Thursday, 21 November 2024

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Kwame Dawes. Courtesy photo.

More and more, poets, like everyone else, are confronted with the news and physical evidence of change in our weather patterns and landscapes, and we find ourselves trying to find language for this unsettling sense that the world is changing rapidly.

Khadijah Queen, in her poem, “Undoing,” has a haunting sense while driving through a snowstorm, that somehow our machines and our voracious appetite for fuel have something to do with this “undoing” of our world.

Like many of us, she is arrested by this knowing. Poetry does not always give us answers, instead, it helps us meditate on the questions, and this, sometimes, is enough.

Undoing
By Khadijah Queen

In winter traffic, fog of midday
shoves toward our machines—snow eclipses
the mountainscapes
I drive toward, keeping time against
the urge to quit moving. I refuse to not
know how not to, wrestling
out loud to music, as hovering me—automatic
engine, watching miles of sky on the fall—loves such
undoing, secretly, adding fuel to
what undoes the ozone, the endless nothing
manifested as sinkholes under permafrost.
Refusal, indecision—an arctic
undoing of us, interrupting cascades—
icy existences. I cannot drive through.


American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.Poem copyright ©2021 by Khadijah Queen, “Undoing” from Poem-a-Day (Academy of American Poets, 2021). Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2022 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Kwame Dawes, is George W. Holmes Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska.
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An illustration of Rita Hosking. Courtesy image.

UPPER LAKE, Calif. — Rita Hosking, one of Northern California’s leading country-folk singer songwriters, will be featured on Sunday, Jan. 23, as part of the Tallman Hotel’s 2022 series of “Concerts with Conversation.”

Hosking’s guitar and vocals will be backed by Sean Feder on banjo and dobro guitar.

Beginning at 3 p.m., this informal concert will take place in the beautiful Meeting House next to the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake.

Owner Bernie Butcher points out that all precautions have been taken to assure a safe and relaxing afternoon of music.

“We’ve reduced the seating capacity to 25 this year,” he said, “to assure social distancing. Ventilation and air purification systems have been upgraded and all musicians and patrons must show proof of vaccination.”

A descendant of Cornish miners, Hosking grew up with a deep regard for folk music and the power of the voice.

In song and story, she shares with the audience her upbringing in rural Shasta County and the old-time band of seasoned mountain characters that shaped her musically.

“We’ve played the Tallman concert series a couple of times in the past,” she said, “and the intimate setting is one of our favorites. Both Sean and I are really looking forward to performing there again with some of our new material.”

Hosking’s songs have been lauded for story and sense of place. Her third album, called “Come Sunrise,” won Best Country Album Vox Pop at the 2010 Independent Music awards.

At $30 plus tax, the price of admission includes coffee and cookies served at the concert venue.

Tickets can be obtained online at Eventbrite.com or by calling at the Tallman Hotel reception desk at 707-275-2244, Extension 0.
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‘SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME’ RATED PG-13

Except for the hardcore fans of the franchise, there have been enough “Spider-Man” films in the last two decades that it proves a challenge to keep track of the exploits of the succession of costumed crimefighters from Tobey Maguire to Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland, the current Spidey.

Just like Sean Connery in the James Bond films, Tobey Maguire may remain the favorite, though that takes nothing away from his successors who put their own stamp on the friendly neighborhood hero from Queens.

Not everyone in the film’s public sees Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, having been exposed to be teenager Peter Parker by newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) in the previous outing, as a hero after being accused of causing the death of Mysterio.

Peter’s troubles are only intensified at the beginning of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” with the execrable, ruthless Jameson as a cable host now gaslighting Peter on his widely-viewed program the Daily Bugle.

With family and friends in danger due to a lack of his secret identity, Peter summons help from Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to use his magic to erase Peter’s identity from the public consciousness, but that simple request gets so convoluted as to engender chaos.

Complications over Peter’s perceived misdeeds affect his plans for college as well as those of his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), all three of them finding their hopes to be accepted at MIT being dashed due to Spider-Man’s newfound notoriety.

It’s bad enough for Peter and his friends to deal with unwanted media attention and peer hassles in the corridors of high school. This leads us back to Doctor Strange casting a spell that unwittingly causes villains from other dimensions to be foisted on our planet.

Emerging from their alternate worlds, Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, Alfred Molina’s Dr. Otto Octavius, Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Thomas Haden Church’s Sandman and Rhys Ifans’ The Lizard pose a climactic challenge to Spider-Man in a pitched battle at the Statue of Liberty.

