Holiday Entertainment Preview … and Gift Guide!
You know what Humboldtians don’t mess around with? Them Holidays! We do ’em up big.
Cover Story
There’s No Place Like Home-boldt for the Holidays
Traditioooooooooon! Tradition! You know what Humboldtians don’t mess around with? Them holidays! We do ’em up big. While it’s rare that we experience the kind of “White Christmas” that would give Bing Crosby something to croon about — we seem to average, oh, one per decade — Humboldt has made up for it by doing…
HumCo’s Pepper Spray Precedent
As media outlets and the public reflect on last week’s disturbing U.C. Davis pepper spray incident, many are comparing it to a dark chapter in Humboldt County’s own history — the 1997 protest inside Rep. Frank Riggs’ Eureka office, where officers with the EPD and Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office used Q-tips to apply pepper spray…
… and the tide goes out…
Occupy Eureka has once again had its structures in front the Humboldt County Courthouse removed by local law enforcement. Late this afternoon, the far left lane of Fifth Street in front of the courthouse was coned off and the sidewalk lined in police tape while the officers from the Eureka Police Department and Humboldt County…
Win in Orleans
Sometimes an amicable, chatty protest where you invite your enemy to the party works best. On Nov. 9, Orleansian mushroom pickers, upset over a new matsutake gathering policy, staged a protest outside the Six Rivers National Forest’s Orleans district office. They invited Forest Service personnel, who took notes and answered questions. Yesterday, Nov. 17, Six…
Just Too Cheerful
I wrote an introduction to last year’s Journal Gift Guide that, in hindsight, was too damn cheerful. I said, although we were two years into this recession — really, things could have been much worse here in Humboldt County. Although there were new, visible tears in the social fabric of our community, most of us…
Rise, Bronzes, Rise!
After 19 long years a-moldering in the rubble of an earthquake-collapsed foundry in Ferndale, bronze sculptures by artist Jack Mays have been pulled back into the light. Mays and the creative folks from Minds’ Eye Manufactory, a group of “makers” and artists, excavated the art works recently. The sculptures will be featured in the exhibit…
Hoover: Damn
Reviews J. EDGAR. J. Edgar Hoover was a singular figure in 20th Century American history. In his near half-century tenure as director of the FBI, he grew the organization from a nearly impotent fledgling department into the crime-bustin’ juggernaut it is today. He modernized criminal investigation, introducing databases, forensic detection and a host of…
Slipping Home
Hopefully, this doesn’t kill the rock ‘n’ roll mystique — the fast livin’, groupie drenched, substance-heavy imagery we’ve come to associate with life in the biz. But here goes: Rock bands go home for Thanksgiving, too. The trip looks slightly different though. Humboldt natives and founding members of the three-piece Steel Toed Slippers Will Nicoll…
bird on a branch
be as the branch of a tree says…
Safe Enough Already
Editor: Re the $24 million-plus that Caltrans wants to spend on “improving” the safety corridor (“State Absconds with $15M,” Blog Jammin, Nov. 10): The safety corridor was established (what, seven years ago?) to stop the string of fatalities which had occurred on that stretch of highway. It worked. There has not been a fatality since…
On Stage Over the Holidays
Coming to North Coast stages are celebrations of the holidays and plays about the complications of families celebrating the holidays. Dell’Arte begins the celebratory season with its annual series of (mostly) free holiday shows, beginning Nov. 25. This year the Dell’Arte Company takes on the season’s high art standard, The Nutcracker, but with a low…
Dialog with the Pig
Editor: Responding to “Slow News is No News” (Nov. 10), I think that by identifying the “Occupy” demonstrators as fodder for news media, Ms. Burstiner has indirectly identified the underlying issues. On the one hand, the Occupy phenomenon has unquestionably given voice to widespread discontent — not just from the usual tree hugging left wing…
Wild Flag
Music, if truly an artistic expression, will evolve over time. Bands’ styles will change with each album, and an eventual shift occurs within the genre. For indie rock, this shift has been fracturing the genre, creating offshoots and sub-categories. The variety is nice, but there’s always a constant craving for what used to be. Bring…
Panning Planning
Editor: Personally I have not met Kirk Girard (Why Do People Hate Kirk Gerard?” Nov. 3), but I have had many unsuccessful visits to the Planning Dept. Offices. The latest debacle came from an email I received through a neighbor giving me a heads up … as she knew I’d not received notice of the meeting…
The Lure of Labyrinths
Standing at the center of the world’s best-known labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral recently, I regretted that I was a couple of centuries too late to check out the brass plate connecting Chartres with the Greek myth of the labyrinth. Only the studs now remain from where an engraving used to show the struggle between Theseus…
Let’s Try Caring
Editor: I was deeply saddened by your guest post writer’s failure to understand the connection between inarticulate, less-than-clean protestors at the Arcata Plaza and the current multifaceted international “Occupy Wall Street” movement (Blog Jammin’, Nov. 3). Unfortunately, “take back the plaza,” and “push these protestors out,” is our community’s attitude. Where are we going to…
The Carnivore’s Dilemma
From the time I was 5 years old, cold autumn days meant heading up to the hills with my father, his friends and their children. We cut firewood, sat around a campfire, talked — and hunted. When I was 12, I killed my first deer. The experience was both exhilarating and depressing. Over the…
KEET Auction Highlights
KEET Auction Highlights
Nut Season
If the weather outside is frightful, don’t fret; there are plenty of reasons to be inside — and as always, the holidays bring dance. New World Ballet begins this holiday dance season with an evening of classical ballet in its studio over Thanksgiving weekend, and ends it with a formal gala event on New Year’s…
Still Asking…
Ya.
Life Itself
“It’s a feel in the air. Sometimes with low budget films you get that feel, that carnival feel. It’s here. But I feel it more here than I ever have.” He meant it. His eyes sparkled, he smiled with real joy. from Hollywood by Charles Bukowski Though Roger Ebert gained fame as a movie reviewer…
The Market Season Ends
We are fast approaching Thanksgiving, and the Saturday before, Nov. 19, is the last Farmers’ Market of 2011 on the Arcata Plaza. That’s the day when I say arrivederci many times, when the wish to be particularly attentive and thankful competes with the need to focus on the final alfresco shopping of the year. It…
Tripping on the Tipping Point
At the Arcata Playhouse this weekend, the latest from Petrolia’s top theatre troupe, Human Nature, is another take on what the troupe calls “climate change comedy:” Two Old Birds or Tripping on the Tipping Point. The “old birds” (not that old) are David Simpson and Jane Lapiner, winners of the Danish Institute for Popular Theater’s…
Sun Block
Antony Kim was checking out Humboldt State University’s College Creek housing complex after it opened last year when he noticed something odd: The windows. Actually, it was a small sticker in a corner of the windows that caught his attention, a sticker from the National Fenestration Rating Council, a nonprofit that rates the energy…
In Defense of Herbs
Editor: Liza Lester’s article titled “Drugs in Disguise” (Nov. 10) was welcome publicity for herbs. Although the article displayed a “negative” slant, the fact that herbs such as St. John’s Wort and Kava Kava were mentioned in the Journal is a leap in the right direction. It would be educational to read articles in the Journal on the POSITIVE benefits of herbs, yoga, meditation,…
