The practice of block printing. Photo by Middletown Art Center staff. MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Middletown Art Center’s Restore project will feature a class on printmaking on Sunday, March 3.
Join artist John Jennings for a the block printing workshop from 1 to 5 p.m.
Participants can choose to create linocuts or woodcuts this session. Adults and children age 12 and up of all levels of art making experience, from newbies to professionals, are invited to join the class for just $5.
“In my journeys through the various modes of printmaking, I’ve found none quite as dynamic as relief printing, whether linocuts or working on wood,” explained Jennings. “We will explore the range of possibilities from vigorous to delicate lines and the play of light and shadow in defining our two dimensional space. In our class I hope to introduce the participant to the magic of relief printing: from the drawing stage to the transfer of the drawing to the linoleum block, to the carving of the block to printing of the image. The thrill of pulling the rice paper off the block and seeing your work in ink on the page is like no other.”
Please register in advance for all Restore classes at 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.
Works from Printmaking classes will contribute to MAC’s second chapbook of writings and images, as well as Restore exhibitions.
The first chapbook, “Resilience – a community reframes disaster through art,” is available for purchase at MAC or on the MAC website. You can preview the book online.
Middletown Art Center is located at 21456 Highway 175 at the junction of Highway 29. Be a part of the growing arts scene in South Lake County by becoming a MAC member, by coming to Restore printmaking this Sunday, or by attending one of the many arts and cultural events or classes at MAC.
Visit www.middletownartcenter.org or “Like” Middletown Art Center on Facebook to stay find out more about what’s happening at the Middletown Art Center.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Rothstein Experiment, a newly formed local jazz group, is slated to perform at the Soper Reese Theatre at 7 p.m. Saturday, March 2.
This show is the third of four performances making up the new Saturday Night Jazz Club Series at the Soper Reese Theatre.
Tickets are $20 with open seating.
The March 2 program, entitled “New Standards: Expanding the Jazz Songbook,” will explore modern and ancient themes in the present tense.
An evening of songs and conversation, offering a behind the scenes look into the process of a working jazz ensemble.
The group includes Jill Rothstein, vocals; Matt Rothstein, saxophone, vocals; Tom Aiken, piano, keyboard, melodica; Jacob Turner, guitar; Raj Sodhi, upright bass; and Gabriel Yañez, percussion.
Sponsored by Karen and Bob Ellenberg and by Sandy and Rick Orwig.
Tickets are available at www.soperreesetheatre.com; at the theater’s Box Office, 275 S. Main St., Lakeport, two hours before show time; at The Travel Center, 1265 S. Main St., Lakeport, Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The theater telephone is 707-263-0577; Travel Center phone is 707-263-3095.
The Soper Reese Theatre will screen “West Side Story,” starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, on Tuesday, March 12, 2019. Courtesy photo.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The 1961 musical, “West Side Story,” starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer and Rita Moreno, screens at the Soper Reese Theatre on Tuesday, March 12, at 1 and 6 p.m.
Ted Kooser. Photo credit: UNL Publications and Photography. Marge Saiser, who lives in Nebraska, is a fine and a very lucky poet.
With the passing of each year her poems have gotten stronger and deeper. That's an enviable direction for a writer.
This poem was published in The Briar Cliff Review and it looks back wisely and wistfully over a rich life.
Saiser's most recent book is “The Woman in the Moon” from the Backwaters Press.
Weren't We Beautiful
growing into ourselves earnest and funny we were angels of some kind, smiling visitors the light we lived in was gorgeous we looked up and into the camera the ordinary things we did with our hands or how we turned and walked or looked back we lifted the child spooned food into his mouth the camera held it, stayed it there we are in our lives as if we had all time as if we would stand in that room and wear that shirt those glasses as if that light without end would shine on us and from us.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County Theatre Co. by special arrangement with Samuel French, INC., by Marc Camoletti proudly presents “Boeing-Boeing.”
Show times are the first three weekends in March.
Set in the late 1960s, be transported to an apartment in Paris where lothario, Bernard, entertains his three fiancées.
The air hostesses are from all over the world and they are all his “one and only.”
Enter his old school friend Robert and you have the makings of a fun, flirty and fantastic LCTC production of “Boeing, Boeing.”
Directed by Gary Deas and produced by Peggy Barthel, the cast includes some of Lake County’s finest actors and actresses.
Bernard is played by John Tomlinson, local film and theater professor with Mendocinco College. The innocent Robert is played by Tim St. Cyr, a virtual newcomer to LCTC.
The air hostesses are Zoe Richardson, Diana Schmidt and June Clarkin-Wilson. No one will soon forget the dry humor of Bernard’s housekeeper, Bertha, played by Lisa Eden.
