Wounded Healers for Post-Pandemic Times
Field Guide to a Crisis at Morris Graves and Old Town Ink Lab
Cover Story
Wounded Healers for Post-Pandemic Times
Michelle M. Miller did her first acrylic paint pour in the fall of 2019. A self-described agoraphobic at the time, Miller says she almost never left her home as a result of fear. When a friend invited her to see and make some art however, she decided to try. Doing so, she met Eureka-based socially…
Frolic at the Fairy Festival
Flitter through the glitter and land at the Arcata Plaza on Sunday, June 4 from noon to 10 p.m. for the Fairy Festival (free). Sprites of all ages can wind around a May pole, hear stories, dance to live music and DJ sets, delight at the fire show and aerial and dance performances. There’ll be…
Play Ball!
Batter up! The Crabgrass Band is tuning up and the Humboldt Crabs are getting ready to take the first swings of the summer at Arcata Ball Park tonight at 7 p.m. There are no tickets for sale at the gate, so make sure to get your tickets online at humboldtcrabs.com before you take yourself out to the ballpark…
Music Tonight: Friday, June 2
With the students gone and the population reduced to locals and tourists, the music and party scene will be gathering a few tumbleweeds in the coming weeks. Tonight is still fine though, if you like reggaeton, anyway. DJ Gabe Pressure is putting on Fuego, a night of electronic Latin dance music at the Arcata Theatre…
May the Forest Moon Fest Be with You
The Force is strong with us Friday, June 2 and Saturday, June 3 during the Forest Moon Festival celebrating the 40th anniversary of the locally filmed Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (free). It’s the best of the original trilogy (disagree? strike me down!) and you can watch free screenings on Saturday around the county. Get…
Music Tonight: Thursday, June 1
It’s finally June, which is a favorite month of the year for many. Considering my March birthday and their summer solstice wedding date, I can only assume that June was a favorite month for my parents. If you share that sentiment, you could certainly do a lot worse celebrating June’s inception than by heading over…
Music Tonight: Wednesday, May 31
Portland’s fantastic tattoo parlor country act Jenny Don’t and the Spurs will be uniting with our very own shitkickers Barn Fire to singe some hairs at the Shanty tonight at 9 p.m. A $5 bill will get you in the door, which is a perfect price for our favorite dive in the 707. Two great…
Photos: Glory at the Kinetic Finish Line
After three days of escalating challenges, roadside repairs and grueling pedaling, the 55th Kinetic Grand Championship concluded on Ferndale’s Main Street, with Trashlantis crossing the finish line to become this year’s Grand Champion. Theirs was not the only glory won, with the first-place awards for Engineering and Art going to Team Goddess and Glorious Gaggle,…
Music Tonight: Tuesday, May 30
This is a powerhouse show at the Siren’s Song that I can absolutely endorse. Oklahoma’s blast rockers Psychotic Reaction share the stage with a powerful lineup of Humboldt excellence. I’m talking about the charnel, country outhouse yowl of the Bow-legged Buzzards. And the stoney riff-ship Planet of Green, which, along with Thee Cokers, fills out…
Photos: Kinetic Day Two (by Sea)
After the sand has settled at Dead Man’s Drop on the first day of the Kinetic Grand Championship, racers prepared for the amphibious leg of the journey. Creatures great and weird hit the water of Humboldt Bay, making big waves and struggling not to capsize their way into a Golden Flipper award. Photographer Mark McKenna…
Photos: Kinetic Grand Championship Day One
Once again, the Arcata Plaza was bumper to bumper with bees, futuristic buggies, giant animals, ham and, yeah, we don’t even know what some of those were. For the Kinetic Grand Championship contains multitudes, all of which had to complete the official brake test on the plaza before heading to the Manila Dunes to face…
Music Tonight: Sunday, May 28
It’s tough to pin down the gigs at the Siren’s Song, as my usual methods of relying on press releases, texting, fliers about town, social media (ugh), and a proprietary blend of my own secret Baker Street Irregulars and messenger pigeons has yet to crack the inscrutable booking policy of this genuinely fun venue. However,…
NCJ Preview: Crisis Guides, Awards, a Dubious Deputy and More
