MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Art Center is bustling with activity as class participants and teachers prepare for the opening reception of “Community Works” on Saturday, May 18, from 5 to 7 p.m.

The exhibit is comprised of work created in three different programs that took place at MAC this past year: Woodland Community College Lake County Campus Art 4A and the exhibit “Emerging”, the Restore project, and ArtVentures for Homeschoolers, each taught by MAC artists.

“It’s the diversity of work and artists that makes the show!” said Susan Littlefield who participated in the Art 4A class.

“We worked together to choose and hang our best works, and the arrangement created a new piece of art in and of itself. It reflects the collaborative and supportive spirit of our class,” added Ava Kennedy.

The 2018 spring semester was the first time Woodland Community College, or WCC, offered art classes at the MAC.

“I am so pleased that we are able to offer affordable access to quality semester-long art courses for WCC,” said course instructor and MAC Programs Director Lisa Kaplan. “This class was very similar to a Foundation Drawing class I taught at the Art Institute of California, San Francisco in the late 1990s, except that WCC students are not necessarily preparing for a career in the arts. But they were receptive to the rigor and quality of instruction and learning and it shows up in their work, and in the exhibit.”

Woodland Community College will continue to offer classes at MAC during the 2019-20 academic year beginning with Art 4B in the fall.

Those interested in developing skills drawing the human figure, landscapes, and architecture should sign up for class at https://wcc.yccd.edu/admissions/apply-today/ . A prerequisite of a basic drawing class, or commensurate experience or course work is required. Contact the WCC or the MAC to learn more.

Mixed media, woodworking and prints from the Restore project have also been carefully placed in the MAC gallery’s attractive spaces. The Restore project now drawing to a close provided Lake County residents with low-cost art classes on weekends from July 2018 through May 2019, and the opportunity to learn or refine skills in a variety of materials and techniques.

Classes were open to adults of all ages and teens and included monthly writers workshop, printmaking, sculpture and mixed-media.

Participants engaged in both personal and in collaborative projects like Vertical Pathways at Rabbit Hill, which opens Friday, May 17, from 5 to 7 p.m.

The collection of work on view in the gallery now is inclusive and compelling. Come to the reception this Saturday and see for yourself.

The Restore project was made possible with support from the California Arts Council, a state agency. Visit www.ca.arts.gov to learn more.

View “Community Works” and see what kind of art our community is up to. Be a part of enjoying and sustaining the arts and culture in Lake County by becoming a MAC member, by participating in classes, or by attending one of the many events at MAC.

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

MAC is located at 21456 State Highway 175 at the junction of Highway 29.

UPPER LAKE, Calif. – May 18-19 is Wine Adventure Weekend in Lake County and the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake adds to the festivities by pairing jazz virtuosos Mads Tolling and Jeff Massanari in a Concert with Conversation in the Meeting House next to the Hotel on Saturday, May 18.

“Jeff Massanari is an amazing guitarist whom we’ve gotten to know well because he has a summer house here in Lake County,” said Tallman owner Bernie Butcher. “When Jeff mentioned that he’d done a number of gigs with Mads Tolling, who I’d been blown away by at a show at Yoshi’s in Oakland, I jumped at the chance to book them both for a concert here.”

A Berklee School of Music graduate, Jeff Massanari has been performing and teaching jazz and blues since he was a teenager. He is fluent in many styles including straight-ahead jazz, fusion, blues, rock and country.

Massanari is often called on to accompany visiting artists with the San Francisco Symphony at Davies Hall. He also has a long-term commitment to bringing jazz to high school students in the North Bay Area.

“Jeff put together an amazing show for us last year with the vocalist Kenny Washington,” said Butcher, “and I’m really looking forward to this one with Mads.”

Also a Berklee graduate, summa cum laude, Mads Tolling is a Danish-American violinist, violist, composer and two-time Grammy Award-Winner. A former member of the Turtle Island Quartet, he has recorded five albums as a bandleader with his own groups, including his current touring band Mads Tolling and the Mads Men.

Tolling has received commissions to write and solo with symphony orchestras and he has performed several times with Jeff Massanari along with such luminaries as Chick Corea and Ramsey Lewis.

Tickets for the concert on Saturday May 18, cost $25 plus tax and are available by calling the Tallman Hotel at 707-275-2244, Extension 0. Coffee and cookies are served to guests.

The Hotel is also offering a 10 percent discount on hotel bookings that weekend for people purchasing tickets to the concert.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The 1949 action adventure, “Wake of the Red Witch,” starring John Wayne and Gail Russell, screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, May 28, at 1 and 6 p.m.

Entry to the film is by donation.

Wayne plays a complicated, two-fisted character who is capable of much love and hatred in this unusual and dreamlike tale of the high seas set in the East Indies.

Fine performances from Wayne and Russell, and in fact from the entire cast.

The movie is sponsored by the Konocti Bay Sailing Club. Not rated. Run time is 1 hour and 45 minutes.

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

How many of our mothers set aside what they wanted to do with their lives and chose instead to make good lives for us?

This poem is from Faith Shearin's sixth book, Darwin's Daughter, published in 2018 by Stephen F. Austin State University Press. Shearin, of West Virginia, has become one of this column's favorite poets.

