Sunday, 24 November 2024

Register

Arts & Life

Posted On

Wormhead (left) and Death n’ Taxes (right). Photo by Jeremy Cremer.

MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – This Friday, Sept. 27, you can catch a four band concert featuring a new generation of local and regional alternative, grunge and indie rock bands at the Middletown Art Center.

The performances start promptly at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

LuvBug productions in partnership with the Middletown Art Center, is proud to present the event.

“I am super excited to help cultivate a local live music scene which we started last month with the Higher Logic Project”, said LuvBug producer Matthew Barash. “The season change evokes some heavier riffs, which is why we chose this lineup of alternative / indie­ / grunge bands for this Friday’s September concert."

The evening begins with Middletown’s JFK with their feel good groove rock, followed by Death n’ Taxes from Napa and their psychedelic acid rock. The headliner Milk for the Angry, who have been making a splash in the Bay Area with their high-energy alternative grunge will perform after that.

Closing out the evening will be Clearlake’s Wormhead entrancing us with their psychedelic grunge sound. Wormhead recently returned from a tour with Death n’ Taxes throughout Oregon and Washington.

"I'm really excited to be a part of bringing alternative rock to our community”, said Jeremy Cremer, front man for Wormhead. "Growing up here I always wanted to see more cool and different sounding local bands perform, not just strictly hardcore metal and country music.
Indie and alternative rock always felt sort of left out here, and now we're bringing in some new local talent to fill that void."

Be sure to catch this exciting show of emerging bands featuring original music as well as some choice covers. Admission is $10 and there will be a no host bar onsite (must be 21 or older to purchase alcohol). All ages welcome. Kids movies will be screened in back but parents must supervise their children.

For links to music videos of the featured bands visit www.middletownartcenter.org/events.

The MAC is located at 21456 State Highway 175 at the junction of Highway 29 in the heart of Middletown.

The MAC Gallery’s regular hours are Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Trailside Park is open dawn to dusk daily and the 14th annual Sculpture Walk will be on view through Oct. 30.

To stay up to date on classes, exhibits and events, and support this valuable Lake County arts and culture resource visit www.middletownartcenter.org.
Posted On



‘THE GOLDFINCH’ (Rated R)

American author Donna Tartt won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014 for the 784-page coming-of-age novel “The Goldfinch,” which I did not have time to read before seeing the movie. What’s more, the local bookstore didn’t carry the Cliff’s Notes version.

How to adapt this massive tome into a film story of grief and shame, guilt and obsession, survival and self-invention was left to Academy Award nominee Peter Straughan (the 2011 dramatic thriller “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”).

The center of “The Goldfinch” is the achingly poignant journey of 13-year-old Theo Decker (Oakes Fegley), who last saw his mother as she was gliding away from him into another gallery of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The non-lineal recounting of Theo’s anxious passage in life results in the opening scene showing a troubled adult Theo (Ansel Elgort) in a hotel room in Amsterdam facing a personal crisis that suggests his life is on the verge of a possible suicidal ending.

Flashing back to the art museum, young Theo finds his life shattered when a terrorist bomb explodes taking the lives of many visitors, including his mother, while destroying priceless works of art.

For the rest of his life, Theo will be haunted by the traumatic event at the museum, as he and his mom should not have been at the museum that day, resulting in his lifelong feeling of survivor’s guilt.

Theo’s mother had been called to his school because her son had gotten into some trouble, but they were early and it was raining, so they ducked into the famous New York museum to look at Dutch masterpieces.

Dutch painter Carel Fabritius’s “The Goldfinch,” portrait of a small bird tethered to its perch on display at the museum, happened to the mother’s favorite. Ironically, the painter died in a 1654 gunpowder explosion that also destroyed most of his work.

While Theo’s gaze was caught by pretty redheaded Pippa (Aimee Laurence), his life was spared. The horrific blast created a gray moonscape of choking dust, debris and death, and in the rubble was the painting of the chained bird.

With his dying breath, an elderly gentleman named Blackwell urges Theo to take the priceless artwork of the goldfinch and deliver his ring to his partner Hobie (Jeffrey Wright) at an antique store.

In Hobie, Theo finds a lifelong mentor who tutors on the fine art of the restoration and dealing of antiques, leading to the adult Theo’s career path that ends up on shaky ground when a slippery art dealer (Denis O’Hare) lodges accusations of forging antiques for sale.

With deadbeat father Larry (Luke Wilson) nowhere in sight, young Theo is placed with the family of one of his school friends, the Barbours, where he forms a bond with Mrs. Barbour (Nicole Kidman), who shares his appreciation of art.

The upper-class Barbour family lives on ritzy Park Avenue, with a patriarch (Boyd Gaines) who seemingly cares only about sailing during the summer months in Maine. On the other hand, the stylish, reserved Mrs. Barbour gradually offers Theo tender affection.

Just when Theo is comfortable in his new home, the estranged dad shows up with his floozy girlfriend Xandra (Sarah Paulson) to take his son to live in a desolate exurb of Las Vegas where surrounding homes are boarded up for foreclosure sales.

