KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The Live Oak Grill will host a fundraiser for KPFZ 88.1 FM community radio on Friday, Feb. 7.
The event will take place from 7 to 10 p.m. in the newly transformed banquet room of the restaurant, located at 5576 Live Oak Drive.
The Jim Leonardis Quartet will perform Jazz for dancing. The band features Jim Leonardis on tenor sax and clarinet, keyboardist Paul Kemp, bassist David Ferrario, and drummer Lynn Clark. A Spanish tapas seven course dinner will be served.
Call 707-245-7532 or 707-994-4373 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to reserve tickets.
Only 50 tickets are available at $20 for KPFZ members, $25 for non-members. Membership forms will be available at the door.
Another jazz club event is in the works for March.
Contact Suzanne at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 707-994-4373 if you are interested in performing.
The late Tom Clancy’s prolific novels about the ambitious CIA analyst Jack Ryan, who rises through the ranks in the intelligence community, has created a continuous thread of movies where the actors are as interchangeable as the ones in the James Bond series.
Arguably, Jack Ryan has much in common with the famous fictional British secret agent. Men with bright minds to match their physical prowess, they go about the serious business of saving the world from tyranny in its many forms.
For Jack Ryan, the enemy typically involved the Cold War-era Soviet Union and the fight was against the “evil empire.”
Just when you thought the geopolitical battles didn’t involve Russia any longer, along comes Vladimir Putin as the strongman of the East.
What with the recent debacles involving Edward Snowden and the vacillation over the Syrian civil war, Putin has stepped into the breach on the world stage, and certainly not for the better.
Now arriving in theaters is the updated version of Clancy’s hero, for “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” taps into the modern zeitgeist as it relates to the increasing tensions of late between Russia and the United States.
The modern Jack Ryan (played by Chris Pine) taps into the post-9/11 sensibilities in a big way. We first see Jack as a graduate student at the London School of Economics on the day of the terrorist attack on American soil.
Committed to serving his country, Jack joins the Marines and becomes a hero during a mission in Afghanistan, where he is injured saving the lives of two of his fellow soldiers following a rocket attack on their helicopter.
Following a long recovery stint at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he meets his future wife Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley), Jack is recruited by the mysterious Commander Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner) to join the CIA as an analyst.
The CIA agent’s first job is undercover work at a major Wall Street financial firm, where his assignment is to track monetary transactions that could be linked to terrorist groups and foreign enemies.
Years of toiling in financial intelligence yield promising results when Jack figures that Russian oligarch Viktor Cheverin (Kenneth Branagh) is engineering a geopolitical plot to destroy the American economy with a currency dump combined with a terrorist attack.
The spy business becomes operational for Jack when he is sent to Moscow to poke around in Cheverin’s financial empire. A rude encounter in his hotel room throws Jack into full action-hero mode, requiring his old Marine training to kick in with a vengeance.
Almost immediately Jack finds himself in the thick of Russian villainy, with bad guys that make the old KGB agents look like schoolboys at a dance party. For his part, the complicated Cheverin is a drug-addicted psychopath with a burning hatred for the West.
Things get even more interesting when Jack’s fiancée Cathy shows up in Moscow, harboring suspicions that his erratic behavior may have something to do with covering up infidelity. She is relieved to find out that his secret is that of being an American agent.
The plot requires a breach of Cheverin’s palatial headquarters so that Jack may retrieve the computer files that would be essential to thwarting the plot to undermine America’s financial stability.
One of the best scenes in the movie is the uneasy dinner meeting with Cheverin at the fancy restaurant across the street from his office. It’s a battle of wits where the stakes are high.
Unlikely as it may seem, Cathy becomes game for teasing deception to keep Cheverin preoccupied with her brainy conversation about Russian poets while flirting so boldly with her Russian host as to keep his mind off Jack’s convenient absence to walk off a love spat.
Apparently, the ruthless Russian financier is no match for the seductive wiles of an American temptress. But then, Cheverin has a weakness for heroin, fine dining and attractive females.
The tension continues when the action shifts to the United States, where a terrorist cell activated by Cheverin is going about the nasty business of setting in motion a bombing plot set to target Wall Street.
Luckily for Western Civilization, Jack Ryan knows how to take down the plot, and at one point, he’s chasing the bad guys on a motorcycle with the panache of Jason Bourne.
To be sure, Jack Ryan shares the action traits of well-known secret agents, but Chris Pine is bringing a modern sensibility to a pensive hero who combines brains with the brawn.
“Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” has plenty of entertaining diversions to show promise for a contemporary reboot of the Tom Clancy franchise. Chris Pine registers the right amount of charisma for the role. With any luck, we’ll see him again soon, maybe taking on the Red Chinese.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – The Old Time Fiddlers Association continues its monthly first Sunday’s Fiddlers Jam sessions hosted by the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum on Sunday, Feb. 2.
Fiddlers will meet in the Ely barn to perform their wonderful Americana music.
The fun begins at the museum at 11 a.m. with the fiddlers playing from noon through 2 p.m. Note the change in time for the Fiddlers.
Donations will be happily accepted to benefit the Ely Stage Stop and The Old Time Fiddlers Association. Winter rains will cancel the event.
This is a free, family friendly event for all to enjoy, young and old alike. Enjoy the music with hot beverages and tasty treats. Bring your own wine and sip it in Ely Stage Stop wine glasses that are always available for purchase. Clap your hands, tap your toes or get up and dance!
The stage stop, operated by the Lake County Historical Society, is located at 9921 Soda Bay Road (Highway 281) in Kelseyville.
Current hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday.
So much of what we learn about life comes from exchanging stories, and this poem by a Californian, Peter Everwine, portrays that kind of teaching. I love the moment where he says he doesn’t know if the story is true but it ought to be.
A Story Can Change Your Life
On the morning she became a young widow, my grandmother, startled by a sudden shadow, looked up from her work to see a hawk turn her prized rooster into a cloud of feathers. That same moment, halfway around the world in a Minnesota mine, her husband died, buried under a ton of rockfall. She told me this story sixty years ago. I don’t know if it’s true but it ought to be. She was a hard old woman, and though she knelt on Sundays when the acolyte’s silver bell announced the moment of Christ’s miracle, it was the darker mysteries she lived by: shiver-cry of an owl, black dog by the roadside, a tapping at the door and nobody there. The moral of the story was plain enough: miracles become a burden and require a priest to explain them. With signs, you only need to keep your wits about you and place your trust in a shadow world that lets you know hard luck and grief are coming your way. And for that —so the story goes—any day will do.
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 Peter Everwine, whose most recent book of poems is Listening Long and Late, University of Pittsburg Press, 2013. Poem reprinted from Ploughshares, Winter 2012-13, Vol. 38, No. 4, by permission of Peter Everwine and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 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.
HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE, Calif. – Music Together Lake County will open its newest location for Music Together classes in Hidden Valley Lake this month, announced Music Together Lake County director Jean Goulart, M.A.
The next 10-week semester of classes starts on Friday, Jan. 24, at Muscle Matrix Gym Dance Floor, 18983 Hartmann Road.
The new Hidden Valley Lake location is the first location for Music Together Lake County classes, and will soon offer classes around Clear Lake.
“I am so proud to now offer classes in Hidden Valley Lake,” said Goulart. “My goal is to offer classes to families around our lake community. Music Together’s success in our other locations has been phenomenal, and I want to offer all family members our wonderful program in Lake County.
“All children can learn to sing in tune, keep a beat, and participate with confidence in the music of our culture, provided that their early environment supports such learning. Music Together brings families together by providing a rich musical environment in the classroom and facilitating whole family participation in spontaneous musical activity at home within the context of daily life. Families get so much out of these classes,” Goulart said.
Goulart is a registered Music Together teacher who has successfully completed the Music Together Teaching Workshop, developed by the Center for Music and Young Children, Princeton, New Jersey.
Goulart's career in the early childhood development field is 25 years strong.
She earned her master’s degree, bachelors of science degree, and associates of arts degree in early childhood education and human development.
Goulart owns and is the primary caregiver and preschool teacher of the successful Bundle of Joy Preschool Childcare in Hidden Valley Lake. She has spent 14 years building this business.
She was honored by her Bundle of Joy family’s nomination with Lake County Child Planning Council’s 2013 Provider of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award.
“Music Together and I are a perfect match of philosophy and enthusiasm for early childhood music and movement and building family bonds. I am excited to bring Music Together to our families in Lake County,” Goulart added.
Celebrating its 25th Anniversary, Music Together is an internationally recognized early childhood music and movement program for children birth through age 7.
The Music Together curriculum was coauthored in 1987 by Kenneth K. Guilmartin (founder/director) and Rowan University Professor of Music Education Dr. Lili M. Levinowitz (director of research) and offers programs for families; schools; at-risk populations; and children with special needs, in more than 2,000 communities in 40 countries.
The company is committed to bringing children and their caregivers closer through shared music-making and helping people discover the joy – and educational value – of early music experiences.
For more information about Music Together Lake County classes and to register, call 707-494-3819 or visit www.musictogetherlakecounty.com .
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