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Arts & Life
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- Written by: Editor
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Mark your calendars for “Symphony on the Lake” on Saturday, Aug. 16, a special fundraiser event for the Lake County Symphony Association.
The chamber music concert and twilight dinner overlooking beautiful Clear Lake will be held at Riviera Hills Golf and Country Club restaurant, 10200 Fairway Drive in Kelseyville.
Proceeds will help the organization provide scholarships, fund their youth education programs as well as the symphony.
The Lake County Symphony Chamber orchestra, under the direction of John Parkinson, will be performing music of Handel, Mozart and Telemann, and there will be a special appearance of Brasstastic!, the popular Northern California brass quintet.
The evening starts at 5 p.m. with sumptuous hors d'oeuvres served to all guests, and there will be a no host bar.
The concert starts at 6 p.m. on the patio overlooking the lake, and at 7:30 p.m. there will be a dinner in the banquet room.
A glass of wine is provided with the dinner choices, and the door prize is a basket of assorted Lake County Wines.
The price for all of this is only $75 per person, and the proceeds will help continue music programs in Lake County.
Brasstastic! – composed of members hailing from several counties in Northern California – will open the show. The group features Gary Miller and Dale Spencer on trumpet, Mike Thompson on horn, Brynn Stirling on trombone and Jake Turner on tuba.
Then the chamber orchestra will play Baroque selections starting with Handel's “Entrance of the Queen of Sheba” from “Solomon” followed by the beautiful Telemann double Flute concerto in A minor.
Featured flutists are Patricia Jekel, principal flute from the symphony and Audrey Gramke from Ukiah.
The horn section will be featured in the next selection which is also by Georg Philipp Telemann. It is the Suite for 2 horns and orchestra in F major, and will be followed by Serenade No. 2, a lively contradance by W.A. Mozart.
The concert will conclude with three very familiar selections from the Watermusik Suite by Handel.
Reservations close on July 31 so hurry to get your tickets.
For tickets, credit card sales and information on this special event, call 707-277-8172 or 707-245-1755, or visit http://www.clearlakeperformingarts.com/schedule.html .
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- Written by: Editor
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – Local favorite Whispering Light will perform for the Lake County Wine Adventure weekend at Twin Pine Casino this Saturday, July 26, and Sunday, July 27, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
Nationally acclaimed Whispering Light is the duo of Native American Music Awards nominee Kevin Village-Stone (Native American flutes, bass, keyboards) and award-winning guitarist Lindy Day (classical, acoustic, electric, saxophone, percussion).
This year, they released their new album “One Tribe” in 220 countries and 37 online retailers including iTunes, Amazon, Google and Sony.
Whispering Light just finished their CD release party at Featherbed Railroad Bed and Breakfast Resort here in Nice.
“What an incredible pleasure it was having you here to liven our garden and weekend with your beautiful music,” said Tony and Peggy Barthel, owners of Featherbed. “We hope this isn't the last time we ave an event like this with you and we absolutely share our guests' joy in how wonderful it is to both work with you and also how incredible a show you put on. You both are magical.”
For details on Whispering Light or the Twin Pine Casino performance visit www.WhisperingLight.com or call Twin Pine Casino at 800-564-4872.
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- Written by: Ted Kooser
Who hasn’t wished he or she could talk to a carnival worker and find out what their lives are like? Everybody, perhaps, but the carnival workers.
Here’s a poem by Mark Kraushaar of Wisconsin that captures one of those lives.
The Ring Toss Lady Breaks a Five
It’s all of it rigged, she says,
Bust-one-wins, Hi-striker, even the Dozer.
It’s like you think you’ll score that giant panda
for the wife except you can’t, or not
without you drop another twenty
and then—what?—then you win
a thumb-sized monkey or a little comb.
She hands me five ones and then stands.
She’s worked the whole of the midway,
she says, funnel cake to corn-dogs.
She’s worked every game
plus half the rides, Krazy Koaster,
Avalanche, Wing-Ding, Tilt-a-Whirl
and if there’s somebody sick she’ll do
a kiddy ride too, Li’l Choo-choo, maybe
the Tea Cup.
There’s a collapsing soft sigh
and she sits, opens the paper, turns a page
and as if she were the one assigned to face forwards,
as if it were her job to intuit the world
and interpret the news,
Anymore, she says, it’s out of our hands,
it’s all we can do—it’s not up to you.
You see that bald bronco tearing
tickets at the carousel?
