KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with toe-tapping music at the Fiddlers’ Jam at the Ely Stage Stop Barn on Sunday, May 5, from noon to 2 p.m.
The May raffle basket features an array of Cinco de Mayo-themed gifts, including a gift certificate from Angel’s in Finley.
A beautiful bouquet of flowers is again donated by Traci of Flowers by Traci, located in downtown Kelseyville. Many thanks to the businesses who continue to support the Ely.
With the warmer weather, the barbecue will be fired up again. Hamburgers, hot dogs, nachos, strawberry shortcake and beverages will be available for sale.
Come early to find your seat in the barn. Take the time to enjoy the sunshine, food and the antique wagons.
The gates are open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free.
The Ely Stage Stop is located at 9921 Soda Bay Road, between Kelseyville and Lower Lake.
Ami Verhey and Colleen Schimansky review their prints with studio assistant Darina Simeonova at the Middletown Art Center in Middletown, Calif. Courtesy photo. MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Art Center invites the public to its final Restore printmaking class featuring drypoint etching and monotype with artist Nicholas Hay, assisted by Darina Simeonova.
The class will take place this Saturday, May 4, from 1 to 5 p.m.
Adults and children age 11 and up of all levels of art making experience, from newbies to professionals, can attend this fun and inspiring class for just $5.
“We’ll be working with both drypoint and monotype this time,” explained Hay. “For drypoint, we’ll draw into a plastic plate with a metal etching pen. Participants can make changes and refinements to their image and run their plate through the press several times during class. We‘ll also flip the plate to work in free hand monotype with the same image, or with a new image on a separate plate. In monotype one draws with printing ink directly onto the plate, then runs the plate through the press, which lends itself more easily to working with color! The process of printmaking is quite magical, and anyone who likes to draw can create compelling images.”
Please register in advance for all Restore classes at http://www.middletownartcenter.org/restore, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 707-809-8118. Space is limited and reservations are required.
Work from printmaking and writing classes will contribute to MAC’s second chapbook of writings and images, as well as Restore exhibitions.
The final writers’ workshop with Georgina Marie and Casey Carney will be held May 11 from 1 to 5 p.m. MAC’s first chapbook, Resilience – a community reframes disaster through art, is available for purchase at MAC or on the MAC Web site. You can preview the book at www.middletownartcenter.org/chapbook .
Installation of Vertical Pathways on Rabbit Hill, a collaborative art work by Restore sculpture workshop participants, begins Sunday, May 5, at 10 a.m. Folks wishing be a part the project by assisting with installation can meet at MAC at 10 a.m. or stop by Rabbit Hill to help between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
A festive opening reception in partnership with the Lake County Land Trust, stewards of Rabbit Hill, will take place May 17, from 5 to 7 p.m. Call the art center to learn more at 707-809-8118.
The Restore project was made possible with support from the California Arts Council, a state agency, with additional support from the Lake County Land Trust and other local organizations, businesses, and individuals.
Visit www.arts.ca.gov to learn more about the California Arts Council’s work in communities and schools throughout California. Learn more about the Lake County Land Trust at www.lakecountylandtrust.org.
Be a part of the growing arts and cultural scene in South Lake County by becoming a MAC member, by participating in Restore classes, or by attending one of the many events or classes at MAC.
Be sure to catch the first First Fridays Art Walk of the season this Friday, May 3, from 6 to 9 p.m. featuring a fashion show by Lake County makers.
The MAC Gallery currently features “Living Color,” a vibrant exhibit open to the public Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Fridays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Paul Robeson in “Show Boat.” Courtesy photo. LAKEPORT, Calif. – The 1951 musical, “Show Boat,” starring Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel and Ava Gardner, screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, May 14, at 1 and 6 p.m.
Entry to the film is by donation.
Based on an Edna Ferber novel, with score by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, “Show Boat” abounds with wonderful songs that are staples of musical theater including “Make Believe,” “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man,” “Why Do I Love You?” and, best of all, “Ol’ Man River.”
Musicals made in Hollywood before “Show Boat” were frilly, simple boy-meets-girl scenarios with a string of unrelated songs, but “Show Boat” changed all that, adding drama and complexity by giving audiences a cohesive story, songs that are linked to the plot, and a theme that touches on serious subjects such as slavery and intermarriage.
The movie is sponsored by Arlene Hanson. Not rated. Run time is 1 hour and 48 minutes.
