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Arts & Life
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Western Swing Hall of Famer Tommy Thomsen and his six-piece band including steel guitar, sax and fiddle will bring a uniquely American style of dance to the Soper Reese Theatre at 7 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22.
Start practicing your two-step and be sure to bring your dancing shoes.
Reserved seating tickets are $25, 20 and 15.
Western Swing is an amalgam of blues, Dixieland, ragtime, big-band swing, country, pop and breakdowns.
Groups like Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and California during the 1930s and 1940s.
Contemporary bands include Asleep at the Wheel and the Hot Club of Cowtown.
Thomsen grew up in Sonoma, mixing it up with the likes of Commander Cody and Norton Buffalo, but he may be moving on.
Recently he purchased a roadhouse called the Church of Western Swing in the tiny West Texas town of Turkey, once the home of Thomsen’s musical idol, Bob Wills.
The concert is sponsored by Arlene Hanlon, Strong Financial Network, and Carol and Steve Schepper.
Tickets can be purchased online at www.soperreesetheatre.com or at The Travel Center, 825 S. Main St., Lakeport, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., or at the theater box office up to two hours ahead of showtime.
The Soper Reese Theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, 707-263-0577.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Trois Bois wind trio, hailing from the Bay Area, will perform at the Soper Reese Theatre on Saturday, Feb. 15, at 7 p.m. as part of the theatre’s Contemporary Chamber Music series.
Tickets are $20 for adults. Children 18 and under are free. Open seating.
Featuring Laura Reynolds on oboe, David Granger on bassoon and Patricia Shands on clarinet, the trio has been concertizing since 2009, championing a wide range of repertoire from the 18th century to the present day.
The group particularly enjoys providing verbal commentary and context for their repertoire and inviting listeners into the conversation.
Trois Bois programs span several centuries of music and feature many celebrated composers.
Sponsored by Kirsten Olson. For tickets go to www.soperreesetheatre.com or to The Travel Center, 825 S. Main, Lakeport, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information call 707-263-0577. The theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport.
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- Written by: Middletown Art Center
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The public is invited to dance to songs of love, lust and loss this Valentine’s Day, Friday, Feb. 14, at the Middletown Art Center from 7:30 to 11:30 p.m.
Let the beats penetrate your heart and move your soles into past, present, and future loves. Come with a partner or come alone.
DJ’s Shape Shift, Blue and Nic will provide something for everyone including Soul, Funk, R&B, House, World and Disco.
Admission is $12 and includes a warm gooey chocolate Love Bite from Goddess of the Mountain, or $2 credit towards another Goddess of the Mountain delicacy.
Children’s movies will be screened in the studio, supervision in the studio provided (donations appreciated) but parents must supervise their kids outdoors. Beer or wine available for purchase.
Celebrate love of all kinds at MAC this Valentine’s Friday.
The MAC is located at 21456 State Highway 175 at the junction of Highway 29 in the heart of Middletown.
Gallery hours are Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; or by appointment by calling 707-809-8118.
Visit www.middletownartcenter.org to learn more about upcoming classes, exhibitions, events and ways to support the MAC’s efforts to weave the arts and culture into the fabric of Lake County communities.
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- Written by: Ted Kooser
Last week I said that I planned to publish two beautiful poems of grief and loss by David Baker, from his new and selected poems, “Swift,” published last year by W. W. Norton.
This is the second of those poems.
Baker teaches at Denison University in Ohio and is the poetry editor of Kenyon Review, one of our most distinguished literary journals.
Mercy
Small flames afloat in blue duskfall, beneath trees
anonymous and hooded, the solemn trees--by ones
and twos and threes we go down to the water's level edge
with our candles cupped and melted into little pie-tins
to set our newest loss free. Everyone is here.
Everyone is wholly quiet in the river's hush and appropriate dark.
The tenuous fires slip from our palms and seem to settle
in the stilling water, but then float, ever so slowly,
in a loose string like a necklace's pearls spilled,
down the river barely as wide as a dusty road.
No one is singing, and no one leaves--we stand back
beneath the grieving trees on both banks, bowed but watching,
as our tiny boats pass like a long history of moons
reflected, or like notes in an elder's hymn, or like us,
death after death, around the far, awakening bend.
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 ©2019 by David Baker, "Mercy," from Swift, (W. W. Norton, 2019). Poem reprinted by permission of David Baker and the publisher. Introduction copyright @2020 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.