UPPER LAKE, Calif. – In the first of its annual winter/spring “Concerts with Conversation” series, the Tallman Hotel in Upper Lake will host an informal concert by Nashville-based bluegrass guitarists Rob Ickes and Jim Hurst in the Meeting House next to the hotel at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 10.
 
“We are fortunate that Rob and Jim have again scheduled a stop at the Tallman on their west coast tour,” commented Tallman owner Bernie Butcher. “They put on a tremendous show for us about this time last year. It was so popular that we were able to schedule a second followup event for the next night.”
 
Rob Ickes is a Northern California native and brother of local banjo master and bluegrass promoter Pat Ickes. He moved to Nashville in 1992 and joined Blue Highway as a founding member in 1994. He is recognized as one of the most innovative Dobro players on the music scene today, recording with his own band and as a sought-after session player.
 
Ickes won the International Bluegrass Music Association's Dobro Player of the Year award for a record-setting fifteenth time in 2013. He is the most recognized instrumentalist in the history of the IBMA awards.
 
Jim Hurst is also a multi IBMA award-winner. His vocal talents, multi-instrumentalist abilities and well-rounded stylings make him one of the most popular musicians in Nashville. In addition to his own recordings, Hurst has supported the recording sessions of some of the best artists in country and bluegrass music.
 
One critic who saw Hurst and Ickes perform together in Nashville commented that “their ability to follow each other through an unannounced maze of spaghetti-like improvisation is beyond normal human capability.” Good videos of the two playing together are available on YouTube.
 
Subject to limited availability, concert tickets at $25 plus tax may be purchased by calling the Tallman Hotel at 707-275-2244, Extension 0.

DELIVERY MAN (Rated PG-13)

Vince Vaughn’s latest comedic effort, “Delivery Man,” is not likely to catch fire at the box office in the way Jennifer Lawrence’s latest chapter of “The Hunger Games” should connect with its built-in audience.

The lanky comic actor, writer and director usually lumps his screen personality into a state of arrested development. Vaughn’s either a charming rogue or likeable oaf, and usually a combination of the two.

As such, Vaughn has his persistent detractors and ardent admirers. I lean to the latter category, admiring his eagerness to please and his unrelenting quest to deliver laughs at every turn.

Like most comedians (think of Ben Stiller and Robin Williams, for example) who take chances, Vince Vaughn has his share of brilliant comedies and, well, the not-so-inspired attempts at lunacy.

On the one hand, there’s the Vince Vaughn of “Wedding Crashers” and “Dodgeball,” displaying dazzling strokes of comic genius, and then there are less fortunate forays such as “The Watch” and “Four Christmases.”

“Delivery Man” is arguably a middle-of-the-road endeavor, and as a result, the detractors will point out that Vaughn’s aging slacker routine is wearing a little thin. Sadly, there’s an argument to be made for that view.

The high-concept of “Delivery Man,” a remake of a little known Canadian film called “Starbuck,” seems tailored to the talents of Vaughn’s comic persona. And yet, Vaughn is asked to take some detours on his normal path as a comic actor.

Vaughn’s David Wozniak, a delivery man in the family’s New York City wholesale meat business, long ago donated his sperm to a fertility clinic when he desperately needed cash for work that didn’t require showing up on time.

Desperation resulted in David becoming the biological father of a staggering 533 children. Though he signed confidentiality agreements, 142 of the now-grown children have filed a class action suit to unmask the identity of a sperm donor only known as Starbuck.

Coinciding with his legal troubles is the additional revelation that David’s girlfriend Emma (Cobie Smulders) is pregnant. Thus, David becomes interested in cleaning up his act so as to be a responsible father and escape being a perpetual underachiever.

Working with his best friend and attorney of dubious legal talent Brett (Chris Pratt), David decides to fight the plaintiffs in the paternity suit so he can remain anonymous.

Brett is an interesting choice for legal counsel. Amusingly, he’s struggling with raising four small children on his own, a situation ripe for many of the film’s best comedic moments.

Going against the advice of counsel, David also decides to shadow many of his biological offspring, seeking to become, in his own words, their “guardian angel” and secret mentor or counselor.

Thus, he starts to awkwardly interact with a diverse group of young people, from encouraging a street performer with a guitar to helping an unhappy coffee shop waiter to take time off the job for an acting audition.

To his credit, David is very much affected by his furtive interactions with the kids. Most touching of all are the scenes with a seriously disabled person for whom David does simple yet effective things such as taking an excursion outside the confined space of an institution.

Even while fighting the lawsuit, David still finds himself growing closer to a disparate group of youngsters that range from a drug addict to an aspiring basketball star. In the process, he learns that he just might be ready to be the father to Emma’s child.

