Eleven swans following geese northward white on gray…
Arts + Scene
Reviews, interviews and upcoming highlights from the week in visual and performing arts around Humboldt County.
Posted inArts + Scene
The Massacre Remembered
Preview Opening Friday, March 6, is the long anticipated Watchmen, the latest superhero film based on the comic book series written by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Directed by Zack Snyder (300), the story is set in an alternate history 1985 (Nixon is president) against the backdrop of rising tensions between the U.S. and the […]
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Happy Family
Happy Family is a novel whose ironic title refers to a Manhattan family that is far from happy. We see this family through the eyes of an immigrant named Hua from Fu Zhou, China. Author Wendy Lee is Chinese-American, and it is as if she took her own disparate experiences (teaching English in China and […]
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The Six Things a River Might Say, If It Were to Speak
I) There is no such thing as a…
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Puppets in Hell
The Independent Eye’s Mythic Kitchen troupe, based in Sebastopol, returned to the North Coast last weekend for two shows at the Arcata Playhouse. With this version of their Rash Acts, they were trying something new, more or less. They’ve used puppets before — co-founder Elizabeth Fuller, who brought her show Dream House to the Playhouse […]
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A Coot in Love
Note: My Supporting Actress pick didn’t pan out, so congratulations to Ryan Burns who bested me in our Oscar picks, which appeared last week in this column. Fortunately, my separate, friendly Oscar contest was more successful. Previews It didn’t win the Foreign Language Oscar, but happily local viewers will get to see Waltz with Bashir […]
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A Suggestion of Narrative
There was an eerie hush as crowds of people filed quietly past Karen Sullivan’s drawings and paintings during Arts Alive! at First Street Gallery. Three good sized spaces offered pen and ink drawings, gouache paintings, 3×5-inch drawings enclosed helter-skelter in a glass case center stage with their digital counterparts across the way and an installation […]
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Pick O’ The Oscars!
Preview With the Academy Awards ceremony coming on Sunday, there is only one new local opening on Friday, Feb. 20 — although Defiance is returning, in case you missed it. Last Chance Harvey opened nationally on Jan. 16 and seems to have gotten lost in the Oscar shuffle. Set in London, the film stars Dustin […]
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My Vocabulary Did This To Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer
After the birth of my daughter Sophie, the publication of Jack Spicer’s My Vocabulary Did This To Me is the best thing to ever happen to me. Hyperbole? Yeah, but this is about love. New, never-before-published poems from Jack Spicer plus everything else. Unbelievable. When my friend found out about this book, he said, “It’s […]
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Demme Goes to Dogville
Previews Opening Friday, Feb. 13, with a timely subject, is The International, directed by Tom Tykwer (Perfume). Clive Owen stars as an Interpol agent who is investigating international banking corruption and Naomi Watts is a Manhattan ADA who becomes his ally. If the trailer is accurate, he needs all the help he can get. Rated […]
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Humboldt Wild
"The people here are tenacious," says photographer Arleen Olson about the people of Humboldt County. "They just get something in their heads and they do it — just like I did this book." The book is Humboldt Wild, a self-published photography book, a project that Olson describes as "monumental." Starting with no knowledge of the […]