Post Card Kings
Collectors battle for pieces of Humboldt’s past
Cover Story
Postcard Kings
One Friday night in November as most Eurekans were easing into their weekends, two men sat in front of their respective computer screens preparing to do battle. They were not zombie-hunting online gamers, but postcard collectors, or deltiologists (del-ti-ol-o-gists), bidding against each other on eBay for rare images of Humboldt County. In the living room…
Marsee Reflects on Accomplishments as President of CR
The news broke yesterday, but today College of the Redwoods President Jeff Marsee officially announced his impending departure to become President/CEO of San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton. Here’s the press release from CR: College of the Redwoods President Jeff Marsee has accepted a new position as the President of San Joaquin Delta College…
Humboldt Folklife Wants You
The Humboldt Folklife Society is seeking your input. Here’s the letter sent out by Maggie Gainer. The link to the survey is at the end. Dear Lovers of Music and Dance, Folk music and dance have become one of the defining characteristics of the Humboldt Bay area. Every week throughout the year, there are a…
Grove battle continues
Protestors opposed to the widening/straightening of Hwy 101 at Richardson’s Grove shifted into direct action today, unfurling a banner across the highway at the entrance to the state park and creating what was deemed by authorities, a “traffic hazard.” Here’s the incident report from the California Highway Patrol: Location: US101 AT RICHARDSON GROVE …
SoHum Teens Speak Out
Two high school seniors from Southern Humboldt spoke at a rally in Eureka Saturday to protest the U.S. Navy’s plans to create a target practice range off the Humboldt County coast. “The animals don’t have voices so we have to speak for them,” 17-year-old Kali Persall of Shelter Cove told the 50 activists who gathered…
Nursing Our Wounds
The demise of the Bachelor of Science nursing program at Humboldt State University has wounded the region’s health care system and signaled that something may be awry on campus. The hurt to the health care system extends well beyond the roughly 60 openings for new bachelor’s-level nursing students that will no longer be available said…
For the Fallen Barn
Now born open to ordinary light this body,…
Red Over Blue Lake
Editor: Before you get too enthusiastic about the value to our community of the “thousands” of W-2 forms submitted by the Blue Lake Casino, you might do a little investigative reporting about why that number is so high, given the number of actual employees (“The Little Casino That Could,” Feb. 10).Take a good close look…
A Peaceful Grove?
Editor: I thank Ryan Burns for attempting even-handed coverage of the rally to protest Caltrans proposed work at Richardson Grove (“Realignment,” Feb. 10), but found myself wishing he had said more about the reasons many people have for opposing this project.The impact on Richardson Grove will be huge. Bigger trucks equal more road damage. Cutting…
The Golden Age of Postcards
Collecting picture cards was all the rage in the early years of the 20th century. In fact the period from 1907 to 1915 is now known as the Golden Age of Postcards. During the peak of the craze, the U.S. Postal Service estimated that a billion penny postcards were mailed each year and many more were sent in letters or purchased…
Stop Abate
Editor:Listening to the Tom Abate KSLG interview is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. How could Judy Hodgson or any other person listen to this tragedy/comedy unfold and not be mortified? Further, one of Tom’s first articles is concerning “laptop gambling” at Blue Lake Rancheria, the new “Hybrid Casino”. Now all we need…
Allium Weather
What a totally summery February! I’ve been sending smug pictures of myself on the beach to all my shivering amigos in New York. Ha, ha, suckers! However we all know this weather is not built to last, as is evidenced by the plethora of winter vegetables still plaguing the larder like the last drunken guest.…
A Powerful Hankering
Editor:Among the by-lines that I always look forward to: Garrison Keillor, Paul Krugman, Leonard Pitts, John Driscoll, Amy Stewart and Hank Sims. When will Hank Sims return? Chip Sharpe, Bayside Editor:With last week’s resignation of Hank Sims, the Journal lost not only a fine editor but Humboldt’s most astute political and cultural observer. His Town…
