60s, too? By the way, I feel perfectly qualified to complain about this overcoverage, since I was a contributor to it.

John Denver prediction

John Denver is also coming to perform in Riverfront Park on July 23.

How much do you want to bet that nobody compares him to Prometheus? Kansas vs. Boston

Both of the big corporate rock outfits of the mid-‘70s named after places - Boston and Kansas - are coming to the area this summer.

However, it looks like Boston wins the dinosaur rock battle of the venues. Boston is playing The Gorge, while Kansas is playing - the Cotton Club in Hayden Lake? That’s a difference in capacity of, oh, only about 10 or 15 thousand or so.

This is odd, considering both groups were roughly equal in popularity in their heyday.

Kansas’ date in beautiful downtown Hayden Lake is June 27 and Boston’s date at The Gorge is July 23.

‘Arrested Rivers’

The Cheney Cowles Museum will open its biggest exhibit in years, “Rivers and Dams: Promises, Progress, Perils” on June 24.

Meanwhile, the museum has already installed a related art exhibit, “Arrested Rivers,” by artist Chuck Forsman of Colorado, in its main gallery.

This exhibit consists of massive landscapes (some of them eight feet wide) showing dam and reservoir sites. This exhibit will continue through July 23.

“Arrested rivers are lifeless,” says Forsman. “Like clogged arteries, they hasten our mortality.”

Forsman will present a talk about his paintings on June 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the museum. A reception at 6:30 p.m. will precede his talk.

This exhibit is only the pre-opening salvo in an entire summer of art and history exhibits in the “Rivers and Dams” project. When the main exhibit opens on June 24, among the attractions will be a huge aquarium filled with fish and an enormous bucket that once carried 4,300 pounds of concrete for building the Grand Coulee Dam.

The “Rivers and Dams” project will run all the way until Sept. 24.

Pianos R Us

These pianos need good homes.

Whitworth College is selling a number of pianos, both grand and vertical, which have been used by the music department this last semester.

The pianos will be offered first to alumni, faculty and students, and then offered to the public on June 18 between noon and 5 p.m. at the college. Financing and delivery will be available.

Call Whitworth’s music department at 466-3703 to view them in advance.

Make your own opera

The Spokane Art School, in partnership with Uptown Opera, will help kids do something they don’t do everyday: create their own opera.

Its called “Operation Opera,” and it’s for kids ages 10-15. Two sessions will be offered, July 5-14 and July 17-27. The students in these sessions will manufacture an opera based on the “Tales of Hoffman,” which the Uptown Opera is producing for the Met in September.

Call the Spokane Art School at 328-0900 for information about how to apply. Only 35 kids will be allowed in each session.

, DataTimes