The Soper Reese Theatre is located at 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, 707-263-0577, www.soperreesetheatre.com.
Dancer Clara Carstensen. Photo by Thomas Delgado. UKIAH, Calif. – Every spring, for the past 16 years, the Mendocino College Spring Dance Festival has provided entertainment for the entire family.
This year is no exception.
Mendocino College dancers and local guest performers will take to the Mendocino College Center Theatre stage on Thursday, May 2, Friday, May 3, and Saturday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 5 at 2 p.m. to share what they have to say, through movement.
Dance styles such as hip-hop, jazz, contemporary, ballet, and Middle Eastern dance will be performed.
Illuminating the stage with their passions, concerns, and ideas, Mendocino College student chorographers Jasmine Byerley, Clara Carstensen, Yves Charles, Rickie Emilie Farah, Traci Hunt, Oscar Montelongo Medina, Carolina Torres, Ari Sunbeam, and Megan Youell will share their original works.
Jasmine Byerley speaks about her riveting duet Solitude, which she performs with Oscar Montelongo Medina: “Anxiety, failure, pride, fear – what if we did not have to face our demons alone? This piece contemplates the isolation that comes from the fear of admitting the need for help.”
Choreographer Carolina Torres explores the subtle struggles of living with a mother who suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in a power solo titled, Part of Me.
In contrast, Clara Carstensen’s dance 21, 13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1 melds her love of life with her interest in science.
“The name of the dance comes from the Fibonacci sequence, which is shown in the dancers’ steps and which represents the processes of how people accomplish their goals in life,” Carstensen said.
Rickie Farah, who will be graduating with an AA from Mendocino College this spring and attending school in Southern California to complete her BFA in Theater, debuts her first piece of choreography this spring, “Aferrándonos.”
Farah’s title reflects the passion she puts into her work: “Afferrándos means to hang on or hold on to each other,” she says, “and in this case, it is about the struggles of holding on to one another in a world full of diversions pulling one in different directions.”
First time choreographer Megan Youell brings her creative imagination to a group of nine dancers in her dynamic work When We Break. Youell said, “When We Break imagines people made of glass, who break under the stress brought on by anxiety.”
Veteran choreographers Traci Hunt, Yves Charles, Ari Sunbeam, and Oscar Montelongo Medina will also present new works that explore themes such as magnetism, the surrealism of scrawling text, the humor behind swimming with sharks, and what happens when someone continually asks you, “how are you doing?”
Mendocino College dancers. Photo by Thomas Delgado. Dances choreographed by college dance instructors Rachel Young and Eryn Schon-Brunner will also be presented, with special appearances by Middle-Eastern dancer Juliana Castillo and Mendocino Ballet Co.
Mendocino Ballet will share original works by Trudy McCreaner and Piper Faulk, as well as a restaging of Ivanov and Petipa’s Swan Lake Pas de Deux, with Yves Charles (Mendocino College Dance) and Hannah Woolfenden (Mendocino Ballet Co.).
Mendocino College singers and musicians will share the stage with the dancers, and the Mendocino College Art Gallery, featuring student art works, will be open before the show and during intermission. It will be a multimedia event.
Additionally, Dance Club scholarships will be awarded during the evening to Traci Hunt and Jasmine Byerley, and the Kayla Grace Chesser Scholarship Awards will be presented to Rickie Farah and Margarita Diaz.
The Spring Dance Festival is a family-friendly event. Tickets are $10 for everyone and can be purchased at the door or in advance at the Mendocino College Bookstore, the Mendocino Book Company, in Ukiah or online.
Tickets may also be ordered over the phone by calling 707-468-3079. The Mendocino College Center Theatre is located at 1000 Hensley Creek Road, Ukiah.
Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography. There's nothing that can't be a good subject for a poem. The hard part is to capture something in such a way that it becomes engaging and meaningful.
Here's a poem from the Summer 2018 issue of Rattle, by Peg Duthie of Tennessee, in which two very different experiences are pushed up side by side. Her most recent book of poetry is “Measured Extravagance” (Upper Rubber Boot, 2012).
Decorating a Cake While Listening to Tennis
The commentator's rabbiting on and on about how it's so easy for Roger, resentment thick as butter still in a box. Yet word from those who've done their homework is how the man loves to train––how much he relishes putting in the hours just as magicians shuffle card after card, countless to mere humans but carefully all accounted for. At hearing "luck" again, I stop until my hands relax their clutch on the cone from which a dozen more peonies are to materialize. I make it look easy to grow a garden on top of a sheet of fondant, and that's how it should appear: as natural and as meant-to-be as the spin of a ball from the sweetest spot of a racquet whisked through the air like a wand.
