Redefining the Project
Is sustainability the new zeitgeist in the Klamath Basin?
Cover Story
Redefining the Project
The over 4,000 cattle being grazed sustainably at Sycan Marsh, located in the northeastern corner of the Klamath Basin, have no idea how much science has gone into the cud they’re chewing. But Craig Beinz does. At first glance, Beinz looks more like a rancher than an ecologist, but underneath his spotless cowboy hat and…
Rejecting Winter
By the time you read this, the winter solstice will be over and the days will be getting gradually and imperceptibly longer. That’s fine with me. Having a few minutes of daylight and a few degrees of warmth snatched away from me day by day has left me feeling irritated and impoverished. I should be…
Whatever It Is We Do
They’re back. The Redwood Jazz Alliance , that is. The collection of jazz educators and fans intent on bringing a wider range of improv music to Humboldt started with two concerts their first season. The RJA kicks off a more ambitious six show season Thursday, Sept. 27, with two shows at the Morris Graves Museum…
On the Ocean
It was April 23, 2006, when I first realized that the ocean has a heartbeat. I was participating in a Godwit Days tour of Trinidad Bay led by Marna Powell, owner of Kayak Zaks, and Michael Morris, a local birder. I had been in a kayak before, but this was my first time on the…
Petol Power
In the event of a global economic collapse or catastrophic drop in the value of the U.S. dollar, Petrolia residents could be sitting pretty. That is, if they are savvy enough to invest in Petols, the newly minted silver currency slowly circulating in the Mattole Valley and beyond. Ken Young, a maverick Petrolia resident —…
My Strange Plant Encounter
This is a story of accidental scientific rediscovery. The photo above shows a common coastal perennial plant named Cow Parsnip. Last spring I picked its large leaves to mulch redwood seedlings. During the next few days I watched a mild redness on my arms develop into a handsome tan. Discovery by accident is termed “serendipity,”…
Glorious Bells
The Farmers’ Market is always a feast for the eyes, and some days the feast includes fireworks. Lately I have been admiring the pyrotechnic display of peppers. Stalls are overflowing with specimens of different colors, shapes and sizes. Looking at this bounty, I feel like a child in front of an amazing array of (vegetable)…
Shut Up and Read
In 1935, President Roosevelt decided to give unemployed writers a job. “Why not?” he said. “They are human beings. They have to live.” That might not have been the kind of ringing endorsement writers were hoping for, but hey, there was a depression on. The Federal Writers Project, a program of the WPA, put writers…
Fall Follies
We had a good time meeting last week with Steven Glazer, the public relations man retained by Eureka kazillionaire Rob Arkley to put forth his case in the now-infamous Avalon incident (see "Town Dandy," Sept. 13). We’d heard from KSLG’s John Matthews — the first local to score an interview with Glazer, we believe —…
Madness
Greedy financiers and rapacious corporate exploiters ready to do anything to get more oil to wage more war might well inspire the shock and awe of recognition, especially through the words of Jean Giradoux’s The Madwoman of Chaillot, currently at the North Coast Repertory Theatre in Eureka. Written in the midst of World War II,…
Hot Season
People packed the banks on both sides of the Klamath River two weeks ago, holding fishing poles on the crowded river’s edge. The lines, 40 to 75 people long, shuffled from time to time as others came out of shade tents with gill nets and brought them down to the shore, yelling for anyone in…
Nine Ways to Die
Brace yourselves. Ready? OK: The draft Humboldt Operational Area Hazard Mitigation Plan is ready for your perusal! The multi-jurisdictional plan considers nine possible disaster scenarios in the county that could seriously disrupts lives — dam failure, drought, earthquake, fishing losses, flood, landslides and other mass movements, severe weather, tsunami and wild fire — and suggests…
Welcome Back, Cronenberg
Previews Opening Friday, Sept. 14, The Kingdom is about an F.B.I. team that investigates an act of terrorism in Saudi Arabia. See review below. Written and directed by Paul Haggis ( Crash ), In the Valley of Elah stars Tommy Lee Jones as a career officer and Susan Sarandon as his wife. They try to…
La Jetée/Sans Soleil
Once again the Criterion Collection has rescued the work of a masterful director from the annals of obscurity. Here they couple two key works by French director/photographer/activist Chris Marker, La Jetée and Sans Soleil , vastly different films that still clearly stem from the same artistic vision. Marker is a notoriously enigmatic figure. He’s never…
Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970
The Summer of Love still casts its patchouli-scented shadow on the Bay Area forty years later, a legend blessed and cursed by old hippies and academics who weren’t even alive at the time. One thing you can’t refute is the Bay Area’s revolutionary impact on the music business. It gave birth to psychedelia, jam bands,…
Living By Our Lights – 1966
*You did what you knew how to do,…
