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Arts & Life

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Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography.

Lest we forget our vegetables, here's a poem by James Bertolino about one of our dearest and healthiest ones.

The poet lives in Bellingham, Washington, and this is from his book, “Every Wound Has A Rhythm,” from World Enough Writers, Kingston, Washington.

Carrot

The carrot says
don’t be confused

by appearances.
My lacy green

friendship with air
gives me the confidence

to make demands
of dirt. Consider me

a prospector probing
with my own gold.

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 ©2012 by James Bertolino, "Carrot," from Every Wound Has A Rhythm, (World Enough Writers, 2012). Poem reprinted by permission of James Bertolino and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2020 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.
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The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is pleased to announce the seventh annual California Invasive Species Youth Art Contest.

This year’s theme, “Be a Habitat Hero,” encourages students to think about what they can do in their own communities to protect against the spread of invasive species.

“Everyone can be a habitat hero by taking small steps to stop invasive species. Helpful steps include choosing native plants for landscaping, not releasing unwanted pets into the wild, reporting invasive species findings and taking precautions to clean, drain and dry gear after recreating in waterbodies,” said Elizabeth Brusati, an environmental scientist with CDFW’s Invasive Species Program.

The contest is offered by CDFW’s Invasive Species Program as part of California Invasive Species Action Week, June 6 to 14.

There are three age divisions for youths in grades 2-4, 5-8 and 9-12. All types of media are welcome and encouraged, including (but not limited to) drawings, paintings, animations, comic strips, videos and public service announcements. Entries should reflect the 2020 theme: “Be a Habitat Hero.”

The top three winners in each division will receive awards and have their entries displayed on CDFW’s Invasive Species Action Week webpage.

The deadline for art contest entries is May 1. Completed entries and entry forms should be sent to CDFW Invasive Species Program, P.O. Box 944209, Sacramento, CA 94244-2090.

The entry form and entries may also be emailed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

The goal of California Invasive Species Action Week is to increase public awareness of invasive species issues and encourage public participation in the fight against California’s invasive species and their impacts on our natural resources.

Action Week activities will include presentations on aquatic and terrestrial invasives, guided outings to observe and assess infested areas, invasive species removal efforts, habitat restoration projects and the announcement of the winners of the youth contest.

Opportunities for youths and adults to participate or volunteer will be available across the state through participating agencies, organizations and volunteer groups, with information and details to be provided on the Action Week webpage.

Visit CDFW online for details about the 2020 contest and information on how to participate in Action Week.

The mission of CDFW’s Invasive Species Program is to reduce the impacts of invasive species on the wildlands and waterways of California. The program is involved in efforts to prevent the introduction of these species into the state, detect and respond to introductions when they occur and prevent the spread of those species that have established.
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Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography.

That sage curse, "May you live in interesting times," has been upon us for the past few years, but here a Kentucky poet, Jonathan Greene, offers us some reassurance that there is order in the world.

Greene has a special talent for, and love of, short poems, and this is a good example of his work.

This poem is from his most recent book, “Afloat,” published by Broadstone Books.

The Return

We are heartened
when each year
the barn swallows
return.

They find their old nests,
teach their young to fly,
lining up on the barn roof
for their first flight.

They remind us,
for now, some rituals
of this good earth
continue.


American Life in Poetry does not accept unsolicited manuscripts. 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 ©2018 by Jonathan Greene, "The Return," from Afloat, (Broadstone Books, 2019). Poem reprinted by permission of Jonathan Greene and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2020 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.
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‘THE WAY BACK’ Rated R

The redemptive power of sports has played out in many ways in the course of cinematic history. No matter the sport, there’s always something uplifting about an underdog team that finds a way to win a championship.

Based on the true story of one of the greatest moments in sports history, “Miracle,” starring Kurt Russell as Team USA coach Herb Brooks, recounted the inspiring feat of mostly amateur players on the USA Hockey team defeating the seemingly invincible Soviet Union squad.

More to the point of “The Way Back,” about a losing high school basketball team, the “Hoosiers” story of a small-town Indiana team making an improbable run at a state high school championship that taps into the spirit of redemption ranks high on the list of great sports movies.

Whether “The Way Back” could be deemed to reach an exalted rank in the pantheon of underdog amateur sporting accomplishments may be an unsettled issue, but it does connect with a sports fan’s inclination to be moved by the salvation of woeful competitors.