This week our cover story looks at Field Guide to a Crisis, a local collaborative art project that helps those who’ve struggled with addiction share the coping skills they’ve learned with others. We’re also celebrating some recent journalism awards. We’ve got an update on the Soeth story, with the DA’s office looking into what cases…
Music Tonight: Saturday, May 27
Seattle’s Some Surprises is a dream pop outfit fronted by songwriter Natasha El-Sergany, whose tunes jingle and jangle with a pleasant and resonant hum. Let me break cover for a moment and take you through a walk behind the proscenium arch of the Miniplex, where I have in the lost, dewy past played music, served…
Glory Days Are Here Again
It’s art! It’s engineering! It’s glorious! The Kinetic Grand Championship, the three-day, 50-mile-plus+ race that covers sea, sand, mud and land, is happening this long, wonderful Memorial Day Weekend, May 27-29 (free). The event starts in Arcata at the Plaza on Saturday at noon and ends in Ferndale on Monday, with an overnight stop in…
New Report says Cal State has $1.5 Billion Funding Gap, Suggests Tuition Hikes
The nation’s largest public four-year university is presently incapable of affording itself. A 70-page report nearly a year in the making by leaders of the California State University details the massive gulf between the money the system currently generates from tuition and receives in state support and the actual costs of educating its nearly 500,000…
Crowned Royal
Who you rutin’ for? It’s time to crown the next Kinetic Rutabaga Queen, the royalty that reigns over the Kinetic Grand Championship Race, and you decide who’ll wear the crown at the Rutabaga Ball, happening Saturday, May 27 at 8 p.m. at Synapsis ($15). It’s an evening of outrageous fun with food, music and a three-round…
Music Tonight: Friday, May 26
DJ duo Hispanic! At the Disco returns to the Miniplex for what is all but certain to be a raucous night of cumbia, reggaeton, merengue and all points in between. I’m going to toss a dart at the clock and suggest that 9 p.m. is a good time to roll through and I’d pack at…
Photos: Redwood Coast Kite Festival and Artisan Fair
The winds and weather were a bit fickle at the second annual Redwood Coast Kite Festival and Artisan Fair last Saturday and Sunday at Halvorsen Park in Eureka, but Humboldt Kiter organizer Mark Ahrens called the festival a success in every way. Saturday featured early morning drizzle and swirling winds but a large number of kite-flying…
Seize the Day on the Bay
I pause and take in the surroundings: sky, water, light, boats, buildings. The word that most often comes to mind is “amazing.” Energized, I resume rowing. I learned to row nine years ago during a summer session for new rowers offered by the Humboldt Bay Rowing Association (HBRA). I learned in an eight-oared shell, practicing…
Plenty of Holiday Options for North Coast Anglers
For anglers across the North Coast, Memorial Day weekend provides an excellent opportunity to try your luck at a variety of fishing locations. With plenty of options on the table, the biggest decision might not be if you want to go, but where. Here are a few of the options that will hopefully make your…
Live,Love & Death, Laugh
LOVE & DEATH. Like fish in a river, each of us have a lure that, no matter how clever we are or how much we want to resist its color and flash, will snag us every time. If you popped open my custom tacklebox, there among the action heroines, hauntings and heists (and makeover montages…
Feedback
Journalism is not a one-way form of communication. Once a story publishes, readers (and a few who definitely did not read) let us know what they think. Strangers, subjects, sources, coworkers, friends and the somewhat less friendly regularly tell us what they value, are curious about, and what they agree or disagree with in the…
North Coast Open Studios 2023
Welcome to the 23rd Annual North Coast Open Studios! Weekend 1 is June 3-4 and Weekend 2 is June 10-11. Studios are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, unless otherwise noted. Join us this year for North Coast Open Studios Art Night, Friday, June 2, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.…
Empty Hours
No cat hair where you slept on the chair next to me. My milk glass – safe from your eager sips, or cereal stolen before I could sit down to eat. Or sitting on the window sill watching busy birds at the feeder, while you waited for me to scoop the last bite of breakfast…
