Cover Story
Return of the Minor
On a sunny Arcata afternoon, Josh Neff is sweeping the broad sidewalk in front of the Minor Theater. He chats briefly and amiably with a bedraggled man seated on the theater’s front step. Above him the marquee reads, “Closed; Thank you for 10 great years.” But down at sidewalk level, Neff and his partner, Merrick…
Humboldt Style: Gala Glam
While Leonardo DiCaprio was selling his soul to that goat from The Witch for his Oscar, the Eureka Theater was flush with its own parade of gowns and tuxes at the Red Carpet Gala co-hosted by the Humboldt Del Norte Film Commission and the theater, celebrating 100 years of filming on the North Coast. The…
‘A Wake of Destruction:’ Warren’s Probation Report Sheds New Light on Cruz Waiver
By the time a Humboldt County Superior Court judge agreed to release Jason Anthony Warren from jail on Aug. 24, 2012 to allow him to get his affairs in order prior to being sentenced to a six-year state prison bid for illegally possessing a firearm, the then 27-year-old Warren had already amassed a criminal record…
El Gañador
Humboldt State University’s bilingual student newspaper El Leñador was recently named California’s best non-weekly student newspaper. At its Excellence in Student Media awards banquet in Los Angeles, the California College Media Association tapped the now 3-year-old paper for its First Place prize for the category of Best Newspaper, with a judge noting that the Spanish-English…
Humboldt Style: Boots and Brands
Next year, when you’re standing in front of your open closet wondering what to wear to the Humboldt Del Norte Cattlemen’s Association’s annual spring dinner and dance, you’ll want to scroll through this slideshow. The guys and gals who kicked up their heels in the Humboldt County Fairgrounds’ Belotti Hall came correct. (Incidentally, turquoise is…
Weigh in on Designs for Eureka’s Waterfront Wednesday at the Wharfinger
Got a vision for the waterfront? Eureka’s Community Development Department has released six sketches of a possible future for the undeveloped bayside stretch between C and F streets. The designs incorporate a variety of ideas the department collected over several public meetings last year, and the city wants feedback from the public on the drawings.…
HumBug: Dainty Little Moths
Tuesday evening I purposely left on the porch light. In the middle of winter there is seldom anything, but sometimes you get lucky, and I got a few small moths. Plume moths (family Pterophoridae) are fairly common. When they land, they hold their very narrow wings out 90 degrees from their bodies, looking like a…
TL;DR: Five Things We Want to See at the Minor Theater
Busy week? We get it. Here are some highlights from this week’s cover story to get you caught up. Earlier this month, the 101-year-old Minor Theater quietly closed, its operator, Ashland-based Coming Attractions, unable to renew a contract with the building’s owner. But quickly thereafter, owner Josh Neff, who bought the Minor and most of…
The Van Kirk and Vinyard Research Collection: HSU Honors Humble Heroines
Susie Van Kirk would probably not have approved of Humboldt State University’s plan to immortalize her. The decades-long activist for homeless and environmental rights was not a fan of the spotlight, according to all who knew her, going as far as to ask her son not to hold a memorial service or write an obituary…
Get Down With EPD: Active Shooter Training
The Eureka Police Deparment is offering a free training on how to survive an active shooter incident to citizens on Thursday, March 3. EPD Administrative Technician Suzie Owsley said that the training is just one of many community public safety events that Chief Andrew Mills has requested. “This topic seemed to be timely,” Owsley said.…
King Clown
Gale McNeeley, Dell’Arte graduate and veteran of television, movies, Broadway and more, returns to his beloved Humboldt County for two performances this month. Known for his original political satires and musical cabarets, the expressive actor, singer, dancer and clown brings his one-man show featuring Archy and Mehitabel (the “poetic cockroach” and “morally careless alley cat”)…
Young and Fabulous
After weeks of learning costume, makeup, stage and performance tips from local drag experts, Humboldt youth ages 10 through 21 take the stage at Synapsis Studio and work it at the Color Me Queer Drag Show and Dance Party Feb. 19 from 7 to 11 p.m. (donation, free for 21 and under) The all-ages event…
