No ideas but in things, said one of my favorite poets, William Carlos Williams, and here’s a fine poem by Maryann Corbett of St. Paul, Minnesota, about turning up one small object loaded with meaning.

Finding the Lego

You find it when you’re tearing up your life,
trying to make some sense of the old messes,
moving dressers, peering under beds.
Almost lost in cat hair and in cobwebs,
in dust you vaguely know was once your skin,
it shows up, isolated, fragmentary.
A tidy little solid. Tractable.
Knobbed to be fitted in a lock-step pattern
with others. Plastic: red or blue or yellow.
Out of the dark, undamaged, there it is,
as bright and primary colored and foursquare
as the family with two parents and two children
who moved in twenty years ago in a dream.
It makes no allowances, concedes no failures,
admits no knowledge of a little girl
who glared through tears, rubbing her slapped cheek.
Rigidity is its essential trait.
Likely as not, you leave it where it was.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2013 by Maryann Corbett, from her most recent book of poems, Credo for the Checkout Line in Winter, Able Muse Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Maryann Corbett and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – The work of jewelry artist Barbara Barnaby from Kelseyville is featured during the month of July at the Upper Lake Mercantile.  

A reception featuring the artist will be held at the Main St. store in Upper Lake on Saturday, July 19 from 4 to 6 p.m.

Barnaby, who is self-taught, has been collecting antique and vintage materials for more than a decade.

Her style ranges from simple to extravagant with highly detailed layered floral elements which have been hand-colored, distressed to look vintage and to blend with the antique lace and other elements.

The vibe is very feminine with a bit of ladylike whimsy – a bit of Downton Abbey.

Inspirations for Barbara’s pieces are haute couture, past and present, the gorgeous needlework of antique laces and embroidery, botanical illustrations and hand colored prints.

The techniques used are basic to costume jewelry with tube riveting, common in the 1940s and 1950s, being revived and emphasized.

The stones are prong set and the smaller beads and pearls are wired and screen worked in the same technique used by Miriam Haskell in the 1940s to 1950s.

Barnaby's work has been acquired by private collectors in the United States and Japan, and her production pieces were sold by major department stores such as Nordstrom and Barneys New York.

When Barnaby became an registered nurse she discontinued her wholesale jewelry production, with the making of art to wear jewelry enjoyed in the evenings and weekends.

Located by the town clock in the old bank building at 9490 Main St., Upper Lake, the Upper Lake Mercantile offers quality artistic pieces plus items for the home and garden, with an emphasis on locally made and sourced goods.

A sister business to the Tallman Hotel and Blue Wing Saloon, also located on Main Street, Upper Lake Mercantile is intended to appeal to residents as well as visitors to Lake County.  

It is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

In August, the sculptural works of Ukiah’s Spencer Brewer will be featured at the Upper Lake Mercantile with an artist reception scheduled for Aug. 16.

Details about inventory and future promotions at the store can be obtained from manager Susan Saunders at 707-275-8018 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

CLEARLAKE, Calif. – There are ordinary, good nature documentaries – and then there are the two glorious (and free) films Second Sunday Cinema is screening on Sunday, July 13.

Each is about an hour long – come for one or both.

The venue is the Clearlake United Methodist Church, 14521 Pearl Ave. in Clearlake.

Doors open at 5:45 p.m., with the film beginning at 6 p.m.

The first film to be screened will be "My Life as a Turkey.” It follows naturalist Joe Hutto as he hatches, imprints and mothers a clutch of wild turkey eggs with such dedication he is accepted as a turkey not just by his new children, but by the other wild animals in the Florida outback.  

This beautifully made film allows the viewer to participate in the awe and wonder of this spiritual year-long experience.

The second film will be "Proteus: a Nineteenth Century Vision."  

Its central figure is Ernst Haekel, a biologist and watercolor artist who fell in love with the beauties of nature.

More specifically, he discovered the myriad forms of radiolaria, minute sea creatures who build an astounding array of incredibly beautiful exoskeletons – skeletons on the outside of their tiny bodies.  Haekel painted thousands of these.

Set to music by the filmmakers, who are totally attuned to the wonders depicted in the film, the radiolaria, and our hearts, dance. This gorgeous film is a stunning rarity you will remember the rest of your life.

The cooler at the church is fixed and softer chairs will be brought in from the church sanctuary.  

For more information call 707-889-7355.

TAMMY (Rated R)

As far as can be recalled, the last time Susan Sarandon had a starring role in a road-trip movie it was definitely not a comedy.

“Thelma & Louise” involved travels in a vintage Ford Thunderbird that ended very badly for its titular characters.

This time around, Sarandon is oddly teamed up with comedic sensation Melissa McCarthy for a road trip full of misadventures, but one that is supposed to be a comedy.

Sad to say, even with the considerable presence of McCarthy, “Tammy” does not hit on all comedic cylinders.

