The paintings of Georgia O’Keefe taught us a lot about bones in the desert, but there’s more to learn, and more to think our way into. Here’s a fine poem by Jillena Rose, who lives in Michigan.
Taos
Bones are easier to find than flowers in the desert, so I paint these: Fine white skulls of cows and horses.
When I lie flat under the stars in the back of the car, coyotes howling in the scrub pines, easy to feel how those bones are so much like mine: Here is my pelvis, like the pelvis I found today bleached by the sun and the sand. Same hole where the hip would go, same
white curve of bone beneath my flesh same cradle of life, silent and still in me.
The selling point for turning the nearly forgotten cult classic TV soap opera “Dark Shadows” into an extravagant big screen venture may be summed up by noting the pairing of two great talents: director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp.
A cinematic collaboration of Burton and Depp is longstanding, going back more than two decades when they first teamed up creatively, as director and star respectively, in “Edward Scissorhands.”
Ever versatile, Depp has starred in other Burton-directed films, including “Ed Wood,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” for which he won an Oscar.
That a Tim Burton movie starring Johnny Depp is the closest thing to a sure bet in the film industry is proven once again with the wickedly funny “Dark Shadows.”
Once again, Depp fits nicely in the role of an oddball character, this time Barnabas Collins, an unfortunate victim of a romance gone wrong during the late 18th century.
As a member of a prominent New England family that built a fishing empire in a coastal Maine town, Barnabas was rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy.
The master of Collinwood Manor, a massive 200-room mansion, Barnabas fell in love with a beauty named Josette (Bella Heathcote) and made the mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique (Eva Green).
A witch in every sense of the word, Angelique caused Josette to take her own life in a plunge from a cliff and then doomed Barnabas to a fate worse than death.
First, Barnabas was turned into a vampire and then buried alive in a steel coffin wrapped in unbreakable chains that was strategically placed deep underground on the outskirts of Collinsport.
Nearly two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb by a construction crew and emerges into the very changed world of 1972, an outsider in an even stranger time.
Awakened from his slumber, and being the vampire that he is, Barnabas has a nearly unquenchable thirst for blood, resulting in the immediate demise of the entire work crew.
Returning to Collinwood Manor, he finds that his once-stately mansion has fallen into shambles, tended by his descendants who are apparently incompetent stewards of the family estate.
Family matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the only person who seems to have the least bit of interest in holding together the family legacy.
Elizabeth’s brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) is a deadbeat. Her rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz) sulks constantly. Roger’s young son David (Gully McGrath) is precocious but mostly neglected by everyone.
The Collins family is so dysfunctional that they have a resident shrink, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), who spends most of her time hitting the bottle.
Speaking with a British accent, Barnabas turns out to behave in a rather odd and anachronistic fashion, his wit expressed in a deadpan manner that is grandly arch and delightfully skewering.
The newest member of the Collins’ household that fascinates Barnabas is the live-in nanny Victoria (Bella Heathcote), who coincidentally bears a striking resemblance to his great and long-deceased love Josette.
As Barnabas sets out to restore his family name to its former glory, the one impediment to his mission is the current leading denizen of Collinsport, the very same Angelique who remains an ageless beauty.
The passing of two centuries has not mellowed Anqelique one bit. She’s the same envious witch who buried Barnabas alive, and her jealousy is stirred once again upon realizing that the comely Victoria has attracted his attention.
Hostility between Barnabas and Angelique is not relegated to just romantic rivalry. Barnabas sets out to rebuild the family’s cannery in order to displace Angelique’s firm hold on the local fishing industry.
Aside from the clash of their business interests, Barnabas and Angelique engage in one massively huge physical skirmish that is fraught with electric sexual tension.
Whether jousting verbally with Angelique or sitting around the campfire with a bunch of hippies, Barnabas remains, for the most part, mannered and possessed of sublime gothic cool.
Indeed, the best thing about “Dark Shadows,” aside from the wit and deadpan humor expressed artfully by Johnny Depp, is simply the fact that Depp is very much in his element once again in a Tim Burton film.
Knowledge of the film’s underlying source material is absolutely irrelevant. All that matters is that “Dark Shadows” is thoroughly entertaining and should be an early winner in the summer movie sweepstakes.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – Lake County Wine Studio is presenting a one-night performance show with guitarist/song writer Jack Williams on Wednesday June 6, at 7 p.m.
Williams’ music, rooted in his native South Carolina, was shaped by a 54-year career of playing folk, rock, jazz, R&B, classical and the popular music of the 30s, 40s and 50s.
He is counted among the most dynamic performers on today’s “folk” music circuit.
Williams is an uncommonly unique guitarist, a writer of vivid songs with a strong sense of place, and a storyteller in an old Southern tradition who further illustrates each tale with his guitar.
