CLEARLAKE, Calif. – “Bidder 70” is Second Sunday Cinema's featured film this Sunday, May 11.
The film starts at 6 p.m. at Clearlake United Methodist Church, 14521 Pearl Ave. in Clearlake.
The heart and soul of this inspiring documentary is “Bidder 70,” a young man who placed “protest bids” on an unlawful federal oil and gas lease in the midst of western lands of extraordinary beauty. Think red and pink rock carved by eons of wind and water.
In 2006 Tim DeChristopher, University of Utah economics student and environmental activist, won millions of dollars in bids to drill on land he had no intention of drilling on and no ability to pay for.
He paid dearly for his act of outstanding creativity and courage. But because it was clearly unlawful to lease that land, he protected a huge number of acres from devastation.
He also sparked a focused high-energy environmental group and movement, Peaceful Uprisings.
DeChristopher's five-year struggle within the US Justice Department is over. But, he says, the battle for a livable future continues.
For more information about Second Sunday Cinema call 707-889-7355.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Several Lake County fiddlers from the Konocti Fiddle Club represented Lake County at the California State sponsored Fiddle Contest in Cloverdale recently.
Rafael Contreras from Lower Lake, placed first in his class for the third year in a row. He is a member of the LCSA Youth Orchestra and the Konocti Fiddle Club.
Other fiddle club members placing well in the competition were Maya Leonard from Cobb in the Pee Wee class, Jillian and Evan Johnsen from Kelseyville in the Jr-Jr class, and Lake County Symphony members Sue Condit in the Waltz Division and Andi Skelton winning the Twin Fiddle class and the Waltz Division.
The following day there was an urgent call for fiddlers to perform at Ely Stage Stop in Kelseyville.
These young fiddlers and a few more from the fiddle club answered the call to represent District 10 of the California State Old Time Fiddlers Association which encompasses three Northern California counties.
They performed there for a large crowd for two hours and helped raise funds for District 10 music scholarships.
After that, they hurried on to a long rehearsal of the Konocti Fiddle Club to finish up a very busy weekend of fiddling.
Those of us who live on the arid Great Plains love to hear rain on the roof. Not hail, but rain. William Jolliff, a poet from Oregon, where it rains all the time, has done a fine job here of capturing that sound.
Rain on a Barn South of Tawas
It may be as close as an old man in Michigan comes to the sound of the sea. Call it thunder if you want, but it’s not thunder, not at all. It’s more like the rush of semis on a freeway
somewhere between Bay City and Flint, the road a son will take when he learns, sometime around the last taste of a strap, that the life he was born to is nothing
at all like a life he’d ever bother to live. There’s an anger in it, a tin-edged constancy that has no rhythm, quite, something more like white noise that still won’t let you sleep.
Think of some man, needing to get a crop in, but the fields are sop, so he’s trying to find something to fix, something to keep his hands working, something to weld, something to pound,
something to wrap his calloused palms around that might do less damage than a lead-rope knotted and tossed over the limb of a tree. If you ever decide to lose your years
by working this land, you might think again, about the barn you build, or roofing it with tin.
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 2012 by William Jolliff, whose most recent book of poems is Searching for a White Crow, Pudding House Publications, 2009. Poem reprinted from the Blue Collar Review, Winter 2012-13, by permission of William Jolliff 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. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Parents and children. Sometimes it seems that’s all there is to life. In this poem Donna Spector, from New York state, gives us a ride that many of us may have taken, hanging on for dear life.
On the Way to the Airport
You’re speeding me down the Ventura freeway in your battered Scout, patched since your angry crash into the drunken pole that swerved into your road. We’ve got no seat belts, no top, bald tires, so I clutch any metal that seems as though it might be firm, belie its rusted rattling. Under my August burn I’m fainting white, but I’m trying to give you what you want: an easy mother.
For the last two days you’ve been plugged into your guitar, earphones on, door closed. I spoiled our holiday with warnings about your accidental life, said this time I wouldn’t rescue you, knowing you’d hate me, knowing I’d make myself sick. We’re speaking now, the airport is so near, New York closer than my birthday tomorrow, close as bearded death whose Porsche just cut us off in the fast lane.
When you were three, you asked if God lived under the street. I said I didn’t know, although a world opened under my feet walking with you over strange angels, busy arranging our fate. Soon, if we make it, I’ll be in the air, where people say God lives, the line between you and me stretched thinner, thinner but tight enough still to bind us, choke us both with love. Your Scout, putty-colored as L.A. mornings, protests loudly but hangs on.
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 Donna Spector, whose most recent book of poems is The Woman Who Married Herself, Evening Street Press, 2010. Poem reprinted from Rattle, Vol. 19, no. 3, by permission of Donna Spector 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. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
MENDOCINO, Calif. – Mendocino Chamber Opera presents Donizetti’s rollicking comedy, “Don Pasquale” Friday, May 16, to Sunday, May 18, in the restored, repainted, and sparkling clean Crown Hall on Ukiah Street in Mendocino.
The cast includes two stars who were big hits in last year’s Redwood Opera Workshop: Arizona soprano Gabriella Carrillo and San Francisco tenor David Chavez.
