In a black headwrap, tambourine in hand, Paula Jones addressed the audience of 145 gathered around tables in the Wharfinger Building Saturday night for the Black Heritage Ball. Heritage, she said, “means the inheritance of who we are and the value of our culture,” a culture, she noted, that has permeated American life “since we […]
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How to Meditate When the World is on Fire
This week has been incredibly trying for so many of us and our community. How do we move toward a sense of balance, ease and fulfillment in a world that is so loud? I don’t expect 2026 to feel easier or calmer than 2025, but I know I will move into it with some more […]
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A Table for All
David Holper’s Bord för En At the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, a Swedish pop-up restaurant opened in an open field. There, a basket of food was sent to just one person at a time via cable. Bord för en, Swedish for “table for one,” closed on Aug. 1, 2020. In his fourth collection of […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Top 10 Dick Moves of 2025
It’s been a year of yikes, folks. Humboldt had far more bad looks and petty deeds in 2025 than a brief list can contain, but these are the selfish choices and low blows that really sprang out at us. 10. Painting hanging figures in Eureka. The graffiti that showed up on downtown buildings (and over […]
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Embracing the Long Night of the Winter Solstice
It seems much of the Northern Hemisphere is collectively irritated at the cold and lengthening darkness. Every year, complaints roll in as if the Earth has personally offended us by tilting its northern half away from the sun for an entire quarter of the year. Yet this tilt, this predictable and essential cosmic rhythm, is […]
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Walk the Dog (Without Drama)
It’s finally time! That new bundle of loyal devotion you adopted in the spring is fully vaccinated, ready to mingle and enjoy all of Humboldt’s dog-friendly areas. You naturally want to be a good citizen and an awesome pup parent, so you are prepared with poop bags, water and training treats. You have been working […]
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There’s Magic in the Redwoods (Even for Beginners)
Gina Venturino recalls that when she started out playing Magic: The Gathering in high school, when her family owned the former NuGames in Eureka, “I was often the only female in the room and it took me a really long time to ever actually start becoming comfortable just going to a game store and playing […]
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Advice for Avoiding the Avian Influenza Apocalypse
OK, alliteration aside, I am back to discuss the very topical issue of the growing concern involving avian influenza A (H5N1). The current administration will likely create an environment of missing and misinformation, much like the last time this executive held government reins. So, who ya gonna call? Well, your local veterinarian and support staff […]
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Mike Craghead Carves Out his Spot on Halloween Wars: All Stars
Mike Craghead says he has a condition — one that makes him obsessively enjoy pumpkin carving. Like many, he would carve pumpkins with his family for Halloween as a child. However, as the years passed, so did the level of complexity in Craghead’s carving. “It probably really started going off the rails when I was […]
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Redwood Poetry Festival Takes the Stage
Wil Gibson fell in love with poetry at the age of 8 when he saw the poet laureate of Chicago belting out verse. But as a young adult living on the streets, he felt a divide between his social standing and his literary dreams. “I never thought poetry was something I could have,” Gibson says. […]
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Humboldt Cannabis Wins Big at the State Fair
For 170 years, the California State Fair has been highlighting the state’s best agriculture. From cheese and wine to vegetables and livestock, competition over who produces top goods is fierce. Beginning in 2022, California made history by including something new in fair competition: cannabis. With this 2024 season, officials made history once more in creating […]
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The Surreal Life of ‘Sea Lion Cow’
If you are a parent, you know this scenario well: Your child does something cute so you bust out your phone. Mine has countless videos and photos of my son from all ages, generally never revisited. For the Fratkin family, however, one of these random moments has turned, extraordinarily, into a short film selection in […]