Good-time concert at BAC; 'Ryder,' Carson High 'Prom'

Looks like the Brewery Arts Center has its finger on the musical pulse of Carson City better than ever. The recent Sawmill Road bluegrass concert last Saturday was well attended, and from the applause and cheers the audience was happy. In fact, it was a very happy concert with the five members of Sawmill offering the kind of music that is just fun.

In the past some of the concerts of major jazz quartets attracted audiences of perhaps 30 or so; this time it was in the hundreds. Personally, jazz is fine, but that's not the way local music lovers feel apparently.

Cowboy poet Richard Elloyan opened for Sawmill and as always his stint was fine guitar and good poetry. But Sawmill Road was the big act and they came through.

Steve Spurgin emceed and played the electric bass; Bruce Johnson is a fiddle player with sweet sounds; the very tall Dick Brown plunked the banjo with speed and dash. The young man of the group, Mark Miracle, offered the finest mandolin this side of Naples (where the mandolin grew up) and Charlie Edsall, guitar, sang a little but strummed a lot - all to good effect. Sawmill has put out a CD with many of the songs played here on it. In short, Sawmill was a good time concert with the music of America.

Don't forget this is the last weekend for "When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder," at the BAC theater. Adults only.

SCHOLARS AT WORK

"How to Get a Prom Date without Really Trying" and "The Least Offensive Play in the Whole Darn World" opens tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the BAC Performance Hall. This is by Carson Performing Arts, with the Carson Middle School Drama Club and Blue Mime Group. Call 219-3577.

FROM THE VAULTS

It's the thesis of the Iraq documentary "No End in Sight" that the insurgency that has killed hundreds of Americans was not just a consequence of U.S. military might but the product of unrealistic policies imposed by Department of Defense officials who didn't believe their experienced officers' advice. (The film was up for an Academy Award but didn't make the cut.)

The people who made the documentary and are pressing those charges are not second-guessing outsiders but former senior advisers to the Bush administration. They include deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, reconstruction czar Gen. Jay Garner, Colin Powell's chief of staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson and ambassador Barbara Bodine. The picture they paint is of a failure of leadership on an international scale, with young Republican political appointees making poor decisions with huge repercussions. Strong stuff, but pretty much what John McCain has been saying for years.

National Intelligence Council chairman Robert Hutchins reports that President Bush would not even read one-page briefings on the post-invasion situation.

"We watched our careful planning, our detailed planning, essentially discarded," the State Department's Wilkerson said.

Political scientist-turned-filmmaker Charles Ferguson doesn't offer a political diatribe, but rather a managerial critique. Apart from bitterly ironic clips of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld pooh-poohing negative reports from the war zone ("I don't do quagmires." "Stuff happens!"), he avoids Michael Moore-style theatrics with an organized indictment of post-invasion policy with news footage and talking heads.

Runtime: 1 hour, 42 minutes; limited released July 27, 2007.

• Contact Sam Bauman at 881-1236 or Sbauman@nevadaappeal.com.