Also in the cast are baritone Jary Stavely playing the role of Dr. Malatesta, and bass-baritone Richard Goodman as Don Pasquale.
Performances will take place at 8 p.m. May 16 and May 17, and 2 p.m. May 18.
Tickets cost $20 for the opera and $50 for the “dinner opera” on May 17.
They are available at Harvest Market in Fort Bragg, from Out of this World in Mendocino or by mail from Fort Bragg Center for the Arts at 13110 Pomo Lane, Mendocino, CA 95460.
Quality sports films are not uncommon. More recent really good ones that come to mind include “42” and “Moneyball.” Other popular favorites are “Field of Dreams,” “The Natural,” and “Bull Durham.”
Oddly enough, all the sports films mentioned so far have been focused on baseball, perhaps proving, to some extent, the national pastime’s enduring popularity, even if the NFL claims supremacy.
Ivan Reitman’s “Draft Day,” obviously produced with the cooperation of the NFL, breaks the mold, turning out a solid gridiron saga that’s finely tuned to front office maneuverings rather than pigskin heroics on the turf.
In many respects, “Draft Day” is the football equivalent of “Moneyball,” where it’s about the dynamics of fielding a team. The drama is behind-the-scenes, and here it all takes place in one day, leading up to the NFL’s annual draft of college players at New York’s cherished Radio City Music Hall.
Kevin Costner is like the John Wayne of sports films. Whether it’s the well-known baseball titles or films like “Tin Cup” and “For the Love of the Game,” Costner owns every sports film in the same way Wayne owned the Westerns.
Hardly anybody is more credible than Costner as the aging competitor or athletic mentor. His Sonny Weaver, Jr. is the besieged general manager of the woeful Cleveland Browns, a venerable NFL franchise with a blue collar fan base clamoring for a winning team.
Sonny’s personal and professional life is on trial for the course of one day. His father, the former beloved coach of the Browns, recently passed away. Sports radio hosts still hold a grudge for Sonny having forced his father into retirement a few years back.
The general manager is also carrying on a covert romance with the team’s salary-cap expert, Ali (the fetching Jennifer Garner making the most of a relatively small role). Just for added pressure on Sonny, Ali springs the news that she is pregnant.
Meanwhile, Sonny must also contend with a few egomaniacs in the organization, none of which adds more pressure than team owner Anthony Molina (Frank Langella), who insists on making a “big splash” in the draft by going for Heisman Trophy winner Bo Callahan (Josh Pence).
The other most troubling person with a swelled head is the volatile Coach Penn (Denis Leary), new to the Browns and eager to pick up another oversized Super Bowl championship ring. Coach Penn is equally insistent that the team go for Callahan.
The Seattle Seahawks have the first pick in the draft, and so it is up to Sonny to do some wheeling-and-dealing for Cleveland to get first choice. To do so, he’s obliged to trade away his number one draft picks for the next three years. Ouch! Anyone can tell you that’s a tough bargain.
Clever and resourceful, Sonny treats the draft day negotiations as if he were channeling Garry Kasparov in a chess tournament. There are a lot of moving pieces during the course of the day where Sonny engages general managers from Buffalo to Houston and places in-between.
Keeping cool under pressure, Sonny must also contend with the persistence of NFL prospect Vontae Mack (Chadwick Boseman, who played Jackie Robinson in “42”), whose college record is blemished by an infraction but who otherwise appears to be a person of solid character.
One takeaway from “Draft Day” is that character does matter. It’s a subject that weighs heavily on Sonny’s mind as he digs deeper into the background of Bo Callahan, the star quarterback of the University of Wisconsin, where even his coach (Sam Elliott) seems oddly reticent to sing his praises.
Tempers flare from time to time, whether in the Cleveland war room, where Sonny keeps his assistants mostly in line with the game plan, though the hot-headed Coach Penn is practically unhinged during Sonny’s controversial moves to keep everyone guessing until the clock almost runs out on making the draft pick.
Tom Welling’s Brian Drew is the team’s current quarterback, but he’s coming off an injury that some believe has him washed up. Naturally, the veteran player thinks otherwise and delivers a potent message to the GM.
Ivan Reitman (“Ghostbusters” and “Animal House”) has a long track record of hit comedies. “Draft Day” is a departure for the director, both in tone and subject matter. While there are humorous moments, “Draft Day” is a sports drama focused on characters rather than action on the field.
Just like “Moneyball,” there’s plenty of talk in the backroom and on the phones. To spice up the conversations, the director employs the split-screen technique to add some tension to the negotiating process. Mostly, it works, but some may tire of the frequency.
Before leaving home for the office on draft day, Sonny tucks a slip of paper into his pocket. Since the camera lingers on this move, we know it has significance. Indeed, it explains everything once all is said and done.
I’ll admit that being a sports fan facilitates the enjoyment of this movie. But Costner and the whole cast are so good, and the dialogue is so sharp and crisp with palpable tension in the air, that “Draft Day” is intriguing, compelling entertainment.
To this sports-loving critic, “Draft Day” has jumped right into the pantheon of the best sports movies, and that’s a tribute to the entire production team. They run with an attitude that produces a champion.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