And while watching the trailer gives off the idea that the experience of this film is focused solely on a motley crew of Catholic teenagers at the Bishop Hayes High School, the truth of the matter is something almost entirely different.

This is where Ben Affleck’s alcoholic Jack Cunningham comes into the picture. About a quarter-century earlier, Cunningham was the big basketball star on the high school team, leading it to a championship. A banner with his name hangs in the gymnasium’s rafters.

The players on the Bishop Hayes team, if not truly terrible, have certainly not been properly trained or coached to be competitive. After the coach has a heart attack, math teacher Dan (Al Madrigal) tries to hold the team together as the assistant coach.

The priest running the school reaches out to Cunningham to be the new coach, telling him that “You’re the first person I thought of.” More likely, he had nowhere else to turn, and he may have reconsidered if he had any idea about his star player’s troubled life.

By day, Cunningham is a construction worker, now separated from his wife Angela (Janina Gavankar), for reasons not immediately known if you overlook the fact that he can’t even take a shower without drinking several cans of beer.

What’s more, his daily routine also consists of pouring booze into a thermos for nips while on the job, followed by hanging out after work in a dive bar that ends the night most of the time with him being carried home by one of the patrons.

Eventually, the fact that Cunningham is a tortured soul becomes apparent from a tragedy that caused a huge rift in his marriage and an addiction to alcohol that takes him on an emotional rollercoaster ride of futility.

Tension is not only found in Cunningham’s relationship with his estranged spouse. A family Thanksgiving reunion turns uncivil as Cunningham squabbles with his sister Beth (Michaela Watkins) about his lack of interest in anything that can’t be poured into a glass.

After an initial rebuff of his alma mater’s entreaties to take over the team, Cunningham commits one could say, for the most part, to taking on the unenviable task of molding his players to function as real teammates.

One of his first orders of business is to bench the showboating Marcus (Melvin Gregg), who favors taking the 3-point shots instead of passing to a teammate open for a greater certainty of actually scoring.

Gruff, profane and pushing his kids to the limit, Cunningham instills a cohesive discipline on his modest talent pool, goading them to a truly competitive spirit that results in an appealing underdog story that gains traction with a string of victories.

If you guessed that the Bishop Hayes team would qualify for the playoffs only to find themselves against a team that had crushed them at the beginning of the season, you’ve already seen this part of the movie in countless other underdog stories.

“The Way Back” is much more than the predictable showdown with a fearsome rival that has much greater physical talent. Cunningham’s molding of his motley crew turns them into a viable squad that just might believe in their own abilities.

While the team becomes a winner, Cunningham’s inner demons are not so easily relegated to the past, and conflict with the school leadership over his inability to give up a fondness for adult beverages puts his own redemption into jeopardy.

Fittingly enough, Gavin O’Connor, the director, was the perfect fit for “The Way Back,” as he knows how to deliver a compelling story that overlaps between life and sports. That his behind-the-camera work delivered the acclaimed hit “Miracle” says it all.

Of course, with Ben Affleck’s Jack Cunningham, much like Kurt Russell’s coach Herb Brooks in “Miracle,” being the central focus of “The Way Back,” a robust and convincing performance from the star makes all the difference.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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The Santa Rosa Symphony Chamber Players. Courtesy photo.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – For the third in the Soper Reese Theatre’s Contemporary Chamber Music series, the Santa Rosa Symphony Chamber Players will take the stage at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 28.

This trio of musicians from the Santa Rosa Symphony will explore the rich sonorities of flute, viola and piano, with a program that includes works by Bloch, Durufle, Han, Marinu, Devienne and others. Kathleen Lane Reynolds is on flute; Alex Volonts, viola; and Kymry Esainko, piano.

Tickets are now on sale. The cost is $20 adults. It’s free for ages 18 and under. Open seating.

For tickets go to soperreesetheatre.com or to The Travel Center, 825 S. Main, Lakeport, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The performance is sponsored by Kirsten Olson and Carol and Steve Schepper.

For more information call 707-263-0577.
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‘THE INVISIBLE MAN,’ Rated R

Any movie infused with psychological thrills and acts of desperation is bound to have a few plot holes, and as entertaining as the thriller “The Invisible Man” turns out to be, exceptions to the rule are not found here.

