The trio will perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 22, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 23.

General admission seats are $20; reserved $22.

This vibrant group’s beautiful, handmade harps and fresh arrangements are complimented by lush vocals, flute, penny whistle and percussion.

Your heart-strings will be touched by their romantic Irish airs and ballads, and by the exciting rhythms of South America.

“California Celtic” is a term which can be used to describe Triskela Harp Trio's sound: a fusion of world folk traditions, early music and original works.

Triskela's arrangements for three lever harps, voice, Irish whistle, flute and percussion transport listeners to an other-worldly, yet richly familiar, place

While the trio never fails to delight audiences with lively jigs, reels and other classic Celtic fare, the ladies of Triskela always have a surprise up their sleeves with unexpected music from Latin America, the Middle East and beyond.

Since 1997, Diana Stork, Shawna Spiteri, and Portia Diwa have played their eclectic repertoire throughout Northern California, performing at Grace Cathedral, the Festival of Harps at the Dorothy Spreckels Performing Arts Center, the SF Celtic Music Festival, and even at SF City Hall.

In 2008, Triskela's recording of Diana Stork's uplifting piece “Wedding Bells” (from their debut CD, Voice of Tara) was selected for the feature documentary “Reclaiming the Blade,” narrated by “Lord of the Rings” star John Rhys-Davies.

Named after the triskele – an ancient Celtic symbol consisting of three interlocking spirals -- riskela combines harp music and spirit, using the beauty of music to bring harmony to the world.

Sunday’s show will include a special “History of the Harp” presentation at 1:15 p.m.

Ever wondered about where the harp originated, or had questions about the construction of a harp? Here is a chance to have your questions answered.

Opening for Triskela is the a cappella group, Il Mio Divas, singers of Renaissance-era madrigal songs. The group is made up of women from the Lake County under the direction of Claudia Listman.

The group is composed of seven and is an outgrowth of The Noble Singers, the group that sings at the annual Renaissance Christmas Pageant & Feast in Middletown every December. These women, who come from a variety of musical and dramatic backgrounds, just didn’t want to quit singing when the pageant was over so they formed Il Mio Divas.

They now perform annually at the Lake Renaissance Festival in Lower Lake on Memorial Day Weekend (costumed as wenches), as part of The Nobles Singers in the Renaissance Christmas Pageant in December (costumed as nobles), and at various local theatrical productions, parties and wineries. Most recently you saw them in the Vintage Productions presentation of “Romeo and Juliet” at the Soper Reese.

Tickets are on sale now, available online at www.SoperReeseTheatre.com; at the Theatre Box Office, 275 Main St., Lakeport or by calling 707-263-0577.

The box office is open Thursdays and Fridays, 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and on the day of the show for two hours before show time.

The reading will begin at at 7 p.m., at St. John’s Church, Lakeport.

“The Fall of the House of Usher" will be the centerpiece, but a sampling of Poe's poetry and a shorter work entitled “Three Sundays in a Week” also will be included.

There will be a short discussion period after the performance. The event is free.

According to www.americanliterature.com, “The Fall of the House of Usher” unfolds in a gloomy and foreboding atmosphere that draws the reader in as the story builds in suspense while traveling toward its climactic conclusion.

St. John’s is the historical church at 1190 N. Forbes St., at the corner of Clearlake Avenue, in Lakeport.

The film will be shown on Sunday, Oct. 9, at Clearlake United Methodist Church, 14521 Pearl Ave., in Clearlake.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m., with the film starting at 6 p.m.

Recently Paul Ryan, head of the House Budget Committee, accused President Obama of fomenting “class warfare” by suggesting that the richest Americans should pay “their fair share” of taxes.

This film makes it utterly clear that the very opposite is true. In fact, the very richest have long waged a quiet and incredibly successful economic war against the rest of humanity – including the middle class today.

See this film (for free, as always) and you will better understand the causes of the economic misery the world is currently suffering.

In fact this documentary, released in 1996, predicts the very Great Recession in which we currently find ourselves.

Recessions and depressions don’t “just happen.” They are carefully engineered by the ruling elite to transfer even more money – and hence power – into their own hands.

This film is not a work of art, nor does it enjoy great production values. Here, it’s the content that matters. It is information-dense, and ends with a detailed, well thought out proposal to end this country’s cancerous deficit relatively simply and with relative lack of pain.

You know how cancer cells form a mob, and seize nutrients and space dedicated solely to their own growth? According to the film’s writer and narrator Bill Still, this is how the Federal Reserve and other global central banks function today and since their establishment.

If you are motivated to understand why so many of us are struggling, and what we might do about it, this film is for you. It runs one hour, 45 minutes in length.

For more information call 707-889-7355.

Her visit, sponsored by local book group, “The Bad Girls Book Club,” brought answers to many questions about the creation and characters found in her highly acclaimed novel, “Into the Forest.”

Translated into 12 languages, “Into the Forest,” is an eerily realistic apocalyptic tale set in Northern California.

According to Publishers Weekly, “From the first page, the sense of crisis and the lucid, honest voice of the … narrator pull the reader in. A truly admirable addition to a genre defined by the very high standards of George Orwell’s 1984.”

Guests expressed great concern about the book’s conclusion and their hopes for the future of the story’s main characters and not-so-futuristic society.

Hegland, a writing instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College as well as an accomplished author, shared her enthusiasm for The Big Read and book groups in general.

“That’s what the Big Read is all about, groups reading books in common. Everyone intersects with a book differently … it’s exciting to get the conversation going,” Hegland said.

The Lake County Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program, co-sponsored by Arts Midwest and the Lake County Office of Education.

Grantees work with the community to create diverse, interesting and creative connections to literature through community partnerships.

For more information about Jean Hegland, visit her Web site, www.JeanHegland.com.

For more information about the Lake County Big Read, and future events, visit This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or www.NEAbigread.com (communities) or like them on Facebook.

Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.

I like birds, and poems about birds, and several years ago I co-edited an anthology of bird poems called “The Poets Guide to the Birds.” I wish Judith Harris had written this lovely description of a mockingbird in time for us to include it, but it’s brand new. Harris lives in Washington, D.C.

Mockingbird

I can hear him,

now, even in darkness,

a trickster under the moon,

bristling his feathers,

sounding as merry

as a man whistling in a straw hat,

or a squeaky gate

to the playground, left ajar

or the jingling of a star,

having wandered too far

from the pasture.

American Life in Poetry 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 © 2010 by Judith Harris, whose most recent book of poetry is The Bad Secret, Louisiana State University Press, 2006. Poem reprinted from Narrative, Summer, 2011, by permission of Judith Harris. Introduction copyright ©2011 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.