We worked the Bottle-drop
and now he’s mine: he’s no genius
but he loves me and he’s mine.
Things happen, she says, you
can’t take them back.
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 the Alaska Quarterly Review. Mark Kraushaar’s most recent book of poems is The Uncertainty Principle, Waywiser Press, 2012. Poem reprinted from the Alaska Quarterly Review, Vol. 30, No. 1 & 2, by permission of 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. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
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- Written by: Tim Riley
PLANES: FIRE & RESCUE (Rated PG)
Disney Studios comes to the rescue for families with kids in a summer movie season filled mostly with adult fare and a fair share of lousy action pictures (think the latest “Transformers”).
Anyone would be hard-pressed to find something objectionable about “Planes: Fire & Rescue” as family entertainment, most especially for impressionable young children under the age of ten.
In true Disney fashion, “Planes” cleverly imagines a fantasy world inhabited only by talking inanimate objects, namely anything motorized, from SUVs and campers, fire trucks and mechanical equipment on wheels, to various types of aircraft.
At the film’s opening, the ostensible star of this adventure comedy is world-famous air racer Dusty Crophopper (voiced by Dane Cook), a spirited single-engine airplane who’s preparing to put on an aerial display of speed and daring stunts during the upcoming Corn Festival.
During a test run, Dusty comes perilously close to his last ride when it is learned that his gearbox is irreparably damaged, thus not allowing him to push his speed to the ultimate racing limit.
Dusty’s not about to return to the crop dusting business, so he looks for a second chance to join a dynamic crew of elite firefighting aircraft devoted to protecting historic Piston Peak National Park from raging wildfire.
But first, Dusty needs to be certified for his new career, and this requires training exercises conducted by hardened veteran fire-and-rescue helicopter Blade Ranger (Ed Harris), who’s not that impressed with his trainee’s celebrity status as a well-known air racer.
Dusty gets a better reception from flirty female air tanker Lil’ Dipper (Julie Bowen), the inscrutable heavy-lift helicopter Windlifter (Wes Studi), ex-military transport Cabbie (Dale Dye), and a lively bunch of brave all-terrain vehicles known as the Smokejumpers.
To be sure, Dusty may be demoralized that his glory days are something of the past, but it is no surprise to any adult that the little airplane that could will have its chance to prove to be heroic.
To push into familiar territory that would allow for acts of valor, the story sets up a bad guy in Cad Spinner (John Michael Higgins), a luxury SUV, who happens to be the Superintendent of Piston Peak fixated on showing off the park’s refurbished old lodge as a great tourist attraction.
Interestingly, Cad Spinner wants to impress his boss, the Secretary of the Interior (Fred Willard), the overseer of the National Parks. Represented by a 1968 Ford Bronco, this rugged outdoorsman does not flaunt his authority, unlike the smarmy park superintendent.
Blade Ranger and his crew are not enamored with the self-centered Park Superintendent, who has been diverting a big chunk for the firefighters’ budget to his lodge restoration project.
Things go wrong on the night of grand opening of Cad Spinner’s beloved old lodge, where the guests include an old married couple, Harvey and Winnie (Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara), two vintage campers wanting to celebrate their 50th anniversary of their honeymoon at Piston Peak.
The beauty of Piston Peak is lovingly advanced by loyal and trustworthy tour bus Ol’ Jammer (Barry Corbin), a gentle old soul who shares his love of the park’s history with a multitude of admiring daily visitors. Ol’ Jammer’s devotion is soon rewarded.
Predictably, a huge wildfire breaks out that threatens the major infrastructure of Piston Peak, putting a lodge full of automotive guests in peril. Naturally, Dusty, the neophyte firefighter, rises to the occasion, putting his own life in danger by exceeding the speed capacity of his gearbox to drop water on the forest flames.
There’s plenty of smoke, fire and water to go with the fast-moving action of “Planes: Fire & Rescue,” resulting in spectacular firefighting scenes that pay appropriate homage to dedicated wildlife firefighters everywhere.
Not surprisingly, this Disney film is lavishly illustrated to achieve a visual fluidity that is enhanced by the 3-D experience. The fire effects are especially dazzling and brightly realized.
A nice touch, mostly for the adults in tow, is the gentle spoof of vintage television. Erik Estrada provides the voice of America’s favorite helicopter cop Nick “Loopin” Lopez, star of CHoPs, a show about two California Helicopter Patrol choppers.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.