There’s no need to get into a discussion about the source material of the H.G. Wells eponymous novel. This film’s story is imagined to contemporary times with technological innovations that could have frightening implications.

In a standout performance, Elisabeth Moss’ Cecilia Kass is trapped in a violent, controlling relationship with a wealthy and brilliant scientist acclaimed for his breakthrough work in the scientific field of optics.

The opening scene in the dead of night is a chilling, intense escape that Cecilia devises from the clutches of her abusive partner Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), slipping away with little more than a bag of personal items.

Barely making a getaway after an alarm is tripped at the fortress-like seaside mansion, Cecilia is aided by her sister Emily (Harriet Dyer) so that she may take refuge at the home of childhood friend James Lanier (Aldis Hodge).

Moving in with James, a Bay Area police officer, and his teenage daughter Sydney (Storm Reid), seems like a safe haven for Cecilia, especially after Adrian commits suicide, leaving her a generous portion of his vast fortune with certain stipulations.

Even beyond the grave (or is he really dead, after all?), Adrian exerts control over Cecilia with conditions that are left to his lawyer sibling Tom Griffin (Michael Dorman) to administer at his discretion.

Soon thereafter, a series of eerie coincidences build tension within the Lanier household, beginning with an unseen force that removes the covers from Cecilia’s bed and then keeping her from pulling the covers back again.

The odd things happening in the house become more pronounced, such as an eerie stovetop fire and the odd disappearance of items like Cecilia’s portfolio of architectural drawings.

Convinced that Adrian’s suicide was a hoax and that somehow the genius has found a way to use his optics machine invention to cloak his physical being, Cecilia’s sanity unravels as she tries to prove she is being hunted by someone nobody can see.

Eventually the happenings turn more violent to where only Cecilia knows what’s happening and others begin to question her erratic behavior, or worse, suspect that she has committed the foul deeds.

All of this is designed, of course, so that Cecilia will start to go mad with paranoia, a state of mind that conveniently would allow the creepy lawyer to rescind any monthly payments of Adrian’s estate.

To its credit, “The Invisible Man,” though it has its share of plot holes, eschews the junk thrills of many horror films and instead creates a mood of dread that builds tension that is really entertaining.



‘THE LAST THING HE WANTED’ ON NETFLIX

To state the obvious, Netflix is delivering a surfeit of original movies and television series to rival the output of most major studios, networks and cable channels, and just like its competitors, Netflix will have its share of duds.

Case in point is the adaptation of Joan Didion’s novel “The Last Thing He Wanted” into a feature film with an all-star cast that cannot save what turns out to be an incoherent plot not worth following.

Action kicks off in 1982 when Anne Hathaway’s Elena McMahon, an intrepid reporter with the Atlantic Post, and her colleague Alma Guerrero (Rosie Perez), are fleeing a hail of bullets in war-torn El Salvador.

Even after safely returning to Washington, D.C., Elena wants nothing more than to return to Central America in pursuit of stories about American involvement in support of Nicaraguan rebels.

Instead, she gets assigned to cover the balloon drops at campaign rallies during the 1984 presidential election, when she’d rather be anywhere else. She gets an out when her estranged father, Dick McMahon (Willem Dafoe), takes ill.

Reunited with her father in Miami, Elena learns that he remains a renegade outlaw even when his final days are at hand. Dick seeks her help to salvage a lucrative seven-figure deal.

Elena heads to the capital city of Costa Rica, where she will broker an arms deal for surplus Army weapons with the Contras, thus putting herself into the middle of her own story that had been sidelined by her editor.

Meanwhile, she forms a relationship with shady government official Treat Morrison (Ben Affleck) that creates another murky storyline.

Sadly, Elena’s only emotional connection to anyone consists of phone calls to her young daughter who understandably doesn’t want to be stuck in a boarding school.

Also, what’s up with her stint as a maid at a near-deserted beach hotel run by the dissolute ex-pat Paul Schuster (Toby Jones)? Maybe it was a place to hide until safe passage back to the States.

The irony of “The Last Thing He Wanted” is the obvious play on its title as a short-hand summary of a critical review, namely “The Last Thing We Wanted,” or “The Last Thing We Needed.”

That pretty well sums it up.

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

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