Chinese Again in Humboldt, Part Three
Editor’s note: This story, which originally ran in the Ferndale Enterprise, includes racist language in quotations from historical newspaper articles. On Sunday, Sept. 30, 1906, one day after a mixed-race workforce of Chinese and Japanese men and white women arrived at the Starbuck-Tallant Co.’s salmon cannery in Port Kenyon, a mass meeting took place in…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): My reading of the astrological omens inspires me to make a series of paradoxical predictions for you. Here are five scenarios I foresee as being quite possible in the coming weeks. 1. An epic journey to a sanctuary close to home. 2. A boundary that doesn’t keep people apart but brings…
‘A Foolhardy Business Decision’
Editor: The icy response of Cal Poly’s provost and senate to Cutcha Risling Baldy’s request for a retention offer was a foolhardy business decision (“‘Encouraged to Leave,'” May 18). Risling Baldy is a charismatic teacher and leader and likely destined for fame. Decapitating their Native-American Studies Department is shooting themselves in the foot. Risling Baldy’s…
‘Failing Us’
Editor: Lately in the news we’ve seen the creeping disintegration of local medical services — Redwood Memorial’s obstetrics department closed, a Eureka pediatric clinic closed, major drug stores closed, Six Rivers Clinic in Willow Creek closing soon and so on. And across the nation our hospitals are failing us. Large corporate entities are making health care a commodity…
‘And’
Editor: Michael Winkler’s letter (Mailbox, May 18) compares the environmental impact of wood stoves and biomass energy and concludes that wood stoves are worse. While a cord of wood produces more greenhouse gas and air pollution in a wood stove than a biomass plant, the sheer volume of mill waste burned at the plant more…
Defense Attorneys Reviewing Deputy’s Cases
The Humboldt County Public Defender’s Office has begun a review of all cases it has handled involving sheriff’s deputy Maxwell Soeth after a recent North Coast Journal story raised questions about his honesty and credibility. “The concern on our part would be that people have criminal records that shouldn’t because of a cop who’s known…
Lava Beds, Lava Tubes, Modoc War
A geological hotspot deep underground in the northeast corner of California has been sending molten rock to the surface for over half a million years. It’s a reminder that we live out our brief lives on a geologically active planet that counts the passing of time in millennia, not months and years. Medicine Lake volcano, situated…
Caring for the Condors
On May 12, all eight of the North Coast’s California condors were inside the release enclosure where they began their new lives — and from which they took off on their first flights into the wild — after being enticed back by offerings of carrion in preparation for their twice-yearly exams. Along with the chance…
You Can’t Fight in the War Room
I’ve always found it kind of odd that we call it Memorial Day, since the American consciousness is generally incapable of attaching memory to reflection in a way that serves as a reliable monument to the past. We tend to expand grievances while bumping out facts in favor of a national mythology incompatible with an…
Filling Empty Bowls
As a ceramics student at Humboldt State University in the late 1980s, Mark Campbell made ends meet by taking off his clay-spattered apron and putting on a new one to cook in the kitchens of local restaurants. “I graduated from HSU with an art degree to become a full-time cook,” he says. That career carried…
Trinidad Art Nights
Trinidad Art Nights features Barking Dogma at Saunders Plaza East, with a variety of art exhibits and music throughout town; activities include food/wine tastings and face painting. In Trinidad Town Hall, make paper birds with Deborah Kalish or listen to the Ponies of Harmony with James Zeller and Katie Belknap. At 5 p.m. at Trinidad…
Crazy for Poetry
I’ve written before about how the past is the ultimate foreign land, shrouded permanently by the forward nature of time in our particular dimension. We can read texts and compare accounts, study architectural systems — both physical and linguistic — all in the service of conjuring an image of a departed era. Things get even…