The shows will take place starting at 7 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays. There will be no show on March 8.
The production will be held at the Little Theater at the Lake County Fairgrounds.
Tickets in advance are $12 and at the door they are $15.
Prolific for his vengeance-seeking action roles late in his career, Liam Neeson’s image as the righteous pursuer of justice in films like the “Taken” franchise took a big hit with a self-destructive interview tinged with disturbing racist sentiment.
In the terminology of tennis, Neeson’s talk was an unforced error that undermines “Cold Pursuit,” which is unfortunate in that this Norwegian-inspired thriller taps into dark comedy as if it were an homage to the Coen Brothers.
A humble snowplow driver in a Colorado ski resort town, Neeson’s Nels Coxman is honored as the Citizen of the Year for his upright dedication to his community and as a faithful public servant.
Yet, his life is soon completely upended when his only son Kyle (Micheal Richardson), an airport baggage handler, is killed by drug cartel thugs over a missing cocaine shipment. Kyle’s death is ruled an overdose, but Coxman suspects otherwise.
Without the benefit of his usual “particular set of skills” in other action films, Neeson’s character faces a learning curve in the killing business, but he seems to catch on fairly quickly.
His first clue to the identity of his son’s killers leads to a bleached-blonde scumbag named Speedo (Michael Eklund) who mockingly dismisses Coxman as an “old man” before getting pummeled to death.
As the others responsible for his son’s murder soon meet their fate, the crime boss Trevor “Viking” Calcote (Tom Bateman) takes notice and mistakenly thinks a rival Native American gang has started a turf war.
An arrogant psychopath, Viking wages a custody battle with his ex-wife over his young son that he treats with disdain, telling him to read “Lord of the Flies” as a manual for coping with life.
A good chunk of the middle portion of the film is devoted to Viking’s brewing conflict with the Native American drug gang under the control of the inscrutable White Bull (Tom Jackson), who seeks his own brand of justice when his son is killed.
Meanwhile, a patrol team of the ski town’s police officers, veteran (John Doman) and an eager rookie (Emmy Rossum), have little to do, outside of writing parking tickets, other than engage in a lot of amusing banter that adds to the film’s comic tone.
“Cold Pursuit” revels in its quirky pitch. One of the best comical scenes takes place at an upscale resort hotel when the clerk asks the Native American gang attempting to get a room if they have a “reservation,” an innocent question perceived as a cultural affront.
Filled with gallows humor and black comedy (thugs have ludicrous nicknames like “The Eskimo,” “Santa,” and “Limbo”), “Cold Pursuit,” which allows Liam Neeson to engage in another killing spree, is delightful pulp fiction.
“Cold Pursuit,” though at times somewhat disjointed, excites with its morbid wit and offbeat characters, tapping into the spirit of Quentin Tarantino films and Leonard Elmore novels.
‘PROVEN INNOCENT’ ON FOX NETWORK
As the title implies, “Proven Innocent,” the new legal drama on the FOX network, focuses on a team of lawyers taking the cases of persons in jeopardy of being wrongfully convicted for serious criminal offenses.
The Chicago-based Injustice Defense League, consisting of defense attorney Easy Boudreau (Russell Hornsby), investigator Bodie Quick (Vincent Kartheiser) and podcaster and communications director Violet Price (Nikki M. James), are up against prosecutor Gore Bellows (Kelsey Grammer).
The firm’s rising star defense attorney Madeline Scott (Rachelle Lefevre) has a personal stake in exonerating the falsely convicted because as teenager, along with her brother Levi (Riley Smith), she was sent to prison for the killing of her high school best friend.
After being absolved of the murder and getting a college degree while spending 10 years in prison, Madeline went on to graduate from Yale Law School at the top of her class and then partnered with Easy Boudreau, the lawyer who helped overturn her conviction.
Surprise (not really), the prosecutor who put Madeline in the slammer is none other than Gore Bellows, a slick political opportunist now planning a run for Illinois attorney general based on his track record of criminal convictions.
While the arrogant Bellows doesn’t have a mustache to twirl, Kelsey Grammer brings to this role the right measure of somber conviction and slippery smugness to fulfill the necessary plot device of a villain ending up in the League’s crosshairs.
Meanwhile, there are many ongoing flashbacks to the murder of the high school girl that, at least in the early stages, leave unanswered questions, such as whether Madeline or her brother might really be innocent after all.
These questions are certainly not doubted by the prosecutor who put the sibling behind bars. Gore Bellows still holds the opinion that Madeline is guilty, telling her the very same when they meet in court.
“Proven Innocent” doesn’t seem to be on a path to be as compelling as a modern-day “Perry Mason” or other appealing courtroom dramas that don’t immediately come to mind. Friday nights could be better spent on something else.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
