Rural and Rebellious
Graffiti in Humboldt County
Cover Story
Rural and Rebellious
There is something radical in making beautiful art in the abandoned parts of our public space, vulnerable not only to the elements but to any art critic or competitive painter. Imagine spending hours on a painting only to find it scrawled on, or painted over by the next muralist, or your medium simply demolished. The…
Food Safety Alert! Metromint Flavor Water!
This just in from the Co-op folks: December 6, 2007 The North Coast Co-op has received notification from the FDA and the California Department of Public Health that Soma Beverage of San Francisco is recalling its Metromint Flavor Water with Best Before 2008/12/21 due to possible Bacillus cereus contamination. Bacillus cereus is an agent of…
Happy Birthday, Sara Bareilles
Friday, Dec. 7, is Sara Bareilles ‘ birthday. She’s just turned 28. Yes, that’s Sara at the top of the front page on today’s Times-Standard . (She’s in this week’s Journal too and she has also showed up on the pages of Rolling Stone , People magazine and Entertainment Weekly .) The L.A.-based singer songwriter…
Eureka Books: Sold!
It could have been a real tragedy for Eureka intellectual life, but what a happy ending! Eureka Books, an indispensable Old Town institution, has been bought by two of the bookiest people we know: Scott Brown, editor of Fine Books & Collections magazine and pinch-hitting columnist , and Amy Stewart, celebrated author and Journal gardening…
Press Issues and Global Warming
Copies of the new NCJ are usually hitting Arcata and Eureka right about now. Not this week. It looks like there were some problems at the printers last night, and the Journal won’t be going out until this afternoon or tomorrow. We haven’t seen any copies yet. Here’s a tease, though. This week, the Journal…
Disemvowelment In Effect
We’ve been blissfully troll-free in the month that the Blogthing has been live, but it was only a matter of time. Notice: Trollish posts herein and henceforth will be disemvoweled. If you really want to see what has been posted you can figure it out, but you’ll have to put in a bit of work.…
Muddy’s Hot Cup gets quieter
This official announcement (from Muddy’s Hot Cup) came in Tuesday morning. Look for further details in the Hum this week. – Bob December 4, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: No More Music at Muddy’s — Again? Live entertainment at Muddy’s Hot Cup of Northtown is cancelled until further notice. In a hearing with the department of…
Can Indonesia Save the Bay?
The Eureka Reporter seems to think so. In today’s paper, they give front-page coverage to a meeting that took place yesterday between Deddy Saiful Hadi, head of Chancery/Consul for Economics with the Consulate General of the Republic of Indonesia, and the City of Eureka. According to the report, the meeting was a success. Hadi, unprompted,…
More Ferndalian psychotherapy
If Freud had a psychotherapy practice in Ferndale — that is if he could get one — he might notice how fixated the town folk are on their very tall, living Christmas tree. He might think nothing of it. After all, sometimes a Christmas tree is just a Christmas tree. But then again, Ferndale has…
Cutbacks at the ER
Chris Durant and Kimberly Wear outside Times-Standard headquarters this morning. Photo: Al Eisenstadt. The war may not be over, but the Eureka Reporter ‘s big announcement this morning is pretty much as expected — a five-day-per-week publishing schedule and a bumped-up website. The days of fancy paper are long gone. Can the ER make it…
The Glory That Is Willits
This week in my column I wrote a little bit about Willits , my hometown, and how it’s become awesome all of a sudden: Willits is the new Garberville. Only bigger and even cooler. Ten years ago the tweakers owned the town. Now they seem to have been banished. Someone flipped some sort of switch…
FPPC To Investigate Campbell
The state Fair Political Practices Commission will undertake an investigation of Fortuna Mayor John Campbell, according to a press release sent out this afternoon by Mark Lovelace of the Humboldt Watershed Council. The investigation, in response to an HWC complaint, will center on whether or not Campbell has acted improperly by failing to disclose retirement…
World of Hurt
Tuesday was a black, black day for the North Coast Railroad Authority, the public agency in charge of the 10-years-dead railroad tracks between Humboldt County and the Bay Area. It was the day when all the players who have been amassing in opposition to the authority’s quixotic mission finally laid down their cards. To brag…
Disney’s Holiday Treat
Previews There may only be two new openings on Friday, Nov. 30, but happily one of them is No Country for Old Men, based on the dark novel by Cormac McCarthy and adapted and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. With a cast that includes Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Woody Harrelson…
Winter Rainbow
Acorn, buttercup, butternut, carnival, delicata, Hubbard, kabocha, red kuri, spaghetti — seeing the different varieties of winter squash displayed in our local grocery stores brings a poetic expression to my eyes. An expression that is, covertly, the expression of a scheming cook. From dark green acorn to deep orange red kuri, from smooth-skinned butternut to…
High honor in Hoopa
On a recent fall afternoon at the Kim Yerton Memorial Library, in Hoopa Valley, library branch manager Kristin Freeman described over the phone the scene inside the warm, wood structure which is shaped to resemble a xhonta, a traditional house of the Hupa people. A carved wood eagle perched in the round window, through which…
What the FERC?!
Driving down U.S. Route 97 this past September in the Lower Klamath Basin in Oregon, Klamath Water Users Association Executive Director Greg Addington told me he expected the settlement talks to end in November. "The settlement talks?" a reporter with the California Farm Bureau asked from the front seat of Addington’s Suburban. Do you live…
Harmonic Convergence
It’s the week after Thanksgiving, a quiet time in general, and really quiet on the local music front. One holiday down, and "Christmastime is comin’…," which means lots of parties and celebrating in the weeks ahead. Since we’re nearing the end of 2007, touring musicians are starting to go into self-imposed hibernation. After all the…
Will Global Warming Harm Our North Coast?
Fossil fuel combustion has already increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 36 percent over pre-industrial levels, from 280 ppm to 380 ppm. This contributes to global warming because CO2, despite its low concentration, effectively absorbs outgoing thermal infrared radiation. (Other greenhouse gases are water vapor, methane and ozone). The correlation between…
Gifts for Gardeners
We gardeners are not — I repeat, not— difficult to buy for. The only thing you need to know is that the items you see advertised as gifts for gardeners — floral-printed oven mitts, silver trowel-and-spade earrings, CDs of peaceful bird songs — are actually not gardening gifts at all. They are gifts with a…
On the Jimmy Reed Highway
CD by Omar Dykes/Jimmie Vaughan. Ruf Records. Less is more. The space between the notes is at least as important as the notes themselves. That concept has been well enunciated by bluesmen like James Harman, Freddy Below and Jimmie Vaughan. This new release from Kent "Omar" Dykes and Jimmie Vaughan is a great illustration of…
Shortcomings
Graphic novel by Adrian Tomine. Drawn & Quarterly. Comic book artist and illustrator Chris Ware says that whenever he hears the term "graphic novel," he thinks of D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. But from the underground comic movement in the 1960s, comic books elevated in form and content, employing novelistic or fictional arcs, creating personal,…
Shelter from the Ash
CD by Six Organs of Admittance. Drag City Records. At this point in Ben Chasny’s storied career, it is unfair to continue referring to John Fahey and Robbie Basho in an attempt to situate the Eureka native’s musical orientation. His accomplishments in Six Organs of Admittance, as well as Comets on Fire and various other…
At One With The Ashes
My father’s grandmother had love in her heart,…
