Topic: Leisure

Radiant hummers, bluebirds, return

By Rev. Charles Moreland | April 20, 2008 |

April is the season of bluebirds. We watch streaks of blue dart across the sky as the bluebirds seek a nesting site for the summer. These colorful birds need our attention and care; we can help them to flourish by setting out bluebird houses, available at many local outlets. If you are handy, mechanically inclined, you can build a bluebird house.

Bluebirds raise two or three broods, beginning in May. After each brood has left the nest, clean out the old nest; it’s also okay to lift the top of the house and take a peek at the baby birds or the nest filled with eggs. Just don’t put any food directy into the bluebird house.

Bluebirds are perfectly capable of caring for themselves and their babies. After taking your weekly peek at the little ones, be sure to secure the lid. You need not be afraid of frightening away the parent birds; they will return. «Read the rest of this article»

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Spirituality | No Comments

Vincent Visits Drive-In Saturday Night

By Christine Anne Piesyk | July 13, 2007 |

Vincent Price. His face and the concept of the black and white horror story were synonymous;  his name and that of author Edgar Allen Poe irrevocable intertwined in the minds of movie-goers in the 50s and 60s. Price = Horror.

In Fall of the House of Usher,Vincent Price as Roderick, the head of the Usher house, who believes his family to be cursed. He and his sister Madeline are the end of their bloodline, and ERRoderick wants to keep it that way. Hypersensitive, he requires quiet, soft lights, bland food — otherwise he feels pain intensely. But Madeline has a lover, a fiancee would take her away for all of this madness. Usher crosses the line away from sanity and decides that everyone must die and the house burned to the ground, destroying the curse forever. It’s a spine-tingling race to the and one of the faithful adaptations of a Poe novel for the screen. It’s a movie and a role Price was born to do. (1960) «Read the rest of this article»

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Journeys on Drive-In Saturday Night

By Christine Anne Piesyk | June 29, 2007 |

We’ve traveled to outer space already this summer. How about inner space now? With Pat Boone as a headliner, how could this version of H.G. Wells’ Journey to the Center of the Earth be anything but a lightweight sojourn. James Mason is the dedicated Professor Lindenbrook, who believes another explorer, Arne Saknussen, has already reached the earth’s core. He’s got a rock with marking to prove it. Entering the earth through an Icelandic volcano, he is accompaned by a stocky Swede, a white duck, the widow of another explorer, and a student (Pat Boone). Along the way, they encounter prehistoric creatures, have a close encounter with a salt mine, and battle their way through a magma flow. Outrageous? Of course. That’s the fun of it. (1959).

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Heroes for Drive-In Saturday Night

By Christine Anne Piesyk | June 15, 2007 |

Lord Jim is one Peter O’Toole’s lesser known films, one that doesn’t turn up anywhere with any kind of honor or fanfare. It is one of his best, though, based on Joseph Conrad’s book (circa 1900). It is the story of a seaman, James Burke, a British Merchant Marine, proud, respected, who, after an injury is re-assigned to the Patna, a rustbucket boat with a rustier crew. Their cargo: Moslem pilgrims en route to Mecca. The storm-tossed ship begins to flounder, and Jim abandons ship with his crew without ever lowering a lifeboat for their passengers.

The Patna is unexpectedly salvaged, the passengers saved, and Burke and crew disgraced. Branded a coward, Jim becomes a guilt-laden drifter, unable to completely escape his past. His chance at redemption comes in form of gun-running — delivering arms to an indigenous tribe oppressed by a warlord.

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Sections: Arts and Leisure | No Comments