Send Out The Clowns
What made two circus-obsessed film actors escape to Arcata?
Cover Story
Send Out The Clowns
The large, black, beaked creature that carefully made its way among the risers of the Arcata Playhouse was kind of scary. But young Alexandra was not afraid. She turned in her front row seat and peered at him as he approached. She had a secret. She had met the man who now wore stilts and…
virtual interview with guitarist David Daniell
Who are you? My name is David Daniell. I’m a guitarist. I’ve been playing with a guitar/guitar/drums trio called San Agustin for the last 10+ years, with releases on Family Vineyard and Table of the Elements . The last few years I’ve been focusing on solo electric guitar. Where are you from? I grew up…
Gallegos Loses
The First Appellate Court has just weighed in on the landmark fraud suit brought by District Attorney Paul Gallegos against Pacific Lumber. Gallegos has lost. The trial court decision to toss the case on demurrer was affirmed in full. More to come… UPDATE: The appellate court decision can be found here (.pdf).
The Duel
While national politics dominate the news tonight, why not take a moment to revisit a seminal moment in our country’s history as retold by a guy who just slammed a pint of Scotch? Starring Michael Cera, the greatest actor in America*. * = (… who does not appear on The Wire and is also not…
December Humboldt Economic Index
Just published . This month the Composite Index dropped under 100 for the first time since January 1997. The Index stands at 99.9 — a 5.2% drop from last month. With two or three leading indicators showing signs of slowing accompanied with a decline in all sectors for which data were available, the Humboldt County…
Shit Creek
Just in case you’re not tuned in to the master HumCo blogfeed, ace reporter Ernie Branscomb is saying that a crashed truck just dumped 2,000 gallons of raw sewage into the South Fork of the Eel just north of Garberville. No one hurt, apparently.
Marin Judge Prepares Railroad Slam
On the eve of the big North Coast Railroad Authority v. Everyone lawsuit trial date down in Marin County, a judge has signaled that he is inclined to rule against the railroad authority and for the County of Marin, the City of Novato and several Bay Area and Humboldt County environmental organizations. In a pretrial…
Plus ça change
The team at the Anderson Valley Advertiser dug up this little excerpt from Kenneth Rexroth’s An Autobiographical Novel and reprinted it in last week’s issue. This would have taken place sometime in the 1920s. At last we came to the California border and the first day into the state we took a detour away from…
The NCRA’s New Play
The North Coast Railroad Authority and the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation district have unveiled a creative new scheme to kill the gathering momentum for a pedestrian/bicycle trail between Eureka and Arcata. The two agencies together will apply for a $19 million grant from the state of California to reopen the northern Humboldt section…
It’s Not The Cheese
A pox on all your damned pasteurized cheeses! There, I’ve said it! I am now the enemy of American cheesemakers, and you will doubtless hear from them in response to this column. Well, after all, they are colleagues and friends. But just as significantly, they profit from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s delusion that…
A Yurok Mushroom Hunter
Winters are horrible back East and I used to dread them. Here in Humboldt, though, the first rains of fall bring out the mushrooms, and the rest of the season is an Easter egg hunt. I love to disappear into the damp green woods while the rest of the nation freezes. It’s a thrill to…
Basic Birds & Bees
I had intended to write about ferns and their shady lives, but realized that I should first review the fundamentals of reproduction. The diagram shows the basic concepts, under the assumption that each parent provided one chromosome to form a diploid cell with a pair of chromosomes. (Further simplification is my equating cells with nuclei.)…
The Real Top Ten
A friend once labeled me the ultimate optimist. That was after I confessed that I never threw out unmatched socks; I kept expecting to find their mates. But generally I’m a pessimist. I expect the worst to happen. To me, each New Year’s is the start of what will likely be a worse year than…
FWIW
Our "Top Ten Stories of 2007" issue (Dec. 20) wasn’t on the streets for long before we got a call from Eureka City Councilmember Larry Glass. Glass had appeared on our list — No. 8 — by virtue of the brouhaha that erupted when Eureka kazillionaire Rob Arkley exploded in anger at him at a…
No Debate
Film fans, do not be alarmed: Charlie is out of town for the week, but he shall return! We also happen to know he is in a land barren of palatable movie offerings, a land desicate of modern culture, a land so pure as the driven snow as to be devoid of all cultural ambition…
CDs of 2007
by Various Artists The most monumental release this year is certainly Rhys Chatham’s A Crimson Grail, a recording of a piece scored for 400 electric guitars commissioned by the city of Paris. Moving far beyond the actual spectacle of having 400 guitarists playing to an audience of 10,000 in a massive French church, Chatham fashioned…
More CDs of 2007
by Various Artists Jose Gonzales, In Our Nature.Argentinean singer/songwriter who was raised in Sweden and sings in English delivers a haunting, spare recording, with songs that revolve around war. It’s the sound of this record, with only Gonzalez on vocals and acoustic guitar strummed in an uniquely unorthodox manner that draws the listener. Beautiful. Handsome…
Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005
Book by Luc Sante YETI Books Sixteen years ago Luc Sante’s first book, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, explored the the sheer weirdness and teeming danger of life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 19th and early 20th century, conducting a vividly impressionistic tour of a world of…
The Comma’s Complaint
The Comma’s Complaint By David Holper How little…
Another Year, Another Weekend
As I sit typing on a dark Sunday night it’s still 2007, but with the wonders of time shifting and the inherent lag in the print medium, by the time you read this it will be two thousand-ought-eight. Yes, a new year is upon us and, to borrow from that catchy Brett Dennen song they…
