Carol L. Gloor is an attorney living in Chicago and Savanna, Illinois. I especially like this poem of hers for its powerful ending, which fittingly uses the legal language of trusts and estates.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County Arts Council members are invited to display artwork at the Memorial Day Craft Fair on Sunday, May 26, sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Lakeport.
This event is an annual event held at the Natural High grounds, located at 810 N. Main St., Lakeport, directly across from St. Mary's Catholic Church.
The Kiwanis Club is offering the space free of charge. This event is open only to members of Lake County Arts Council who have paintings and/or wall hanging type art work to display.
There is limited space, so reservations are on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Artists are responsible for setting up and taking down a professional display. Bring your easels, display racks, tables and more. Artists are encouraged to hold painting demonstrations throughout the day.
Set up starts at 10 a.m. Sunday, May 26. Artists must have their art ready for 11 a.m. viewing. Takedown is 4 p.m.
The area reserved for this event is under the overhang alongside the Natural High building.
The Lake County Arts Council will have an information table at the event, and all artists participating are asked to help – either with set up, takedown or during the event with hosting the table.
Any sales that result from this display are private sales.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Righteous Vibrations will be administering positive grooves and upbeat live music at the new fitness studio Pulse on Saturday, Feb. 25, from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Akuko Obi Drum Tribe and an open drum circle will kick off the evening
Local beer and wine and some other tasty nonalcoholic beverages will be available.
They may have the Capoeira Yokayo Group give a demonstration. After the live music they will keep moving with a special guest DJ.
Is Reese Witherspoon the poster girl for America’s cinematic sweetheart? If so, that’s as good a reason as any for her to be at the center of an odd love triangle.
You can’t miss the imagery in the large posters for “This Means War,” where the perky blonde beauty stands between two hunky guys who appear poised for what the title implies.
The film’s concept is right out of Mad magazine, with the Spy vs. Spy theme taken to its logical conclusion when two CIA agents employ their secret agent skills to a purpose other than national security.
That’s right, expensive surveillance equipment and the skills acquired from dangerous missions in the field are put to the service of helping two lustful secret agents to pursue the same woman.
The competition starts innocently enough, which is more than one can say for the film’s opening scene, a wild shootout at a nightclub perched on top of a Hong Kong skyscraper.
Agents Tuck (Tom Hardy) and FDR (Chris Pine), dressed like the Blues Brothers, botch a mission to take down Eurotrash terrorist Heinrich (Til Schweiger), instead killing his brother and a slew of henchmen.
The violent encounter, where Tuck and FDR get carried away, results in some bad press and reassignment to desk jobs for the duo at the Los Angeles field office.
Bored with menial tasks, FDR and Tuck, who happen to be best buddies, decide it might be a good time to deal with their love lives.
That’s not a problem for the charismatic ladies man FDR, but divorced dad Tuck is a bit rusty and unsure of himself. He decides to give online dating a try.
Meanwhile, Reese Witherspoon’s Lauren is fully committed to her job promoting consumer products and has stopped dating since being dumped.
Lauren’s best friend Trish (Chelsea Handler, in full loudmouth mode), who’s married, wants to live vicariously by signing up Lauren for online dating.
Not surprisingly, Tuck and Lauren find each other in cyberspace and arrange to go on a dinner date. Then, Lauren and FDR find each other in a video store, of all places.
The sparks don’t fly at first between Lauren and FDR. His oily charm is too eager. She parries and spurns his casual banter with spunky retorts. Immediately, FDR is hooked and stalks her at a product-testing focus group.
One day Lauren is lonely, and the next she finds herself the object of attention from two handsome suitors, each with his own special appeal.
Thus the fierce romantic competition begins, because Tuck and FDR soon discover they are after the same woman, even though Lauren is blissfully unaware of their relationship.
It’s at this point that the two CIA agents violate all agency protocols by engaging in high-tech surveillance of Lauren’s every move, tapping her cell phone and planting bugs in her apartment.
To make matters worse, Tuck and FDR enlist underlings in the “covert” mission, having everyone believe that the pretty blonde is a threat to national security. Where’s profiling when you need it?
Though the rivalry between two best pals is supposed to be friendly, it takes a more heated turn in a battle of extreme one-upmanship, going so far as having the two of them destroy a restaurant during one altercation.
Back on the job front, Heinrich and his goons are looking for retribution against FDR and Tuck for the Hong Kong fiasco.