It should not come as a surprise to anyone following these superhero films that “Spider-Man” does not resist an end credits scene of a familiar figure whose presence leaves little doubt that another sequel is in the works.

As it goes so far, Tom Holland has the insouciant charm of youthfulness that serves him well for Peter Parker’s believable alter ego of Spider-Man, and it would seem his boyish poise is good for another round or two.

Memory does not serve to recall sufficient details of all previous films in the franchise, but it must be said that “No Way Home” ranks at or at least near the top of the best, an opinion vindicated in no small measure by the boffo box-office returns.

Elements of the storyline can at times be confusing, but the filmmakers bring technical excellence to all facets of superhero action. Efforts have been taken here to avoid spoilers about some of the key characters. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” merits a trip to the multiplex.



‘THE TENDER BAR’ ON PRIME VIDEO

Now streaming on Prime Video, “The Tender Bar,” adapted from the same-titled memoir of journalist J.R. Moehringer, is a coming-of-age story directed by George Clooney.

In 1972, 9-year-old J.R. Maguire (Daniel Ranieri, a gifted young actor) and his mother Dorothy (Lily Rabe) are displaced from the big city and have no other choice than to move back to the Manhasset, Long Island home of the boy’s curmudgeonly grandfather (Christopher Lloyd).

Young J.R.’s real father is a deadbeat radio deejay by the nickname of “The Voice” (Max Martini) who deserted him and his mom years earlier. J.R. dreams of being reunited with his father, but that hope seems rather elusive.

Stepping in as an unconventional father figure is the good-hearted Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck), a self-educated voracious reader who tends bar at the local watering hole called “The Dickens,” a friendly dive bar that becomes J.R.’s hangout.

Uncle Charlie, as well as a number of other relatives that seem to come and go, lives at grandpa’s house as well, where his closet is full of classic books. Charlie encourages J.R. to read and forego any notion of playing sports.

Charlie tends to wax philosophically at The Dickens pub, where an assortment of amiable barflies prove supportive of Charlie’s tutelage and encouragement of J.R. to become a writer.

Meanwhile, with not a dollar to her name, Dorothy wants nothing more than for J.R. to go to Yale. Soon enough, we see college student J.R. (Tye Sheridan) achieve his goal in the Ivy League, where he seems more obsessed with pretty rich girl Sydney (Briana Middleton).

After a stint at the New York Times, J.R. makes his way back to Manhasset and The Dickens. Uncle Charlie is still there to dispense advice and J.R. has a final reckoning with his absentee father.

Ben Affleck delivers a tour de force touching, colorful performance in his guidance of J.R., and for this reason alone “The Tender Bar” is worth watching.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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‘THE 355’ RATED PG-13

What’s up with the title of “The 355?” It’s a nod to the historical significance of espionage in the foundation of our country that most of us never heard about during school.

During the Revolutionary War, a real-life female spy, known only by the code name 355, played a pivotal role in George Washington’s Culper Spy Ring, helping to convey vital information about British troop movements.

A fair assumption is that our first president’s spy was likely not as glamorous as the spies in “The 355,” but then Washington’s agent was not infiltrating an opulent auction house of fine art in Shanghai in search of a top-secret weapon on the black market.

In “The 355,” it takes a quintet of attractive, diverse women from all corners of the globe to work in concert against nefarious forces led by cutthroat mercenary Elijah Clarke (Jason Flemyng).

Wild card CIA agent Mace (Jessica Chastain) and her colleague Nick (Sebastian Stan) go undercover as a couple honeymooning in Paris on a mission to rendezvous with a contact, Luis (Edgar Ramirez), at a local cafe to obtain a backpack containing a data key to unlock any closed system.

This operation goes sideways when skilled German agent Marie (Diane Kruger) makes off with the asset and a panicked Luis flees the scene. As Nick pursues him, Mace chases after Marie.

As Mace leaps across restaurant tables and hurtles past onlookers to retrieve the item, Marie speeds through a crowded pedestrian arcade on a stolen motorbike. The chase ends up in the Metro tunnels where they must dodge speeding subway trains.

Ultimately, the data key eludes both Mace and Marie, forcing Mace to go off the grid, while realizing she’ll need a team with diverse skills to succeed. Enter Mace’s old MI6 ally Khadijah (Lupita Nyong’o) and Columbian intelligence therapist Graciela (Penelope Cruz).

The eventual fifth member to join forces with the United Nations of spies is the enigmatic Lin Mi Sheng (Bingbing Fan), who had been secretly monitoring their moves.

