Konocti Fiddle Club members singing one of their selections: Eleanor Cook (back), Dimitri Imbrunetti, Nina Jekel, Clayton Rudiger and Brooke Taliafero. Photo courtesy Deborah Imbrunetti.

MIDDLETOWN – The students at Coyote Valley and Cobb Elementary Schools recently were treated to a "String Day" music assembly recently, presented by Clear Lake Performing Arts (CLPA) and the Konocti Fiddle Club.

It was the second in a series demonstrating stringed instruments for elementary students.

As state funding for school music programs dwindles, CLPS has stepped in to bring music into schools under their Youth Educational Programs activities, chaired by Andi Skelton who is also founder and director of the Konocti Fiddle Club.

Susan Condit, a teacher at Lower Lake Elementary, has helped Skelton spearhead the project, which they hope to expand into other schools in the future.

The show is unique in that it combines both adults and kids as demonstrators. As an example, youthful string players allow other kids to connect directly with them and their instruments.

The youngest Fiddle Club members, Nina Jekel and Dimitri Imbrunetti, proudly showed their little instruments to the students, and explained that they could start playing the fiddle right away.

"We hope to get the students excited about the possibility of making music like them," Skelton said. "We talk about different musical styles and make sure we play recognizeable songs like the themes from 'Jaws' and 'Star Wars' that they all know, which establishes an immediate connection. We also ask them to join us with singing, or hand-clapping which establishes another connection."

Condit roamed the room with a handheld microphone asking questions and involving the students. She explained the four instruments in the orchestra's string family – violin, viola, cello, upright bass – what they were made of and their names.

The group then played different styles ranging from classical to blues, to old-time fiddling, including a version of “Old McDonald's Farm,” with the musicians using their instruments to imitate the farm animals.

Edison Serena took the lead in a twin-fiddle demonstration, while Elliott Serena demonstrated the mandolin, Lars Tisell the Irish tenor banjo and Edison Serena again with the banjo-ukelele.

The students learned that all of these instruments are tuned like the fiddle and therefore if they learned the fiddle they could easily play them all.

Demonstrations were also made on the guitar, pennywhistle, accordian, bodhran (Irish drum), washtub bass and washboard – along with a bit of history about their uses long ago.

As a finale all the Fiddle Club members joined in playing a set using all the instruments, with solo parts by the young players.

Other participants were Clayton Rudiger, Brooke Taliafero, Annie Perez, Erin Call, Patricia Jekel, Greg Bushta, Deni Hagy, Scott Serena and Mark Rudiger.

Players helping to plan the event and providing sound equipment were Austin and Jeanine Ison, and former CLPA scholarship recipient Eleanor Cook.

The next CLPA Youth Music Program will take place on Sunday, June 14, when the CLPA Youth Orchestra will perform in concert under the direction of Wes Follett at the Kelseyville Presbyterian Church's Friendship Hall at 6 p.m.

According to Skelton, the group has been working for months on a varied program which they hope will attract widespread support from their communities.

For more information visit www.clearlakeperformingarts.com .

Konocti Fiddle Club members

Films and animation will include two animated poems read by Billy Collins: “No Time,” with animation by Jeff Scher, and “Somedays,” with animation by Julian Grey.

Also on the program is “Poetry Lives” by Mark Freeman, 2007 Oscar-winning animation, and “The Danish Poet,” by Torill Kove with Liv Ullman.

These will be followed by two short films: “The Ice Cream Man” by Dylan Rush and the animated tale “Best Book Ever” by Lev Yilmaz.

Tickets are $10 at the door and $5 for kids 16 and under. Fresh popcorn and concessions also will be available. There is plenty of parking and restrooms.

Coyote Film Festival is a fundraising arm of EcoArts of Lake County, a 501c(3) nonprofit arts organization dedicated to bringing visual art opportunities and ecologic stewardship to the residents and visitors of Lake County.

For more information visit: www.EcoArtsofLakeCounty.org .

LAKEPORT – The first of the annual Lakeport Summer Concerts at Library Park began on Friday.

Kicking off the season was Memphis Exchange, a band with local roots that plays country, rock and blues.

Several hundred people gathered in the park to enjoy the music and dance.

On June 19, rock/blues band Chicken and the Defenders will play, with local favorites Bill Noteman and the Rockets featured on June 26.

E-mail Harold LaBonte at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Several hundred community members gathered to dance and enjoy the evening on Friday, June 12, 2009. Photo by Harold LaBonte.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN (Rated PG)

A few years back, Ben Stiller made the museum world a whole lot more interesting to movie audiences when he discovered all the exhibits came alive during his night shift as a security guard. The wildly successful “Night at the Museum” was destined for a repeat, if only because commerce demanded it.

How do you improve on what New York’s Museum of Natural History has to offer? The answer is found in the sequel’s lengthy title: “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.” Indeed, it’s all to be found in Washington, D.C.’s megaplex of antiquities.

This time around Ben Stiller’s Larry Daley has become wealthy hawking his gadgets and inventions on TV. Still, he hasn’t forgotten his museum roots, and on a visit to an evening event he learns from the officious Dr. McPhee (Ricky Gervais) that all the beloved exhibits are being crated and shipped for permanent storage in the bowls of the Smithsonian. This reminds me of the “Indiana Jones” movie where the artifacts are carted off to a subterranean federal archives warehouse, only to be forgotten for all time. Apparently, the exhibits at the Natural History Museum are familiar with this movie and wish to avoid the same fate.