Before even the unspooling of the first frame, “Tammy” offers hope and promise of funny things to come.

That’s because Melissa McCarthy, following hit comedies like “Bridesmaids,” “Identity Thief” and “The Heat,” knows how to deliver the laughs.

Expectations rise even higher, knowing that McCarthy, in collaboration with her real-life husband Ben Falcone (also the film’s director), wrote the screenplay for “Tammy.” At this point, it seems like almost a sure thing as California Chrome to win the Triple Crown.

As the titular character, McCarthy’s Tammy is a walking disaster. On her way to work at a crummy fast food joint, Tammy has the misfortune of hitting a deer, causing her rusted Corolla to be totaled and eventually consumed by engine fire.

Naturally, arriving late to work, Tammy is summarily fired from her job. She throws a tantrum, tossing packets of ketchup at the obnoxious manager and manhandling food items so as to make then inedible, all the while making snide remarks about Topper Jack’s.

The trifecta of bad news comes when she arrives home early to find her spouse (Nat Faxon) entertaining the next-door neighbor (Toni Collette) with a romantic dinner. She complains that her louse of a husband never cooked nice meals for her.

Deciding to pack and leave her Illinois hometown, Tammy first visits her mother Deb (Allison Janney), who lives only two doors away.

A practitioner of tough-love, Deb refuses to loan a vehicle to Tammy, even her absent father’s old pickup truck.

With no money or wheels, Tammy’s only way out of her miserable small town experience is to hook up with her alcoholic and diabetic grandmother Pearl (Susan Sarandon), who just happens to have a roll of cash and a Buick sedan perfect for road travel.

The catch, of course, is that Tammy is now stuck with Grandma Pearl, a randy character who hasn’t quite left behind a past of indulging in sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll adventures.

Pearl claims to have slept with the wrong member of the Allman Brothers and to have once made a pass at Tammy’s father (Dan Aykroyd).

Seeing McCarthy and Sarandon together as members of a family two generations apart, it’s hard to see past an age difference not that wide, even though Sarandon’s Pearl wears a frizzy wig and has ankles inflamed to the size of tree trunks.

Thoughts of Johnny Knoxville’s “Bad Grandpa” sweep into the mind, as Grandma Pearl does her best to be outrageous, though she doesn’t have any body parts stuck in a vending machine.

However, she lets herself get seduced in the back of the sedan by an equally randy and drunk Earl (Gary Cole) that she meets at honky-tonk bar.

Meanwhile, as if it to bring a tender, softer touch to the proceedings, Tammy is introduced to Earl’s responsible, mature son Bobby (Mark Duplass), who appears shy and reserved, quite the opposite of his freewheeling, boozy father.

Plenty of wacky things happen in this movie. Tammy wrecks an expensive rented jet ski by slamming into to a dock. Grandma Pearl ends up in jail on a drug charge, and Tammy unwisely holds up a Topper Jack’s to get bail money.

Later on, the duo attempts to destroy all incriminating evidence with the help of Pearl’s savvy cousin Lenore (Kathy Bates), who happens to be very wealthy and lives in a lakeside mansion with her partner Susanne (Sandra Oh).

Then there’s Lenore’s lesbian Fourth of July barbecue bash to which the only non-females to show up are Bobby and Earl.

The movie’s full of detours, and there’s a stint where Tammy ends up in prison for the hold-up and other assorted crimes.

With the help of friends, Tammy and Pearl finally make it to Niagara Falls, where the film’s saving grace is that, contrary to some idle chatter, nobody decides to make a jump to the bottom.

“Tammy” is the kind of film that requires a leap of faith in its creative and acting team to have come up with something truly hilarious.

Regrettably, it doesn’t happen, though there are humorous scenes, which are practically inevitable when you have Melissa McCarthy involved.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

NICE, Calif. – Featherbed Railroad is hosting the CD release party for Whispering Light's new album, “One Tribe,” with a day and evening of wine, art displays, artisan booths, pizza-by-the-slice, fun and lots of music this Saturday, July 12.

The event is open to the public and starts at 11 a.m.

Musical performances are from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and again at 7 p.m. with stage lighting on the veranda.

Travis Rinker also will be performing and jamming with Whispering Light.

Featherbed Railroad also is offering special overnight rates if you mention “Whispering Light.” Guests will be treated to a Sunday champagne brunch with an exclusive performance by Lindy Day on solo classical guitar.

Nationally acclaimed Whispering Light is the Lake County duo of Native American Music Awards nominee Kevin Village-Stone (Native American flutes, bass, keyboards) and award-winning guitarist Lindy Day (classical, acoustic, electric, saxophone, percussion).

This year, they released their new album “One Tribe” in 220 countries and 37 online retailers including iTunes, Amazon, Google and Sony.