Role reversal is often a thing at the movies, and the Tom Hanks movie “Big” readily comes to mind when a 13-year-old boy magically wakes up the next morning in an adult’s body while retaining his adolescent mindset.
Switch the age, race and gender and the result is “Little” and a 38-year-old black woman becomes a middle-schooler who maintains the attitude and mentality of her adult self.
Regina Hall’s Jordan Sanders, who had suffered the indignities of bullying and ostracism in middle school, vowed to become a mean girl success as an adult in the highly competitive business world.
Jordan’s desires became reality as the founder and boss of a thriving software company whose enormous ego is inflated by blow-ups of magazine covers featuring her grand achievements adorning the office walls.
Having achieved the trappings of success with a swank apartment, exotic car and closets full of glamorous clothes, Jordan exercises tyrannical power by verbal abusing her browbeaten assistant April (Issa Rae) and all others in her employ.
When a young girl doesn’t take kindly to Jordan’s harsh arrogance, she uses her amateur magician standing to wave a wand wishing that the devilish Jordan would be brought down in size as just punishment.
The hex is realized when Jordan wakes up the next day inside the body of her teenage self and is soon reported to child protective services as a truant minor who has to be enrolled in the same middle school where she had suffered humiliation some twenty-five years earlier.
Suddenly, the younger version of Jordan (Marsai Martin) has to rely on the beleaguered April to manage the tech company and to make some big adjustments to boost employee morale and to try to keep a vital client from defecting to another firm.
There’s expected humor in the predicament now faced by the younger Jordan who still doesn’t fit in at school and is quickly relegated to only being welcome at the nerds’ table during lunch breaks.
Meanwhile, April thoroughly enjoys the role reversal, taking expensive clothes from Jordan’s closet to impress coworkers. Awkwardness sets in when young Jordan starts flirting with the handsome teacher (Justin Hartley) she insists on calling by his first name.
“Little,” plodding along at times with a simplistic romanticism, casts a spell on both Jordan and April, offering them a bumpy road paved with cheerful humor as second chances are realized in desirable life lessons.
‘BLESS THIS MESS’ ON ABC NETWORK
The premise of the new comedy series “Bless This Mess” on the ABC network is deceptively simple. A yuppie newlywed couple leaves the hustle and bustle of New York City to take over a farm in rural Nebraska.
If this sounds like the “Green Acres” series, cast member Ed Begley Jr. informed critics during the winter press tour that “Bless This Mess” was “similar in plotline” but different in that it is “very edgy.”
Lake Bell, also co-creator of the show, and Dax Shepard star respectively as Rio, eager to give up her therapy practice, and music journalist Mike. On a whim, they decide it’s a wonderful idea to move to the Midwest when he inherits a farm from his great aunt.
Before packing for the road trip, the couple must first contend with the cynical skepticism of Rio’s mother (Susie Essman). Then faster than ordering a latte at Starbucks, Rio and Dax arrive at a farmhouse that should have been deemed uninhabitable by a building inspector.
Predictably enough, the clueless Rio and Mike quickly set about attempting home repairs when it appears neither has ever held a hammer. The hopelessly dilapidated house instantly recalls the struggles of another young couple in “The Money Pit.”
Another surprise in store for the New Yorkers is the parasite Rudy (Begley) living in their barn and casually using their bathroom even when they are in the shower. Rudy’s quirky antics suggest that he’s the type of neighbor who is way too invasive of personal space.
Rio and Mike are very likable with their city slicker frivolity. Unfamiliar with even basic facts of rural life, Rio instantly displays an unreasonable yet humorous fear of a docile cow roaming free.
The show’s urban-centric writers apparently traffic in the typical oblivious understanding of rural life, casting neighbors (Lennon Parham and David Koechner) as a scheming hayseed couple eager to buy Rio and Mike’s farmland.
As one of the locals, Pam Grier fares much better as the cowboy hat-wearing Constance, owner of the local hardware store doing double duty as the town sheriff who also happens to run the local theater with a production of a Broadway musical.
“Bless This Mess,” much like the “Green Acres” mockery of the clash between city folk and the local rubes, mines the comedy of cultural differences and urban pretensions. Running for only six episodes, it may not take long to see if this show has promise.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
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