Befriended by Russian-born delinquent Boris (Finn Wolfhard), the only boy in the neighborhood, Theo falls into a world of illicit drugs, drinking and smoking, trying to escape a family life marked by his father’s careless disregard and flights of anger.

When tragedy strikes, young Theo decides to flee Sin City, after scraping together enough cash to buy a bus ticket back to New York City, where Hobie is sure to provide shelter.

Reaching adulthood, Theo has held on to the stolen painting, keeping it wrapped in newspaper as a metaphorical reminder of his beloved mother. Yet, the artwork is a secret talisman, which both comforts and torments him.

Meanwhile, Theo achieves financial success as an antiques dealer, dressing fashionably and reconnecting with the Barbour family, and then becoming engaged to Kitsey Barbour (Willa Fitzgerald).

Romantic complications arise when Theo realizes he still has feelings for the now adult Pippa (Ashleigh Cummings), but nothing upends his life more than the chance encounter with adult Boris (Aneurin Barnard) and his ties to the criminal underworld.

Even though lacking familiarity with the source material, I would venture to say that the filmmakers were challenged to distill an expansive story with a lot of characters into a compelling narrative that works for a two and a half hours running time.

And yet, for what seems counterintuitive in regards to the abundance of storylines and potential for prolonged character development, “The Goldfinch” is too often lackluster, plodding and aimless.

Devotees of Donna Tartt’s opus may be curious to see the silver screen adaptation if for no better reason than to contemplate missed opportunities. All things considered, “The Goldfinch” appears to be tethered to its own cinematic limitations.

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

The Mendo-Lake Singers Chorus. Courtesy photo.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Mendo-Lake Singers Chorus is inviting women who love to sing to attend a sing-along party and experience the fun of singing a cappella, four-part harmony.

The party will kick off at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 24, at the group’s rehearsal space, 1125 Martin St., Lakeport.

Refreshments to follow. This is a free event.

Guests are encouraged to sing but are also welcome to just listen. You do not need to be able to read music and the chorus can help you find a part that fits your voice range.

If you would like more information about the Mendo-Lake Singers, visit http://mendolakesingers.wixsite.com/mendolake or follow Mendo-Lake Singers Chorus on Facebook.
Blog Left ad
Posted On

Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography.

Although this poem by Patrick Phillips, from American Poetry Review, is dedicated to a person we don't know, "For Paul" conveys feelings we've all experienced.

We don't need to know who "Paul" is. The poem is about sadness and resignation, and all of us have felt like this.

The poet's most recent collection of poems is Elegy for a Broken Machine, published by Knopf.

For Paul

I can see you through the bonfire, with us.
A fifth of Old Crow circling the dark.

Where did that whole life go? In Texas
the chemo inches toward your heart,

things always dwindling to just the two of us,
a crumpled cigarette, a distant car:

our voices, at dawn, so clearly posthumous.
Woodsmoke rising to the ashy stars.

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 ©2018 by Patrick Phillips, "For Paul," from the American Poetry Review, (Vol. 47, no. 6, 2018). Poem reprinted by permission of Patrick Phillips and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2019 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.
Posted On

Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke star in “The Miracle Worker.” Courtesy photo.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The 1962 drama, “The Miracle Worker,” starring Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke, screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, Sept. 24, at 1 and 6 p.m.

Entry to the film is by donation.

Arthur Penn directed this tense and riveting film version of William Gibson’s play about Helen Keller, a blind and deaf adolescent whose increasingly wild, angry behavior causes her desperate parents to hire teacher Anne Sullivan whose methods are forceful and unusual.

An eight-minute sequence where Sullivan attempts to teach the pupil some manners stands as one of the most electrifying and honest ever committed to film.

Bancroft and Duke both won Academy Awards for their startling, physical performances.

The movie is sponsored by the California Retired Teachers Assn. CalRTA Div. 35. Not rated. Run time is 1 hour and 47 minutes.

The Soper Reese Theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, 707-263-0577, www.soperreesetheatre.com.
Posted On

Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography.

If at times your world seems flat and uninteresting, I recommend making a cardboard viewfinder with a postage-stamp sized window.

Then look at what's around you through that. I think you'll be pleased and surprised by how much you can see when the rest is pushed outside of the frame.

This poem is from my book “Kindest Regards,” published by Copper Canyon Press.

Passing Through

I had driven into one side of a city,
and through it, and was on the way out
on a four-lane, caught up in the traffic,
when I happened to glance to my right
where a man stood alone smoking,
fixed in the shade of a windowless
warehouse, leaning back into a wall
with one shoe cocked against it,
the other one flat on the pavement.
He was beside me for only an instant,
wearing a short-sleeved yellow shirt
and gray work pants, as the hand
that held the cigarette swept out
and away, and he turned to watch it
as with the tip of a finger he tapped
once at the ash, which began to drift
into that moment already behind us,
as I, with the others, sped on.


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 ©2018 by Ted Kooser, "Passing Through," from Kindest Regards, (Copper Canyon Press, 2018). Poem reprinted by permission of Ted Kooser and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2019 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.

Subcategories

Cinema

Home and Garden

LCNews

Responsible local journalism on the shores of Clear Lake.

 

Memberships:

 

Search