Both being formally trained multi-instrumentalists, Stone and Day feature a captivating full-band sound even as a duo.

“Check our website for the latest tour dates, an entire video log of our coast-to-coast tour, free downloads, and behind-the-scenes footage. We love and appreciate all of our supporters especially those in Lake County like Tony and Peggy Barthel at Featherbed Railroad, who believe in us and have made all this possible,” said Day.

Featherbed Railroad Bed and Breakfast is located at 2870 Lakeshore Blvd. in Nice. More info can be found at www.FeatherbedRailroad.com .

For more information about Whispering Light, visit www.WhisperingLight.com .

For more information on Lindy Day, visit www.LindyDay.com .

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (Rated PG-13)

With the proliferation of sequels that allow the Hollywood film industry to not even break a sweat, it’s hardly a surprise that director Michael Bay, whose affinity for explosions is unsurpassed by anyone else, has churned out yet another “Transformers” movie.

“Transformers: Age of Extinction” is the fourth film in the franchise and the first one not to star Shia LaBeouf, whose legal troubles seem to be mounting by the day.

Fittingly, on the eve of the film’s release, LaBeouf was arrested for disorderly conduct during a Broadway show.

Though LaBeouf is missing, disorder appears to be the modus operandi of director Bay, seeing how he loves to blow things up with wild abandon.

The franchise has turned into a surfeit of CGI-generated explosions and an orgy of destruction of everything in the path of giant robots.

The whole volatile premise is so overworked that the incessant clash of robots and the crunching of metal are just too much for anyone with a pulse to endure.

This is the type of mindless, idiotic nonsense that not only dulls the mind but causes one to lose brain cells.

Okay, so LaBeouf is out, and so is Megan Fox. At least on the distaff side, Bay finds another hottie in Nicola Peltz’s Tessa Yeager, a high school senior who favors very brief shorts and whose single father Cade (Mark Wahlberg) is a besieged inventor of robots working out of a barn on his rural Texas homestead.

Struggling to keep his property from being foreclosed, Cade is unable to resist buying an old semi truck rusting inside an abandoned theatre. Carefully restoring the vehicle, with the help of his friend Lucas (T.J. Miller), Cade discovers that he has unearthed Optimus Prime.

For the uninitiated, Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots, the good aliens who helped the human race to fight off the Decepticons, the aliens whose only goal is apparently to rid our entire planet of any human existence.

In any case, if you don’t know the difference between an Autobot and a Decepticon, this would be the moment to forget any thought of seeing this movie and perhaps consider catching an indie film that likely no more than a few dozen will ever watch. Better yet, just stay at home.

Meanwhile, creepy CIA honcho Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer), assisted by his even creepier henchman Jases Savoy (Titus Welliver), has teamed up with a Decepticon named Lock Down to hunt down the Autobots, looking for spare parts that can be sold to a sleazy industrialist.

The film’s most interesting character is Stanley Tucci’s Joshua Joyce, CEO of Kinetic Sciences Institute, an industrial plant that is trying to replicate the giant alien robots, ostensibly for more benevolent purposes, but likely not, considering the shadowy figures lurking about.

One reason that Tucci’s Joshua is fascinating is that he has the best lines, mostly ones that provide comic relief to a story that becomes increasingly dull. To his credit, Tucci can come across as both pompous and ridiculous.

On the other hand, Wahlberg’s Cade has little to do other than to be an overprotective father. Boy, he gets a rude awakening when he meets her secret Irish boyfriend Shane (Jack Reynor), a more worldly character but one who proves handy for his race car driving skills.

The best car chase sequence comes fairly early when the Yeagar family, with Shane driving his sporty car, eludes the elite, deadly CIA commando squad that swoops down on the Texas ranch like the assault on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas.

The Yeagers and Shane end up in Chicago, which was pretty much annihilated in the last “Transformers” movie. The search is for Optimus Prime’s fellow Autobots, and again destruction follows. Hasn’t Chicago suffered enough from Michael Bay and the fact that Cubs haven’t won a World Series in more than a century?

At Joshua’s KSI complex, faceless scientists in white lab coats are busy creating a robot named Galvatron, and when Optimus Prime and his fellow bots show up, chaos and mayhem rule the day.

The scene shifts to China and Hong Kong (I already lost track of the transition), and more bedlam and disorder become the norm as robots engage in more destruction. At this point, one must stifle the inevitable yawns as the dull action becomes more repetitive.

“Transformers: Age of Extinction” is aimed at slack-jawed adolescents that spend all of their free time (or is it all the time?) watching violent video games or playing pinball machines in an arcade.

Unfortunately for the vestiges of intelligent life that still remain, there are more “Transformer” movies to come, and I can only hope that I may be on an extended overseas vacation at the time, sparing myself the agony of losing three hours of my life that are forever lost.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.