The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) will be sponsoring an art contest to select the design for the state’s 2012 upland game bird stamp.
This is the third design that will be featured in the “Encore Edition” since returning to the use of original artwork for the stamp’s image in 2009.
The contest is open to all U.S. residents over the age of 18 . Entries will be accepted from Oct. 22, 2011, until the contest deadline on Jan. 31, 2012.
The species to appear on the 2012 upland game bird stamp is the band-tailed pigeon (Columba fasciata).
The design must include at least one adult band-tailed pigeon. Designs will be judged on originality, artistic composition, anatomical accuracy and suitability for reproduction as a stamp and print.
An upland game bird stamp is required for hunting migratory and resident upland game birds in California.
The money generated from stamp sales can only be spent on upland game bird related conservation projects, education, hunting opportunities and outreach.
Hunters are no longer required to physically attach the stamp to their license, but the stamps are still produced and mailed to purchasers upon request.
DFG sells about 200,000 upland game bird stamps annually, which includes sales to collectors who value them for their artist depiction of upland game birds.
In addition to the stamps, DFG typically issues signed, limited edition prints that are valued by art collectors.
The upland game bird stamp contest will be judged by a panel of experts in the fields of ornithology, conservation, art and printing.
The winning artist will be selected during a public judging event to be held in the spring of 2012.
A date has not yet been set for the judging.
For contest information and entry forms, please visit the DFG Web site at www.dfg.ca.gov/upstamp.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Two very special groups of women musicians will meet this weekend at the Soper Reese Theater in Lakeport.
Shows will take place at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 23.
Triskela Harp Trio (www.triskelaharptrio.com) returns for their third concert at the Soper Reese, highlighting Celtic and Latin harp music on a variety of traditional harps.
Your heart strings will be touched by romantic Irish airs and ballads, and by the exciting rhythms of South America.
Triskela's beautiful, hand-made harps and fresh arrangements are complimented by lush vocals, flute, penny whistle and percussion.
On Sunday, there will be a special presentation “History of the Harp” from 1:15 p.m. to 1:35 p.m.
Il Mio Divas (www.miodivas.moonfruit.com), are eight local Lake County women who have formed a spinoff group from The Noble Singers (the group that performs in the Renaissance Christmas Pageant & Feast every year in Middletown).
The group, under the direction of Claudia Listman, has been developing a repertoire of a cappella songs from England and Italy from the 15th through 17th centuries.
From rounds to drinking songs, love songs, dances and more, the songs range from fun and bawdy to haunting and lovely.
Sung entirely without accompaniment, the songs themselves weave into complex arrangements with beautiful harmonies.
Il Mio Divas sang all of the music in this summer’s production of Romeo & Juliet at the Soper Reese, and made such an impression that they were invited back to be the opening act for Triskela
The Il Mio Divas act will consist of over a dozen songs. Il Mio Divas also performs annually at the Lower Lake Renaissance Festival on Memorial Day Weekend, as part of The Nobles Singers in the Renaissance Christmas Pageant in December, and at various local theatrical productions, parties, wineries, etc.
The box office can be contacted at 707-263-0577. Tickets can be ordered online at: www.ticketturtle.com/index.php?ticketing=srct. Tickets cost $20 for general admission, $22 for reserved seating.
The Soper-Reese Community Theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, www.soperreesetheatre.com.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Watershed Books will host Native American storyteller and musician Kevin Village Stone on Saturday, Oct. 22.
The event will take place from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Being of Cherokee and Japanese ancestry and living in Lake County, Kevin Village Stone records and performs original instrumental compositions of Native American and Ecuadorian flutes over both modern and traditional instruments.
Having been classically trained and now a retired professional from the music industry, his main instruments of study are native flutes. bass guitars, keyboard and piano following jazz and classical trumpet.
Depending on the venue, his music sets can range from soothing backgrounds to smooth jazz, to high energy progressive rock/jazz/electronica fusion.
As a storyteller of traditional Native American stories, Stone is also known to take breaks from his music performance to bring laughter and wonder anytime children are around.
The unique flavor of Stone's music is that he writes and arranges it all himself and plays every instrument on his CDs.
His recordings also include the renowned “Whispering Light” series of meditation music, a favorite of yoga instructors, massage therapists and well-being practitioners throughout California.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – There is still time take part in the Lake County Arts Council's “Painted Wine Bottle” fundraiser.
The event is a benefit for the organization's Main Street Gallery, which brings to the Lake County community the artwork of local artists and crafters.
The arts council invites artists and crafters to paint and decorate wine bottles and donate them to the gallery to raise funds to support the ongoing operation of the gallery.
Membership in the arts council is not necessary to participate.
The painted wine bottles will be on display and available for purchase at the Main Street Gallery during the months of November and December.
Painted bottles can be dropped of at the Main Street Gallery, Lakeport, during regular business hours through Nov. 27.
