LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association (AMIA), the organization that works to support Anderson Marsh State Historic Park near Lower Lake, is excited about the upcoming Rita Hosking concert slated for Saturday, Sept. 12, at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport.
Proceeds from the concert, which is being presented by AMIA, will benefit the state park.
The headliner is the Rita Hosking Band, which includes Rita Hosking, Sean Feder and Bill Dakin.
Local vocalists InVoice along with the popular Contreras Brothers and the Johnsen Family Band also will be performing.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and Rita Hosking will start playing at 8:30 p.m. You also won’t want to miss special guest, Pat Ickes, a popular regional banjo player who will be playing pedal steel guitar with Rita.
Tickets are $25 each. As usual, refreshments will be available in the lobby and Thorn Hill will be pouring their excellent wine.
Sponsors for this event are being encouraged. “What better way to enjoy the show than sitting at a reserved seat at a table up front with complimentary wine and snacks,” said Don Coffin, AMIA Board member and the coordinator of this event.
Reserved seating is available for different levels of sponsorship including: $125 for two tickets; $250 for four tickets; and $500 for eight tickets.
The $500 level will also include mention on the AMIA Web site and other event publicity to show that you are a supporter of Anderson Marsh State Historic Park.
To sponsor this event, contact the Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association at 707-995-2658; Don Coffin at 707-995-0658 or Roberta Lyons at 707-994-2024 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Tom Cruise appears to be defying the laws of physics in his role of secret agent Ethan Hunt in the “Mission: Impossible” franchise, now entering its fifth exciting installment.
After all, a middle-aged man just shy of qualifying for the senior discount at Denny’s shouldn’t be able to perform the great physical feats on display, of which many are apparently performed by him and not a stunt double.
In “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation,” Tom Cruise’s super spy for the clandestine Impossible Mission Force (IMF) agency is also challenging the laws of gravity.
In the thrilling opening sequence, Ethan Hunt is seen clinging to the side of an airplane lifting off the ground. Though James Bond was no slouch, I don’t recall our favorite British agent doing something quite as dramatic and death-defying.
The beauty of “Mission: Impossible 5” is that it is a high-flying act of relentless action, where Ethan Hunt’s physical talents, let alone stamina, are tested to an extreme measure. Hanging on to the side of a cargo plane hijacked by terrorists is evidently all in the matter of a day’s work.
Backed up by loyal fellow agents, Ethan dares to fight the good fight for justice and virtue against the forces of evil. Jeremy Renner’s William Brandt, a faithful guardian of the IMF team, knows how to evade the questions at a Senate hearing in order to protect the IMF from a witch hunt.
Simon Pegg’s Benji, the whiz kid who can hack the enemy’s sensitive materials, adds some welcome comic relief. Bringing a no-nonsense attitude to the game is Ving Rhames’ Luther Stickell, Ethan’s longtime pal.
For reasons best known to the spooks at the CIA, the IMF team has come under fire for their unorthodox methods. CIA director Hunley (Alec Baldwin), pretentious and arrogant to the core, manages to get the IMF disbanded and transferred to his agency.
Out in the field, the directives from Langley are routinely ignored, considering that Ethan has uncovered a harrowing threat to the free world in the form of a shadowy group only known as the Syndicate, an organization wrongly believed by top officials to be a myth.
Well, London and Washington might be clueless or disbelieving of the major threat, but Ethan Hunt knows better, and he brings his team together to wage war on the most dastardly archenemy the “Mission: Impossible” franchise has ever seen.
The search for the head of the Syndicate takes Ethan to some of the dark corners of the world. His most memorable encounter is with Ilsa Faust (Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson), a tough cookie who proves to be the female ying to Ethan’s yang.
The sexy, brilliant and tough Ilsa, a puzzling enigma and basically impenetrable, alternates between being helpful and harmful to Ethan, and as such, we are left guessing as to whether she’s a deep undercover British agent, a double agent or someone keen on double crosses.
The story features a few major set pieces that advance the hunt for Soloman Lane (Sean Harris), the former British spy who has turned to the dark side of espionage with his formation of the Syndicate, an international assortment of bad guys from around the globe.
New to the franchise, director Christopher McQuarrie has set in motion a very workable formula of mixing genuine suspense and the flat-out thrills of overheated action sequences. His laudable goal is to create an exciting thriller, and that’s exactly what he succeeds in doing.
