LAKEPORT, Calif. – The 1978 drama, “Days of Heaven,” screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, Oct. 9, at 1 and 6 p.m.

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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Come explore the characters of the NEA Big Read novel, “Into the Beautiful North,” through art at the Middletown Art Center on Sunday, Oct. 7.

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MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – An introductory class on sculpting with concrete will be offered as part of the Restore Project at the Middletown Art Center on Saturday, Oct. 6, from 1 to 5 p.m.

Artist Emily Scheibal will guide participants through the process of forming vessels out of quick-setting concrete. Line, shape, form and texture will take on new meaning.

Students will create their own vessels as simply or as ornately as they wish as Scheibal demonstrates her techniques using quick-set concrete over existing forms. Additional elements will be covered such as pigment, binders, and armatures.

Adults and children age 12 and up of all levels of art making experience, from newbies to professionals are invited to attend this fun and inspiring class for just $5. MAC will provide concrete and forms.

Participants are encouraged to bring their own rubber dish gloves. Extra items such as durable scissors and large bowls or buckets to mix concrete are appreciated (stainless steel, enameled, or rubber bowls, plastic buckets).

Instructor Emily Scheibal’s work can be seen at www.emilyscheibal.com and at www.quinterrastudio.com.

Please register in advance for all Restore classes at www.middletownartcenter.org/restore, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 707-809-8118. Space is limited and reservations are required.

The Restore project provides Lake County residents with low-cost art classes and the opportunity to learn or refine skills in a variety of materials techniques. Classes take place most Saturdays through May 2019.

Fall and winter classes include clay, woodworking, metalworking, felting, concrete, dry point, block printing and more. Late winter and spring classes will focus on personal and collaborative projects, studio time, mentoring and guidance to create personal and group work.

“While folks can join for just one class, we encourage participants to come to a series of classes to collaborate in project design and creation of a new Art Walk on Rabbit Hill. This concrete class will be particularly useful in thinking about what we can do as a community there,” explained MAC Program Director Lisa Kaplan.

“We’ll also be working towards personal projects for the EcoArts Sculpture Walk at Trailside Park, which we will reopen in June,” said Kaplan. “Both Rabbit Hill and Trailside Park were burned in the Valley fire and we are excited to revitalize those outdoor public spaces.”

A public call for work for the Sculpture Walk will be posted in January. Entries will be juried.

On Saturday, Oct. 13, also from 1 to 5 p.m., acclaimed Lake County poet Georgina Marie will return to MAC to lead the Writers Workshop.

Writing and printmaking workshops will contribute to MAC’s second chapbook of writings and images, as well as work for readings or exhibition.

The first chapbook, “Resilience – a community reframes disaster through art,” is available for purchase at MAC or on the MAC website. Learn more about RESTORE scheduling at www.middletownartcenter.org.

The Restore project was made possible with support from the California Arts Council, a state agency, with additional support from local organizations, businesses and individuals.

Visit www.ca.arts.gov to learn more about the California Arts Council’s important work in communities and schools throughout California.

Middletown Art Center is located at 21456 State Highway 175 at the junction of Highway 29. Be a part of the growing arts scene in South Lake County by becoming a MAC member, by joining MAC this Saturday and participating in Restore, or by attending one of the many arts and cultural events or classes at MAC.

Visit www.middletownartcenter.org or “Like” Middletown Art Center on Facebook to stay up-to-date with what’s happening at MAC.

MENDOCINO, Calif. – A dramatic new documentary about wildland fires and how we can make our communities fire safe will debut this weekend in Mendocino County.

“Wilder than Wild” will be screened at Preston Hall, 44867 Main St. next to the Presbyterian Church, in Mendocino.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the film beginning at 7 p.m.

Admission is free.

The hour-long documentary reveals how fuel buildup and climate change have exposed Western wild-lands to large, high intensity wildfires, while greenhouse gases released from these fires accelerate climate change.

This vicious cycle jeopardizes our forests and affects us all with extreme weather and more wildfires, some of which are now entering highly populated wildland/urban areas.

A sequence in “Wilder than Wild” shows how the Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa and the Redwood Valley fire, which began on Oct. 8, 2017, caused the destruction of 4,658 homes and killed 44. It shows how the "fires of the future" can include urban areas.

"Things are changing," said one firefighter, "If we don't change, we're going to see even more homes annihilated in these types of fires."

Following the screening there will be a panel discussion with Mendocino Fire Chief Ed O’Brien, Fire Captain Eric Chisholm and Mary Mayeda, who heads the Mendocino Fire Safe Council.

The moderator is the event’s organizer filmmaker Jim Culp.

For further information call 707-937-3755, or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The GenX Cinema series presents the 1985 horror film, “Fright Night,” starring Chris Sarandon and Roddy McDowell, on Wednesday, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m. at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport.

Entry is by donation.

A playful, loving homage to the golden age of horror, yet completely its own beastly fun ride of frights and thrills.

The tale, about a ”normal” man living next to a vampire, neatly parodies Alfred Hitchcock and John Hughes movies, and writer/director Tom Holland litters his rattling story with as many laughs as jolts.

The film is rated R with run time of 1 hour 34 minutes, and is sponsored by Blair Drywall and Painting.

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

A poem is an object carefully assembled of words, a "thing" that readers must reckon with just as they'd reckon with any other object.

The title poem of Adrian Koesters' new book, Three Days with the Long Moon, published by BrickHouse Books, sets out a number of disparate elements, then observes: "…this pen making / a thing of them."

So it's the "pen" in the hand of the poet that assembles the singular "thing" from the details. And that's how a poem comes to be.

This poet lives in Omaha and was one of our very able assistants on this column.

Three Days with the Long Moon

That field nag, old-penny
swayback. Low hawk, to
ducks in train to a quad of geese,
in case. Last night, the long

moon lay it seemed a tissue
of snow, but then dawn told
that wasn't so. Late morning, now,
the fire, the hearth, eggs

sitting for the mute plate
and fork, this pen making
a thing of them. Two more nights—
waterfowl safe and noisy

in the dusk, the low rails
running flank to the river
at midnight—find what they'll
make of that river, this moon.

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 ©2017 by Adrian Koesters, "Three Days with the Long Moon," from Three Days with the Long Moon, (BrickHouse Books, 2017). Poem reprinted by permission of Adrian Koesters and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2018 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.