All participating artists and crafters will have the opportunity cast a vote in the “Artists Choice Award” selecting the most original and creatively presented painted wine bottle.
For more information call Judy Cardinale, gallery coordinator, at 707-263-6658 or 707-279-9780.
Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. Photo by UNL Publications and Photography.
Your high school English teacher made an effort to teach you and your bored classmates about sonnets, which have specific patterns of rhyme, and he or she used as an example a great poem by Keats or Shelley, about some heroic subject. To counter the memory of those long and probably tedious hours, I offer you this perfectly made sonnet by Roy Scheele, a Nebraska poet, about a more humble, common subject.
Woman Feeding Chickens
Her hand is at the feedbag at her waist,
sunk to the wrist in the rustling grain
that nuzzles her fingertips when laced
around a sifting handful. It’s like rain,
like cupping water in your hand, she thinks,
the cracks between the fingers like a sieve,
except that less escapes you through the chinks
when handling grain. She likes to feel it give
beneath her hand’s slow plummet, and the smell,
so rich a fragrance she has never quite
got used to it, under the seeming spell
of the charm of the commonplace. The white
hens bunch and strut, heads cocked, with tilted eyes,
till her hand sweeps out and the small grain flies.
Color me skeptical about a movie focused on the obsession of an ornithology hobby involving competitive bird-watching.
Oops, according to “The Big Year,” the practice of watching various avian species is called “birding” and the practitioners are “birders.”
The premise of “The Big Year” is that three disparate men, each facing unique personal and professional challenges, try to do outdo each other in the ultimate North American birding competition.
Some would say, if they are not members of the Audubon Society, that birding is a peculiar, even eccentric hobby, and even more so when it is competitive.
Yet, the oddity of frantically searching for elusive birds in far-flung locales, often remote and almost inaccessible, adds quirky humor to the practice.
“The Big Year” focuses on three individuals, each with his own eccentricities, in a quest during the length of a calendar year to top the record of 732 bird-sightings.
The ability to drop everything on a moment’s notice to fly to Louisiana or Alaska to follow up on the finding of a rare species would seem to require great financial means.
This would explain corporate titan Stu Preissler’s (Steve Martin) ability to chase rumors of the latest find on an Aleutian island.
The current birding champion is contractor Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson), so obsessed with keeping his record that he neglects his beautiful wife (Rosamund Pike), even while she is undergoing fertility tests.
The last member of the competitive trio is the one with little visible financial means, a divorced computer programmer stuck in a dead-end job.
Jack Black brings his traditional slacker/goofball persona to the role of 36-year-old Brad Harris, who will max out his credits cards while depending on help from his supportive mom (Dianne Wiest).
Meanwhile, Brad’s cantankerous father (Brian Dennehy), expressing the type of skepticism that could only come from paternal concern about a son’s future, is dubious about the whole exercise.
On the other hand, Stu’s wife (JoBeth Williams) understands his passion, but his executive assistants (Kevin Pollak and Joel McHale) are apoplectic that the boss jeopardizes merger deals by his peripatetic adventures.
Several dynamics are in play during the travels to scenic venues throughout North America. The devious Kenny, not averse to playing manipulative games, is the competitor worthy of contempt.
In a quest to overtake Kenny’s record, Stu and Brad strike up an unlikely friendship and form a cautious bond to locate as many feathered friends as possible.
Anjelica Huston has some delightful scenes as a sort of Tugboat Annie, taking the birders on an ocean cruise. Her utter contempt for Kenny is one of the film’s funniest moments.
“The Big Year” is an amiable comedy that is graciously amusing, focused more on gentle situational humor than the big laughs generated by raunchier films. After all, the PG rating is appropriate for this genial entertainment.
While the birding mania may be a foreign concept to the overwhelming majority of filmgoers, the winning trio of Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black should appeal to the mainstream.
Each actor brings elements of his well-established comic persona to the big screen, but in a muted fashion that is entirely fitting with the oddball nature of “The Big Year.”
The film’s evident charms also extend to the beauty of a first-rate travelogue of scenic habitats and the stunning photography of lovely wild birds.
DVD RELEASE UPDATE
British TV crime series are often better than the American counterparts. Case in point, “Prime Suspect” on the Britain’s ITV network is better than the show of the same title on NBC’s fall schedule.
That is neither here nor there when it comes to “Without Motive,” and yet this British series is a dark mystery in the same vein of the British “Prime Suspect.”
You can judge for yourself with the DVD release of “Without Motive,” which aired on ITV a decade ago and now is available for the first time in the U.S.
Detective Constable Jack Mowbray (Ross Kemp) and his team spend Series 1 in search of a serial killer, who brutally murdered a young woman in Bristol.
The “Without Motive” DVD also contains Series 2, in which Mowbray, along with an investigating team rife with petty jealousies and full-blown rivalries, searches for a copycat criminal.
This British series is a gripping drama, one containing graphic violence and strong language. It would never run on our network television.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