The first major set piece involves a trip to the Vienna State Opera, where the action backstage is nail-bitingly tense as Ethan must attempt to foil the assassination of the Austrian prime minister, all the while hunting more than one adversary about to pull the trigger.
Other than generating genuine terror on a global scale, the objective of the Syndicate is somewhat murky, but the creepy Solomon Lane, who similar to most Bond villains would have us believe he’s the smartest man in the room, is a nasty bit of business.
It’s a plus to have a really good villain, someone that brings out our rooting interest in witnessing his eventual demise. That’s certainly what we get with the oddball Solomon Lane.
On the other hand, Rebecca Ferguson’s conflicted Ilsa Faust is a wonder to behold. Smart and beautiful, Ilsa keeps everyone guessing, even when she causes a lot of mayhem with an exciting motorcycle chase in Morocco.
“Mission: Impossible” is the kind of movie that one should enjoy without knowing too many details in advance. Suffice it to say, Ethan is put to the test of his physical endurance in a thrilling underwater sequence, which nearly goes horribly wrong.
If you enjoyed the last film, “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” then I would say that “Rogue Nation” is a surefire hit as well. This could be the best in the series, or, at the very least, the equal to “Ghost Protocol.”
Going by the experience of the fourth and fifth films in the series, it’s no wonder that a sixth installment looms large. As long as Tom Cruise stays in shape, “Mission: Impossible” could conceivably carry him to the day he gets his Medicare card.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
Given its premise that aliens assume arcade games to be a declaration of war, “Pixels” finds that its target audience just might be middle-aged persons who spent a lot of time roughly three decades ago plunking quarters into video games at the local arcade.
Director Chris Columbus (the first two “Harry Potter” films and the “Night at the Museum” franchise) became sold on guiding “Pixels” to the big screen because the blend of comedy and action allowed him, in his own words, to create “an original summer movie that took you back to the 80s in an evocative, nostalgic way.”
To some extent, “Pixels” would have us believe that years of misspent youth could have a payoff in the future.
This would come as welcome news if you spent a lot of time in arcades, and as such, the film does have a nostalgic touch.
As kids in 1982, Adam Sandler’s Sam Brenner, Kevin James’ Will Cooper, Josh Gad’s Ludlow Lamonsoff and Peter Dinklage’s Eddie “The Fire Blaster” Plant mastered the gaming arcade universe.
A prologue centered around the world championship bout of Donkey Kong in 1982 results in a protracted gaming battle in which teenage whiz kid Sam Brenner eventually loses to the arrogant, voluble and preening Eddie Plant.
The loss is devastating to Brenner’s self-confidence, though his buddies Will Cooper and Ludlow Lamonsoff try to buck him up.
Still, Brenner ends up in the present day in the unsatisfying job of a techno geek, installing flat screen TVs and other gadgets.
Meanwhile, Lamonsoff, younger than the other guys and the child prodigy amongst the gamers, fares even worse than Brenner. He’s turned into a conspiracy theorist that still clings to his childhood crush on Lady Lisa, the cartoonish lead character in Dojo Quest, his favorite game.
On the other hand, Kevin James’ Will Cooper, barely literate, it would seem, has inexplicably become the President of the United States. Yes, I am surprised too, because the likable James is more like your mall security guard or, at best, manager of a fast-food joint.
And yet, President Cooper, floundering in the polls, is in need of a boost, one that will come from the most unlikely source, namely his video tech buddy who wears a hideously ugly orange Nerd Crew uniform, and yet could be the key to a strategy to defeat alien invaders who resemble creatures from Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, among many others.
Apparently, NASA launched into space a video cassette of the 1982 championship match, and then thirty or so years later the aliens decided that this questionable cultural exchange was, in fact, a hostile act.
I would say these aliens are slow-witted if it took them this long to arrive at this erroneous deduction. Then, perhaps, they needed several decades to create a war machine influence by Donkey Kong, Galaga, Pac-Man, Q*bert, Space Invaders, Frogger, and Centipede, among others.
Oh, let’s not forget Dojo Quest, because Lady Lisa has to come alive, if for no other reason than for the socially awkward Lamonsoff to have his fantasy realized. Indeed, the sword-toting female warrior makes a big mark.