The Best Technology Writing 2010
Once again this annual Yale Press selection provides informative, thought-provoking and well-written pieces on manifestations of new technologies, with the emphasis on their impact and meaning, applied not only to contemporary life but to our understanding of larger matters such as biological evolution and the human brain. The topics include aspects of the Internet now…
Horses and High Heels
Alongside Patti Smith, Marianne Faithfull has established herself as one of rock’s grand matriarchs. Over a career spanning four decades, Faithfull has experienced a number of defining phases, beginning in 1969 with her version of “As Tears Go By.” She reinvented herself in 1980 with Broken English, followed by the emergence as a latter-day chanteuse,…
King’s English
A reader might find much in this column to heartily disagree with. If they were to openly express their opinion in a letter to the editor, others might be impacted. My dad — an ardent believer in the “King’s English” on which his education was based — would have had a fit reading the previous…
Lawn Dawn
Redwood Curtain in Eureka is the first theatre anywhere to present The Lawn, a new play by Cody Henderson, a young playwright from Los Angeles. It’s getting an all-star treatment, with direction by Dell’Arte’s Michael Fields and a cast of RC and Dell’Arte veterans. I notice that the program doesn’t bill it as a “World…
McKinleyville Arts Night
1) Plaza Design, McKinleyville Shopping Center. Julie Doerner, watercolor paintings; Harp flute by “Hart Strings” by Lonni. 2) North Coast Gallery, McKinleyville Shopping Center. Ryan Souther, mixed media.3) McKinleyville Family Resource Center., 1450 Hiller Rd. McKinleyville Mothers, mixed media artwork.4) Mantova’s Two Street Music, 2019 Central Ave. Musical by John Young Trio.5) Blake’s Books, 2005 Central Ave. Libby George,…
The Play’s the Thing
KCACTF is underway. The somewhat unwieldy acronym stands for the prestigious Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. KCACTFestival Forty-Three and the associated New West Drama Conference are underway at Humboldt State, which means a thousand or so T.A. students from all over are here for plays and workshops discussing the nuts and bolts of theater,…
Fishtank’s Got Talent
If you’ve ever experienced the amazing gypsy-ish jazz of Fishtank Ensemble, you know that lead singer/violinist, Ursula Knudson has talent. She has a classically trained voice — she can sing opera or channel a ’30s chanteuse at will. She’s also the wife of French-born fiddler/bandleader Fabrice Martinez, and mother of 4-year-old Fishtank fiddler in training,…
Land. Whoa.
Who cares about Humboldt County? If the recent Richardson Grove protests at CalTrans or the ongoing rancor surrounding the proposed Marina Center and/or the General Plan are any indicator, the people here still do. To many, this land is their land. Which is good. Even if Humboldtians can’t come up with a collective answer to…
Festive
The plan for Saturday night’s Winterfest at the Arcata Community Center is so different from last year’s it’s beyond Winterfest 2.0. You may recall the ambitious 2010 version had a mess of local bands, 13 total, spread over three different downtown clubs — one wristband got you into all venues. Cool idea, but it didn’t…
Generational Divide in Trinidad
Lately, a growing population of young skateboarders has been doing ollies and grinding rails all over the sleepy, idyllic harbor town of Trinidad, but last Wednesday the skaters showed up somewhere unexpected — a city council meeting. More than a dozen teens and pre-teens in hoodies and stocking caps filed into the rustic town hall,…
Epic Failures
REVIEWS: THE EAGLE. Epics have been a major genre almost from the beginning of film history, the earliest being imports from Europe. The best known from the silent era are probably Birth of a Nation and Intolerance from D.W. Griffiths, both released before 1920. The form seemed to have reached its high point with all…
Big Job
A story in the Orange County Register last week seemed geared to rouse the credit union-member masses of this state — including here in our redwood-planked Humboldt bunker — from their smug, stick-it-to-the-hog-banks complacency. The piece, in a section of the paper called “OC Watchdog: Your tax dollars at work,” ran under the deceptively simple…
