Kelly Madigan lives in Nebraska and this poem is from her book, The Edge of Known Things, from Stephen F. Austin University Press. Did you think that you were all that different from a porcupine? Well, poetry reaches for and seizes upon connections, and here's an example of that.
Porcupine
You think we are the pointed argument, the man drunk at the party showing off his gun collection, the bed of nettles.
What we really are is hidden from you: girl weeping in the closet among her stepfather's boots; tuft of rabbit fur caught in barbed wire; body of the baby in the landfill; boy with the shy mouth playing his guitar at the picnic table, out in the dirt yard.
We slide into this world benign and pliable, quills pressed down smooth over back and tail. Only one hour here stiffens the barbs into thousands of quick retorts. Everything this well-guarded remembers being soft once.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The Lake County Wine Studio is hosting a book signing party with author Barbarajo Bloomquist for her book, “Triptych,” on Saturday, June 17, from 2 to 4 p.m.
Bloomquist grew up in an artistic and musical family, and earned a bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from San Francisco State University.
Formerly a resident of Lake County, she is currently writing poetry and short stories in Reno, where she lives near her children and grandchildren.
In this novel, “Clare,” a young artist and student of Buddhism, flees from a dangerous situation in San Francisco to seek refuge in the rugged back country of Maine, shadowed by a mysterious incorporeal trio of figures, each with a lesson for her to learn if she is to prevail against fear.
Lake County Wine Studio is a gallery for display of arts and a tasting room, wine bar and retail shop for the fine wines of Lake County.
Artists’ shows are held on a monthly basis with art and wine receptions held the first Friday and subsequent Saturday of each month.
The gallery is located at 9505 Main Street in Upper Lake. It is open Monday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 7 p.m., and Friday from 1 to 8 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Wine Studio at 707-275-8030 or 707-293-8752.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES (Rated PG-13)
The “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise is now working the swashbuckling adventure into its fifth installment with “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” in which the one certain constant is the presence of Captain Jack Sparrow and his adversary Captain Hector Barbossa.
It should not be unexpected if you get the feeling you’ve seen this movie before. Johnny Depp’s Captain Sparrow, operating in full pirate mode, is still fond of his liquor, stumbling about while plotting his next larcenous move.
Meanwhile, Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa remains Sparrow’s pirate nemesis, a circumstance of the mutinous fallout from “The Curse of the Black Pearl,” the first film in the franchise released back in 2003.
“Dead Men Tell No Tales” opens with a brazen pirate heist of a bank vault in which Sparrow has dozed off after a dalliance with the Port Royal mayor’s wife still in his clutches.
The heist itself, though ingeniously ludicrous, may not have been completely thought out by Sparrow’s crew. This may be the first time in film history that an entire building has been hauled away by a team of horses.
The amusing part of this caper is that while a building being carted through town leaves an endless wake of destruction, the treasured contents of the open safe empty out during the ride back to the pirate ship.
True to form, Sparrow sneakily retrieves the one gold coin left behind. During his escape from the British army, Sparrow encounters Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario), a young astronomer determined to find the Trident of Poseidon, which can only be located by reading the stars.
The Trident holds the key to saving Sparrow from the vengeance directed his way by Captain Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem) of the Spanish Navy, who along with his crew was condemned years ago to the ethereal purgatory of the Devil’s Triangle.
The Spanish captain remains committed to his mission of eradicating the high seas of all pirates. That puts Sparrow as well as Barbossa in a perilous position if Salazar obtains the Trident.
The importance of the Trident is that it allows one to reverse curses, and Salazar and his crew members are all undead and seen as CGI-created ghosts that look and act more like zombies with lots of missing limbs and body parts.
In a parallel story, a young Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) would like to find his father Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), who can only return to human form with the help of the Trident.
As a sailor in the British navy, Henry soon runs afoul of his captain’s ill-advised orders, and while imprisoned in the ship’s hold, he is the only one spared death when Salazar easily dispatches the rest of the crew.
Knowing that Henry should be left behind as the one person to tell the tale, Salazar realizes the young sailor would be useful to locate his father as well as Jack Sparrow, thereby advancing his quest for revenge.
As the result of the confluence of events in Port Royal, which includes Carina being slated for hanging for the trumped-up charge of witchcraft and Sparrow to get the guillotine on general principles, Henry comes to their aid and thus an alliance is formed.