“This Means War” reaches a ridiculous climax with a wild car chase and shootout between the agents and Heinrich on an unfinished freeway overpass.
There’s a lot of funny stuff in this mish-mash film that awkwardly merges romantic comedy with high-octane action. Still, the film may not be the great turn-on for many.
Director McG (“Charlie’s Angels”) is not known for subtlety, and so it is not surprising that he had to spice up the romantic comedy with guns blazing and things blowing up.
HOLLYWOOD MUSEUM EXHIBIT
In case you are visiting Hollywood any time before the end of April, you could do better than taking a bus ride to see the homes of Hollywood stars.
The Hollywood Museum, located only blocks from the famous Graumann’s Chinese Theater, has a special exhibit called “And The Winner Is ...”
Celebrating the award season, this exhibit showcases the largest selection of costumes and props from over twenty films and televisions shows nominated for awards.
You can see great authentic stuff from nominated films like “The Artist,” “The Descendants,” and “Midnight in Paris,” to name only a few.
Pee-Wee Herman memorabilia is also on display, including his famous red bike from his “Big Adventure” film. I don’t think it was nominated for any category.
The best of all, at least to my thinking, was the Rat Pack display, celebrating the original “Ocean’s 11,” and heavily invested in Frank Sinatra memorabilia.
The Hollywood Museum is located in the historic Max Factor Building on the corner of Hollywood and Highland.
Max Factor, the legend of movie makeup, worked his magic on motion picture stars starting in 1935. Displays give a peek into that fairytale world.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – On Sunday, Feb. 12 – Abraham Lincoln's birthday – David Burgess brought his version of truth in guitar music to a small but enthusiastic audience at Kelseyville's Galilee Lutheran Church.
The concert was presented by Clear Lake Performing Arts, whose usual venue is Lakeport's Soper-Reese Community Theatre, but due to a conflict in dates, Galilee generously offered its picturesque church as a substitute.
Burgess, in making his third appearance in Lake County, chose this area to kick off a tour of West Coast cities.
In earlier appearances here he had concentrated on the music of Spain, with between-number discourses on the early development of the guitar and guitar music in the Mediterranean area.
This time, after spending nearly a decade studying the music of Brazil, he tailored his performance exclusively to the music of that country.
He explained that while most guitars have six or eight strings, the instruments played in Brazil usually include a seventh, providing for an extra bass line.
“Street musicians,” Burgess explained, “found they could perform with one fewer players with the addition of the bass string.”
He opened his program with “Sampa,” a piece written by Caetano Veloso as a protest against the military dictatorship ruling Brazil in the 1960s.
This was followed by two pieces by Ernesto Nazareth, who first conceived of the idea of combining the rhythms of the polka and tango, to achieve a uniquely Brazilian sound.
Burgess next transition was into what he called “The Good Old Days” of the music of Brazil, specifically the 1930s, headlined by the single-name composer Garato, who toured extensively with the Latin movie star Carmen Miranda and is also recognized as the originator of the popular Bossa Nova beat.
He ended the first half of his performance with music written by Raphael Rabello, one of Brazil's most popular and prolific composers in spite of his death at the early age of just 33.
Following intermission, with refreshments served by the ladies of the CLPA Auxiliary, Burgess returned with additional music from Brazil's contemporary writers including Armando Neves and Vinicius de Moraes, the latter being a well-known poet who turned his talents to music, including writing portions of the music for the movie “Black Orpheus,” with it's hugely popular theme “Cast Your Fate to the Winds.”
This was followed by two pieces from Brazil’s most popular current musical artist youthful Yamandu' Costa, including his “Samba Pro Rafa,” written as an homage to Raphael Rabello, with spectacular fingering by Burgess.
The concert concluded with two pieces from perhaps the most famed of all Brazilian guitarists and Bossa Nova practitioners, the late Antonio Carlos Jobim.
After the concert local classical guitarist Travis Rinker met briefly with Burgess to discuss the finer points of their respective instruments, as did guitar students Kayla Garcia and Sabre Bruffy.
Burgess also conducted a special clinic on Monday morning for music students at Lower Lake High School.
The next CLPA concert will take place on Mothers Day, May 2, at the Soper-Reese Community Theatre in Lakeport, and feature the full Lake County Symphony, as well as the CLPA Youth Orchestra.
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