Speaking of women, the major flesh-and-blood version is Michelle Monaghan’s Violet Van Patten, who first meets Brenner when he comes to her house for an installation job. Brenner and Violet don’t exactly hit it off, mostly trading sarcastic barbs and insults.
Coincidentally, Violet happens to be Lieutenant Colonel Van Patten, a trusted military and scientific advisor to the President, one who is in the war room when Cooper summons his old pal Brenner to the White House to offer tactics on fighting the alien invaders.
The fact that video game enthusiasts, known as Arcaders, would be called upon to rescue New York City from a full-scale attack seems too absurd for the military leaders, including Admiral Porter (Brian Cox, having little to do other than express contempt for the gamers).
To wage the war, the government is forced to release Eddie Plant from federal prison. Though he’s still obnoxious and continues to sport a mullet, “The Fire Blaster” also has a large ego, reminding everyone how good he is at video games.
Bad attitude makes Plant the most interesting character to watch. His demands are so ridiculous that he insists on, well, a date with both tennis star Serena Williams and Martha Stewart (both of them making cameo appearances, along with assorted others).
“Pixels” is a Happy Madison Production starring Adam Sandler. This combination alone is enough for many to doubt that this film is much different than other recent Sandler efforts that flopped.
However, in a big change of pace, Sandler is more restrained than usual, allowing Josh Gad and Peter Dinklage to grab plenty of attention for comedic antics.
Younger children won’t grasp a lot of the humor and cultural reference, but will likely enjoy the extensive battle scenes.
“Pixels” has its inevitable flaws, and yet a sense of fun runs through the ultimately breezy comedic action that director Columbus intended to be evocative and nostalgic. Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
Any new book from Robert Morgan, be it poetry or prose, is a delightful event, and Dark Energy, recently published by Penguin, has lots of wonderful poems. Here’s a portrait that I especially like. Morgan lives in New York.
Heaven's Gate
In her nineties and afraid of weather and of falling if she wandered far outside her door, my mother took to strolling in the house. Around and round she’d go, stalking into corners, backtrack, then turn and speed down hallway, stop almost at doorways, skirt a table, march up to the kitchen sink and wheel to left, then swing into the bathroom, almost stumble on a carpet there. She must have walked a hundred miles or more among her furniture and family pics, mementos of her late husband. Exercising heart and limb, outwalking stroke, attack, she strode, not restless like a lion in zoo, but with a purpose and a gait, and kept her eyes on heaven’s gate.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They do not accept unsolicited submissions. “Heaven’s Gate,” from DARK ENERGY by Robert Morgan, copyright 2015 by Robert Morgan. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Introduction copyright 2015 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.
The following is just one of three fine poems John Drury, who lives and teaches in Ohio, has written about the summer jobs he had when young.
Many of us have thought, with him, “So this is experience,” though we might have added a question mark.
His most recent book of poems is “Sea Level Rising,” published by Able Muse Press.
Motor Lodge
“So this is it, experience,” I thought, lugging tin buckets from the ice machines to rooms of real adults with cigarettes, mixed drinks in plastic cups, and proffered coins.
I reached out for their blessings, but the tips were nothing next to rumpled, unmade beds at four in the afternoon, women in slips and men in t-shirts while the TV played.
Down in the laundry room, I counted sheets, stunned by the musk that vanished in the wash, and balled up soggy towels that down the chutes exploded in bins. Before the evening rush,
avid and timid for what I glimpsed at work, I left, hanging my gold vest on a hook.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They do not accept unsolicited submissions. Poem copyright 2000 by John Philip Drury, “Motor Lodge,” from The Disappearing Town, (Miami University Press, 2000). Poem reprinted by permission of John Drury and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2015 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.
UPPER LAKE, Calif. – Lake County Wine Studio (LCWS) is hosting a series of silk scarf painting parties in August with local artist Diana Liebe.
The parties will be held on Aug. 1, 16, 22 and 23 from 1:30 to 4 p.m.
RSVP is required for participation.
Liebe will demonstrate the process and each participant will paint and take home a hand-painted silk scarf.
Liebe is a former art teacher at both the high school and college levels, and actively teaches art workshops around the county.
Cost of class is a $35 materials fee and space is limited to 12 persons.
For reservations and additional information, contact Susan Feiler at 707-293-8752 or e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Lake County Wine Studio is located at 9505 Main St. in Upper Lake.
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