Pretty Boys
Reviews DEADPOOL. A friend helped frame my thinking about Ryan Reynolds early on, by showing me Van Wilder (2002). To some (well, many) it’s a second-tier National Lampoon gross-out that doesn’t merit a first or second look. But it introduced us to Reynolds, in all his mildly strange, hyper-verbal, undeniably appealing leading man-ness. As my…
Cross over Bridgeville
Editor: The Journal cover story about Bridgeville (Feb. 4) is a pile of lies where it mentions the Lapple family. Writer Linda Stansberry tries to shield her fantasy by saying, “We attempted to contact Mrs. Lapple. …” Really? We advertise in the Journal; they’ve no problem contacting us to buy ads or for paying invoices.…
To Bamboo or Not to Bamboo
I recently received an interesting question from NCJ staff writer Linda Stansberry, and it seemed like a great topic for this month’s column. She writes: “I just bought a house whose lovely raised garden beds are being strangled by invasive bamboo. What can I do?” First off, let me say that bamboo is a grass.…
Lace & Fuzz
Lacewings I was cleaning up storm debris from my yard when a tiny creature fluttered daintily by. I recognized its flight pattern immediately as one of the prettiest and most delicate things I know: a green lacewing. It brought a smile. The order Neuroptera (“nerve winged”) has some really dainty insects. It is a bit…
The Invention of Nature
Alexander Von Humboldt is not exactly a household name in 21st-Century America. I, for one, knew almost nothing about him, even after living in the county bearing his name for several years. But in his day, he was “as famous as Napoleon,” the ultimate science rock star — Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye the Science…
McKinleyville Arts Night
A celebration of local art and artists with music, food and fun. McKinleyville Arts Night is open for all McKinleyville businesses to display the work of local artists on the third Friday of the month. Call 834-6460 or visit www.mckinleyvilleartsnight.com for more information. CALIFORNIA REDWOOD COAST AIRPORT 3561 Boeing Ave. View artwork by Humboldt County…
Push and Pull
To call it being stuck between a rock and a hard place is a bit too simple. More accurately, Eureka’s finding itself stuck between a consultant’s plan to end homelessness, humanitarian and environmental crises and a massive concrete liability slated for demolition in the coming weeks. While Eureka’s problems with homelessness are painfully visible and…
Sign up, Pay up
It wouldn’t exactly be accurate to say Humboldt County marijuana growers are rushing into compliance. But Humboldtians put their neighbors to shame, out-enrolling other Northern California counties in the state Water Board’s marijuana compliance program. As the Times-Standard reports, the deadline to enroll in the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board’s Cannabis Cultivation Waste…
Tough Nut to Crack
In many regions, wintertime brings a relative dearth of wild foods, but not on the north coast. In fact, winter is a great time to find one of my favorite native nuts, the often overlooked, incredibly tasty black walnut (Juglans nigra). Unlike domestic English walnuts sold by most grocers, black walnuts are rarely sold commercially.…
Rob Wall
Humboldt County residents are lucky for countless reasons. One of those is that, due to our rather small population, we have a real opportunity to get to know our elected officials and public servants. As with many in the “public sphere,” it’s easy for us to think we know who a person is by glancing…
Swans
The north wind has blown white grocery sacks into the far reeds. No! Rumps tipped up hose necks down probing for bottom morsels. Late morning radiant white Tatters against the dark conifers. They fly off!
The Shark Bites
Editor: Your review of The Threepenny Opera (“Eat First, Moralize Later,” Feb. 11) gave appropriate credit to the staging of the production but said little about the quality of the production itself. Perhaps this is because few people are familiar with and knowledgeable about Die Dreigroschenoper. The original was created in the late 1920s by…
Rio Dell’s for Real
Editor: I’d like to correct a statement made by reader Douglas George of Eureka, who suggests, in a letter headed “What’s in a Town?” (Feb. 11), that Bridgeville isn’t really a town, it’s “just another unincorporated area of Humboldt County like Garberville or Redway or Rio Dell that has a post office but no governing…