Frankly, it’s hard to see how the museum’s Board of Directors would find interactive exhibits more appealing, since their own exhibits come to life at night. But then, museums usually keep daytime hours. Besides, you can’t stop progress, and so everyone, from the miniature figurines of cowboy Jedediah (Owen Wilson) and Roman general Octavius (Steve Coogan) to the wax figures of the Neanderthals and Indian guide Sacajawea (Mizou Peck), get stuffed in wooden crates and shipped to Washington. Unfortunately, the new arrivals at the Smithsonian awaken the denizens of the Smithsonian, including Egyptian ruler Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), who’s in a foul mood after centuries of slumber.

The diminutive Jedediah manages to put out a distress call to Larry, who just might figure out a game plan with the help of his computer savvy adolescent son. Rushing off to the Nation’s Capital, Larry breeches the security system of the Smithsonian, only to find that the Egyptian ruler is busy making alliances with some of history’s most heinous villains.

The bad guys include Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest), who insists that he has a less fearsome name; a height-sensitive Napoleon (Alain Chabat); and a snarling Al Capone (Jon Bernthal). Fortunately, the museum seems to lack wax figures of Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, lest there be absolute carnage on a grand scale.

As it is, Kahmunrah, fueled by an overweening ego, is obsessed with unleashing the dark underworld forces locked behind a portal secured by the golden tablet. “Night of the Museum 2” isn’t real heavy on story, relying instead on creating enough mayhem that people, such as this reviewer, are easily distracted by the likes of a feisty Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) and an Albert Einstein bobblehead.

The irrepressible Amelia is the most amusing character, sparking Larry to rediscover some fun and adventure, and all the while jabbering away in vintage slang. Why does Amelia speak like Katherine Hepburn in a Howard Hawks movie, while the Egyptian ruler and Abe Lincoln utter the common jargon of today?

Not quite as pretty as Amelia Earhart, a vain General Custer (Bill Hader), often strokes his long, golden locks, while wallowing in low self-esteem for his military failure at Little Bighorn. The most amusing character is the pompous Egyptian pharaoh, who doesn’t really appear that menacing, regardless of his futile efforts to insist that he’s wearing a tunic, not a dress.

“Night of the Museum 2” has great fun bringing to life some very iconic items, such as the classic V-J Day in Times Square photo of the American sailor kissing a young woman or Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” painting (which, to my knowledge, still resides at the Art Institute of Chicago).

The slapstick comedy and the vibrancy of inanimate objects contribute to a youngster’s enjoyment of this delightful comedy. Meanwhile, adults may find delight in the lively realization of historical figures and cultural artifacts. But most of all, great fun is had for all in the fact that “Night of the Museum 2,” though far from brilliant, is nevertheless often very funny and enjoyable for the simple pleasures derived from an abundance of clever special effects.

DVD RELEASE UPDATE

In “Night of the Museum 2” there is a giant squid that gets a little frisky, but otherwise is not scary. It’s a different story for the DVD release of “Silent Venom,” a sci-fi action thriller about an unstoppable mutant snake species that breaks loose aboard a decommissioned submarine.

On a remote jungle island in the Pacific, Krista Allen has been studying a new breed of mutant snakes. When Tom Berenger comes along to evacuate the researchers from the island, the only way home is on an old sub making its final voyage to Taiwan.

Assisted by Luke Perry, Berenger, his crew and passengers soon find out they are not alone on the sub, and must fight off the hungry, vicious creatures stalking the crewmembers. To make matters more troublesome, they also have to evade attacking Chinese vessels.

Apparently, Samuel L. Jackson wasn’t available for duty, so “Silent Venom” just isn’t as funny as “Snakes on a Plane.”

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

CLEARLAKE – as every American knows, we're “the richest, most powerful nation on the planet.”

Why, then, do we rank dead last among developed nations in preventable deaths? Why is the US “the most obese nation in history”? Why is our health care system actually “a phenomenally expensive disease-care system”? Why are most US bankruptcies due to excruciatingly high medical bills – and why are 47 million Americans uninsured?

Second Sunday Cinema's two free films for June 14 do answer those questions, but place far more emphasis on providing solid information on how we can stay healthy and change our health system to provide affordable, equitable, high-quality health care for all our citizens, no matter what our income is.

Amiable Frontline reporter TR Reid visited five capitalist democracies to get information on how they provide health care in Britain, Japan, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland. The result is his entertaining, fast-moving and informative film, “Sick Around the World.”

Although their approaches differ in some ways, all five nations can boast of the following: their citizens are happy to pay nothing or next to nothing for excellent preventive and sick care. Waiting lists are either short or nonexistent. Doctors pay little to nothing for malpractice insurance; they're not filthy rich, but are comfortable and relaxed, and enjoy their work.

Legislators here at home are now beginning to consider health-care reform. But we don't have to reinvent the wheel here, folks! Successful systems are already up and running. None of those five nations have that much-feared “socialized medicine.”

This film is way better than Michael Moore's “Sicko” because it provides solid, detailed, hopeful and interesting information on how we, too, can enjoy an excellent health-care system – if only we can get our legislators to support public health care.

Of course the best way to go is to avoid doctors and hospitals as much as possible. One of the reasons US citizens are notably less healthy than the people of other developed nations can be summed up thusly: Due to the current system and our lack of information, we wait until symptoms emerge, and then pay huge sums of money to get our symptoms treated instead of being healed.

How about this alternative: we eat healthy foods, we get a lot of exercise doing things we love and which we can afford since we're not spending our money on sky-high health insurance.

As of now, the US government subsidizes high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar processed “foods” but gives no subsidies at all to healthy fruit, nut, vegetable and leguminous crops. Until the government changes its ways, we can take charge of our own lives by eating real, unprocessed and healthy foods healthily prepared. Then we won't have to take time off to go see the doctor (which is always such fun).

These two films are one hour and 40 minutes, respectively. Stay for one or both.

The venue is the Clearlake United Methodist Church at 14521 Pearl Ave. in Clearlake. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the film starts at 6 p.m.

For more information call 707-279-2957.