Though not quite as good as in the past, Depp’s drunken, degenerate Sparrow remains, though diminished in luster, the source of comic relief with his bawdy sense of humor and one-liner sarcasms.
Even when Sparrow seems on the verge of getting serious about the mission, he can’t help messing up when he barters away for a bottle of booze the magic compass needed to find Salazar. His anarchic, reckless spirit never wavers, and that might be adequate enough here.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” which may have enough action on the high seas to satisfy fans of the franchise, has run aground, at least in terms of originality.
There is the inescapable feeling that this fifth installment is fueled by the good will of the previous spirited pirate adventures in which the main characters are somewhat fun to watch. But all good things can only go so far without creative reinvention.
Regrettably, “Pirates of the Caribbean” has basically run out of new initiatives, but the retread of the familiar is not so bad if you’ve been hooked on the pirate story and welcome another round.
At least, Javier Bardem’s Captain Salazar brings much-needed menace to his villainous role, while Kaya Scoledario and Brenton Thwaites prove to be appealing newcomers with prospects for a foreseeable return. This “Pirates” would have been an even lesser chapter without the new blood.
Reducing “Dead Men Tell No Tales” to its essence, much like the Disneyland theme park ride upon which the franchise is based, could be fun to take for a spin but you may wish to ponder the commitment of two-plus hours of your time.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Art Center, or MAC, begins its third workshop series as part of the Resilience project – “Painting Resilience” – on Sunday, June 18.
Resilience is open to adults of all ages and teens ages 12 up. All levels of experience novice to professional are encouraged to attend.
The project consists of classes in four art disciplines: Photography, poetry/written word, painting and drawing/printmaking.
Classes are generally held on Saturdays but this week Painting Resilience will take place on Sunday because of Middletown days.
Next week, on Saturday, June 24, MAC will offer a drawing and printmaking class. Each class session costs just $5 or $60 for a full workshop series (12 sessions). Participants can come to as many or as few classes as desired.
Classes will cycle through the first through fourth Saturday of the month until May 2018. Check the MAC Web site for scheduling exceptions due to holidays.
All classes run from noon to 5 p.m. to correspond with Lake County Transit buses. MAC can help with bus passes and subsidize the cost of class if needed.
The public is invited to participate, collaborate and create in a year-long project that includes spoken word performances, guided nature walks and other community events that culminate in countywide exhibits, and a printed chapbook of writings and images.
“The first in a series of three summer classes called ‘Just Paint’ are based on the Intuitive Painting Process,” explained artist and instructor Sage Abella. “Here, we tap into our feelings and intuition through the act of painting. We explore our relationship with our own creativity and how it can support growth and blossoming in other parts of our lives. Nature’s resilience and regeneration after the fires teaches us that we too can spring back, grow new shoots, clear old things and make room for new ways to express ourselves in our individual and wild complexity. Over the next 3 months painters will play with 3 ways we interact with our experience of nature: through animals, the elements, and nature’s cycles.”
Abella’s classroom welcomes you with bright colored paints, jars of brushes and big pieces of white paper suggesting endless possibilities. Some participants have never picked up a brush in their life, some paint all the time.
“The beauty of the class is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve painted before because what we are all really doing is opening up a conversation with our intuition and everyone has an intuition. We are born creative!” Abella said.
Join Sage Abella at MAC this Sunday, June 18, from noon to 5 p.m. Bring a lunch or snacks. The next class will be Saturday, July 15. Bring painting clothes or a smock.
Resilience is funded through a Local Impact grant from the California Arts Council with additional local business and community support. Come take advantage of this exciting creative opportunity.
Judith Harris' poetry has appeared in this column several times. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Here's a meditation from her most recent book of poems, “Night Garden,” from Tiger Bark Press.
How Quiet
How quiet is the spruce, the wind twills through the uppermost tier of splayed leaves. Now the song of a bird like the squeaky lock over a canoe's oar, followed by startling chirps, the sky pushing its clouds like sailboats, and I think, what kind of God keeps himself secret so that to find him out we have to seek, as children do for something like the beetle scuttling between grass, hidden in plain sight.
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Middletown's monthly Summer Movie Series in the park will feature “Monster Trucks” on Saturday, June 10.
The free outdoor movie showing will begin at dusk – or around 9 p.m. – at the Middletown Square Park, in front of the library and senior center complex on Highway 29/Calistoga Road.
Bring chairs and blankets, come early with a picnic and enjoy a movie at the park.