A sought-after artist on all contemporary acoustic music stages, from coffeehouses and festivals to music halls and city arts stages; from acclaimed appearances at Newport, Boston, Philadelphia, Kerrville, New Bedford SummerFest Folk Festivals, his musicianship, songs, stories and commanding presence have established him as an uncommonly inspiring and influential performer.
Friendships with two great singers had an enormous impact on Williams’ career and on the development of his own singing voice.
In 1973, his relationship with the late Harry Nilsson resulted in an album effort at RCA during an ill-fated period of music industry turmoil.
Until 2002, he sometimes toured as solo accompanist to his friend, the late Mickey Newbury, with whom he co-wrote, co-produced and recorded a live album and video, “Nights when I am Sane” (reissued as “Winter Winds”).
From 1958 through 1988, along with playing jazz trumpet and classical guitar, Williams was best known as an electric guitarist in a series of original rock bands and smaller acoustic ensembles.
As a hired-gun guitarist in the Deep South of the Civil Rights-Easy Rider 1960s, Williams’ bands accompanied the likes of John Lee Hooker, Big Joe turner, Jerry Butler, Hank Ballard, the Shirelles and the Del-Vikings.E nriched from these varied influences, Williams’ music is truly an “All-American Southern” music.
In the late 1960s he gave in to his troubadour nature and began performing solo – singing and playing a gut-string guitar and touring from coast to coast. Seats are available at $20-plus tax per person. Light refreshments will be served; beer and wine will be available for purchase.
For reservations and additional information, contact Susan Feiler at 707-275-8030, 707-293-8752 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Lake County Wine Studio is located at 9505 Main St. in Upper Lake.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – Lightning Rod Gallery is pleased to present new paintings and drawings by well-known Lake County artist Tamsen Donner.
The show, entitled “ Animals Like Us,” continues Donner's recognition of, and affinity for, the dignity, humor, and mystery of the animal kingdom, among whom we number.
“We’re all part of the natural order,” Donner said. “It’s a dangerous belief that humans are at the top of some hierarchy.”
A California native, Donner traveled the world with her family as a child, spending time in Mexico, England, France and Italy, as well as Texas, Vermont and New York.
She attended various art schools in some of those places, earning her bachelor's degree at the University of Texas.
Always an independent thinker, she balances her knowledge of the accepted art canon with her own personal list of influences: Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Marisot, Caillebotte, Diebenkorn and Bischoff.
Widely shown in galleries in California and abroad, Donner’s paintings and drawings are at once evocative and whimsical.
She paints with oil on board, layering the paint in a process driven technique that is fresh and painterly.
She also is a master of the quick ink sketch, adding watercolor sparingly but to great affect in a series of small drawings.
Donner will be at the gallery for a reception from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 19. Stop by to see the work and meet her.
“Animals Like Us” will be up from May 19 to July 19.
Lightning Rod Gallery is located at 9475A Main St., Upper Lake.
Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For more information, call Susan Saunders at 707-275-8018 or 415-254-1846, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., like the gallery on Facebook or check out the gallery at www.lightningrodgallery.tumblr.com .
FORT BRAGG, Calif. – The Fort Bragg Center for the Arts Music Series presents two acclaimed American artists, violinist Dan Smiley and pianist Jonathan Shames, in concert on Sunday, May 20.
The concert begins at 3 p.m. in Preston Hall, Mendocino.
Tickets, which are $20, are available at Fiddles and Cameras, Harvest Market, Main Street Books, at www.brownpapertickets.com and at the door.
Smiley and Shames will perform “Sonata for Piano and Violin in A major” by Mozart, “Fantasy in C major for Violin and Piano” by Franz Schubert and “Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor” by Edward Elgar.
The Smiley-Shames Duo has been recognized as an exceptional collaboration presenting performances of the great masters with power, technical brilliance and artistry.
Julliard graduate Smiley served for more than a decade as principal second violin for the San Francisco Symphony.
He will be remembered locally as former concert master for the Mendocino Music Festival and as soloist in the Prokofiev and Brahms concertos.
Last year he gave a haunting performance of the Barber Violin Concerto with the Symphony of the Redwoods.
Pianist/conductor Shames won the l982 Moscow International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition.
Since then he has performed, recorded and conducted in France, Finland, South Korea and Russia and the U.S.
As a chamber musician Mr. Shames has performed with the Colorado, Moscow, Audobon and Vega String Quartets.
The Smiley-Shames Duo has inspired audiences with powerful performances infused with technical brilliance and deep artistry.
We’ve published a number of engaging poems about parenthood in this column, and we keep finding more. Here’s Wendy Videlock, who lives in Colorado, taking a look into a child’s room.
Disarmed
I should be diligent and firm, I know I should, and frowning, too; again you’ve failed to clean your room. Not only that, the evidence of midnight theft is in your bed— cracked peanut shells and m&m’s are crumbled where you rest your head, and just above, the windowsill is crowded with a green giraffe (who’s peering through your telescope), some dominoes, and half a glass of orange juice. You hungry child,
how could I be uncharmed by this, your secret world, your happy mess?
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