“The 355” boils down to badass women on a lethal, breakneck mission around the globe engaged in plenty of action to satisfy most fans of the spy genre. But Charlize Theron was the toughest of them all in “Atomic Blonde.”

FOX WINTER TV

In the world of television, things seem to be getting closer to normal when a network is able to launch several new midseason series that are not all reality programming.

Such is the case with the FOX network’s new scripted series, one of which is “The Cleaning Lady,” an emotionally driven character drama about a smart Cambodian doctor who comes to America for a medical treatment to save her son.

Failed by the system and pushed into hiding, the doctor (Elodie Yung), refusing to be marginalized, becomes a cleaning lady for organized crime, using her cunning and intelligence to forge her own path in the criminal underworld.

On a premise that sounds more serious, the new comedy “Pivoting,” airing in a time slot after the second season of “Call Me Kat,” follows three women as they cope with the death of the fourth member of their close-knit group of childhood friends.

Eliza Coupe, Maggie Q and Ginnifer Goodwin, faced with the reality that life is short, pivot and alter their current paths, by way of a series of impulsive, ill-advised and self-indulgent decisions.

For Amy (Eliza Coupe), the fearless producer of a cooking show managing a hundred employees, is absolutely flummoxed when it comes to caring for her own children. Her pivot is to be a more active, present mother.

Ginnifer Goodwin’s Jodie is a stay-at-home mom of three in a loveless marriage, and her turn means getting in shape and maybe more with her hot 27-year old trainer Matt (JT Neal), who gives her attention and excitement she didn’t realize that she craved.

For Maggie Q’s successful doctor Sarah, the loss of their friend is compounded by the recent divorce from her wife. After a life filled with stress, Sarah is sent into a tailspin and pivots to a simpler, happier life working as a grocery store employee.

Debuting with a special two-night event immediately following the NFC Championship game on Sunday, January 30, “Monarch” is an epic, multi-generational musical drama about America’s first family of country music.

Starring Susan Sarandon, Trace Adkins and Anna Friel, the Romans are passionate and fiercely talented, but while their name is synonymous with honesty, the very foundation of the family’s success is a lie.

When dangerous truths bubble to the surface, the Romans’ reign as country royalty is put in jeopardy. Nicky Roman (Friel), the heir to the crown, already battling an industry and world stacked against her, will stop at nothing to protect her family’s legacy.

The idea of conflict in the world of country music has been played for a soap opera before, probably most notably with last decade’s series “Nashville” that ran on ABC before finishing its run on CMT.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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Kwame Dawes. Courtesy photo.

It is hard to tell whether in 10 years readers will know what a “drop down menu” is, but that is the beauty and risk of poetry — to find poetry in the present vernacular, and to hope its accuracy and beauty justify its use.

Sidney Burris, in his poem, “Runoff,” is in hope, too. The promise of spring for him, is a metaphor for one of many functions of the imagination.

In this instance it is the capacity to believe in a better future by seeing it before it comes. I imagine that readers will get that part, long into the future.

Runoff
By Sidney Burris

January’s drop-down menu
leaves everything to the imagination:
splotch the ice, splice the light,
remake the spirit…

Just get on with it,
doing what you have to do
with the gray palette that lies
to hand. The sun’s coming soon.

A future, then, of warmth and runoff,
and old faces surprised to see us.
A cache of love, I’d call it,
opened up, vernal, refreshed.

American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. It is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2021 by Sidney Burris, “Runoff” from What Light He Saw I Cannot Say, (LSU Press, 2021). Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2021 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Kwame Dawes, is George W. Holmes Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner at the University of Nebraska.
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Professor Steve Hellman. Courtesy photo.

LAKEPORT, Calif. — A creative writing class for older adults will be held from Jan. 19 through May 18 at the Lake Center campus of Mendocino College.

The classes will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesdays.

Writing in all genres is welcome.

With more than 45 years experience in writing and teaching, Professor Steve Hellman offers encouraging guidance to writers in their creative process.

He creates a safe and positive classroom environment with a focus on the collaborative process and the importance of trusting in your own forms of self-expression.

Participants will sample the work of published authors, share in an exchange of ideas, styles and techniques, and enjoy reviewing each other’s work.

Masking and social distancing are required in the classroom.

Register for English 503-0042 at the Lake Center, 2565 Parallel Dr, Lakeport, or online at www.mendocino.edu. The cost is only $12.

For more information, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or the Lake Center office, 707-263-4944.

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