My Mother's Van

Even now it idles outside the houses
where we failed to get better at piano lessons,
visits the parking lot of the ballet school

where my sister and I stood awkwardly
at the back. My mother's van was orange
with a door we slid open to reveal
beheaded plastic dragons and bunches

of black, half-eaten bananas; it was where
her sketchbooks tarried among
abandoned coffee cups and

science projects. She meant to go places
in it: camp in its back seat
and cook on its stove while

painting the coast of Nova Scotia,
or capturing the cold beauty of the Blue Ridge
mountains at dawn. Instead, she waited
behind its wheel while we scraped violins,

made digestive sounds
with trumpets, danced badly at recitals
where grandmothers recorded us

with unsteady cameras. Sometimes, now,
I look out a window and believe I see it,
see her, waiting for me beside a curb,

under a tree, and I think I could open the door,
clear off a seat, look at the drawing in her lap,
which she began, but never seemed to finish.


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 ©2018 by Faith Shearin, "My Mother's Van," from Darwin's Daughter, (Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2018). Poem reprinted by permission of Faith Shearin and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2019 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.

‘LONG SHOT’ (Rated R)

As far as romantic comedies go, Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron are such a mismatched pair that the tag line “Unlikely But Not Impossible” advertising “Long Shot” is the only realistic explanation for any amorous chemistry for their characters.

Rogen’s Fred Flarsky, an opinionated, gonzo-style journalist for an alternative newspaper who is goofy and blundering, comes off pretty much like any loud, obnoxious character he’s ever played in his movies.

On the other hand, Theron’s Charlotte Field, elegant, glamorous and beautiful, is a powerful political figure as the youngest secretary of state serving a president (Bob Odenkirk) who, to put it charitably, seems ambivalent about the affairs of state.

Flarsky’s job at the muckraking Brooklyn Advocate vanishes during a corporate takeover. His best friend Lance (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) invites him to a swanky party featuring Boyz II Men, hoping for some good cheer.

A chance encounter at the posh party with the secretary of state stirs up old memories for Fred, who realizes she was his next-door babysitter for whom he had a childhood crush that is soon to be rekindled.

An ambitious diplomat pushing a global environmental initiative with foreign leaders, Charlotte is making all the right moves to run for president, hoping for the support of her boss who has decided not to seek re-election.

Her campaign team’s polling research shows she needs to enhance her image with more humor and appropriate hand gestures. To punch up her speeches, Charlotte offers the out-of-work Fred the job of a speechwriter.

Unkempt and unconventional, Fred’s hire does not go over well with Charlotte’s principal staff, gatekeeper Maggie (June Diane Raphael), who is always casting nasty aspersions, and personal assistant Tom (Ravi Patel). Friction is always a staple of political campaigns.

The unmarried Charlotte enjoys media frenzy over her link to the handsome yet vacuous Canadian Prime Minister (Alexander Skarsgard), but the relationship appears to be nothing more than the kind that gets photo coverage in glossy magazines.

Surprisingly, during a whirlwind of foreign travels from Sweden to the Philippines and beyond, Charlotte and Fred draw closer to romantic attraction, even though the notion seems ludicrous on its face.

The first to know about the budding romance, of course, would be the Secret Service agents, but cynical Maggie is not far behind and becomes vocally adamant that it could derail Charlotte’s ambitions for higher office.

A media mogul (Andy Serkis) seeks to undermine an element of Charlotte’s green initiative, and ammunition comes his way when a web video of sexual embarrassment for Fred becomes an element of blackmail against the Secretary of State.

“Long Shot” posits that a politician owning a sex scandal with brutal candor may be an inoculation against political fallout. This is like Paul Giamatti winning the Attorney General election in “Billions” for publicly copping to sadomasochism in his private life.

There are some laughs with Fred inappropriately dressed for a state dinner by Charlotte’s staff or the time that Charlotte experiments with the drug Molly and while still high has to negotiate for a hostage release.

One’s enjoyment of the comical aspects of “Long Shot” rests almost entirely on an appreciation of Seth Rogen’s brand of humor. On the other hand, Charlize Theron upends the maxim that politics is show business for ugly people.

‘PARADISE HOTEL’ ON FOX

The reality TV series “Paradise Hotel” running on the FOX network is a revival of the same concept that first aired in 2003, and then became an international hit with similar versions produced around the world.

Television personality and reality star Kristin Cavallari is hosting the brand new “Paradise Hotel,” an unscripted dating competition series in which sexy singles try to remain at a resort hotel as long as possible.

The contestants check into a luxury tropical resort and Cavallari advises the contestants to “hook up or you are checking out.” Just like other reality shows, these singles get to vote off one of their fellow residents to make room for a new guest.

In a new twist for an age now obsessed with social media like Twitter, viewers can play along at home by trying to influence what happens on screen, including helping to decide who stays and who goes.

The one who lasts the longest gets the prize money of $250,000. To follow along, it may be a good idea to keep in mind the admonitions from Cavallari about how to play the game.

The unwritten rules would include “be smart and use your head not your heart” and “form alliances” but “don’t trust anybody.” Stating the obvious, any contestant should “pick the right partner.”

“Paradise Hotel” could be viewed as a variation not only of its original self, but others like “Temptation Island,” where couples tested their relationships by living with a group of singles of the opposite sex.

The unanswered question, for the moment, is whether another reality show with sexy beautiful people will strike a chord with an audience willing to have vicarious thrills.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – This weekend is the last chance to see Lake County Theatre Co.’s production of the satirical comedy "Red, White, and Tuna."

The entire cast of 20 characters is played by only two talented actors: Lakeport's very own mayor, Tim Barnes, and Rod Rehe.

Performances are held at the Lower Lake Schoolhouse Museum on Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

Tickets are available at www.lctc.us or at the door.