To a great extent, “Delivery Man” removes Vince Vaughn from his typical comic persona of the fast-talking wiseguy with an endless stream of put-downs and barbed comments. Yes, he’s still funny but often in a more subdued or restrained manner.

“Delivery Man” taps into sentimentality as David learns how to be a more humane and responsible person as the result of getting to know his progeny and understanding their need for a paternal connection.

Director Ken Scott, who performed the same duties for the Canadian version, delivers a feel-good movie in “Delivery Man,” steering Vince Vaughn into some uncharted waters.

Coming full circle from where this review began, it needs to be said that “Delivery Man” just might be the ticket for the demographic audience that is not the target for the adventures of Katniss in “The Hunger Games.”

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

Nancy Willard, who lives in New York state, is one of my favorite poets, a writer with a marvelous gift for fresh description and a keen sense for the depths of meaning beneath whatever she describes. Here’s a poem from her newest book.

The Vanity of the Dragonfly

The dragonfly at rest on the doorbell—
too weak to ring and glad of it,
but well mannered and cautious,
thinking it best to observe us quietly
before flying in, and who knows if he will find
the way out? Cautious of traps, this one.
A winged cross, plain, the body straight
as a thermometer, the old glass kind
that could kill us with mercury if our teeth
did not respect its brittle body. Slim as an eel
but a solitary glider, a pilot without bombs
or weapons, and wings clear and small as a wish
to see over our heads, to see the whole picture.
And when our gaze grazes over it and moves on,
the dragonfly changes its clothes,
sheds its old skin, shriveled like laundry,
and steps forth, polished black, with two
circles buttoned like epaulettes taking the last space
at the edge of its eyes.

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. Poem copyright ©2012 by Nancy Willard from her most recent book of poems, The Sea at Truro, Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. Poem reprinted by permission of Nancy Willard and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2013 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. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

The bread of life, well, what is it, anyway? Family, community, faith? Here’s a lovely reminiscence about the way in which bread brings us together, by Richard Levine, who lives in Brooklyn.

Bread

Each night, in a space he’d make
between waking and purpose,
my grandfather donned his one
suit, in our still dark house, and drove
through Brooklyn’s deserted streets
following trolley tracks to the bakery.

There he’d change into white
linen work clothes and cap,
and in the absence of women,
his hands were both loving, well
into dawn and throughout the day—
kneading, rolling out, shaping

each astonishing moment
of yeasty predictability
in that windowless world lit
by slightly swaying naked bulbs,
where the shadows staggered, woozy
with the aromatic warmth of the work.

Then, the suit and drive, again.
At our table, graced by a loaf
that steamed when we sliced it,
softened the butter and leavened
the very air we’d breathe,
he’d count us blessed.

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. Poem copyright 2012 by Richard Levine from his most recent book of poems, A Tide of a Hundred Mountains, Bright Hill Press, 2012. Reprinted by permission of Richard Levine and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2013 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. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Saturday, Dec. 7, local author Gene Paleno will present a program about his book “The Porter Conspiracy” at Lakeport Library, 1425 N. High St.

The free program will run from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Paleno’s book covers a little-known aspect of the Civil War, the court martial of Union Major General FitzJohn Porter which resulted from his actions at the Second Battle of Bull Run, also called Second Manassas.

Porter was blamed for the Union’s defeat but was exonerated years later.

Paleno’s book, a novel based on the life of FitzJohn Porter, has recently been published as an e-book and is available through Amazon.

For more information about the program call 707-263-8817.

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Start the holidays with sounds of joy.

The Old Time Fiddlers Association continues its monthly First Sundays Fiddlers Jam sessions at the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum.

On Sunday, Dec. 1, they'll be performing beautiful Americana music with a sprinkling of holiday cheer to get you in the spirit.

This is a free, family friendly event for all to enjoy, young and old alike.

Join them for hot beverages, tasty treats and toe tapping music. They'll even make room for those who wish to get up and dance.

Bring your own wine and sip it in Ely Stage Stop wine glasses that will be available for purchase.

The jam will be a great way to wrap up your Thanksgiving weekend, so come on out.

The fun begins at the museum at 11 a.m. with the fiddlers playing from 1 p.m. through 3 p.m.

Donations will be happily accepted to benefit the Ely Stage Stop and The Old Time Fiddlers Association.

The stage stop is located at 9921 Soda Bay Road (Highway 281) in Kelseyville (near the Clear Lake Riviera, just north of Highway 29-Kit's Corner). Current hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.

Visit www.elystagestop.com or www.lakecountyhistory.org , check out the stage stop on Facebook at www.facebook.com/elystagestop , or call 707-533-9990 during museum hours.