(December 1, 2022)
Sixteenth century English poet Thomas Tusser, writing in his book on rural life in Tudor England, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie, gave us perhaps the first written version of...
(November 24, 2022)
I like it when people get together to share a table, I really do. For years, though, I struggled with Thanksgiving and not just because of the whitewashed history...
(November 17, 2022)
I'd like to think that I have my cats fairly well trained. They are scared of birds and the road, two fears I have worked hard to instill in them...
(November 10, 2022)
I woke up on Sunday thinking about writing about the upcoming election, maybe some piece where I ramp up the direness of the results to see if I am actually...
(November 3, 2022)
OK, I'll cop to it: I partied hard for the long Halloween weekend and I am definitely behind the count in every way at the moment, dear reader. Plus, I've...
(October 27, 2022)
Halloween tends to promote itself, even when it lands on a Monday, like in this wretched year. That's just an invitation for a long weekend. I'll probably go out, even...
(October 20, 2022)
I want to do a little housecleaning before the month ends and my memories are lost in the unceasing accumulation of days. First up, I have a hearty thank you...
(October 13, 2022)
Sunday marks the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Anybody want to guess why I've been thinking about that lately? With no sign of de-escalation in...
(October 6, 2022)
The zaftig orb weaver, often called a pumpkin spider, near my front door is getting fatter on her buggy spoils by the day, preparing for her brief voyage into motherhood...
(September 29, 2022)
I have been trying to find a way to tie the works of the author Hilary Mantel with the music of Pharoah Sanders, and have been coming up bare, I'm...
(September 22, 2022)
Here we are, meeting together on the shores of the third season in the northern hemisphere, freshly appointed in our various positions, and shaking off the languorous coma of summertime...
(September 15, 2022)
Well, this was quite a weekend, let me tell you. Apparently there was something called a Pisces Moon on Saturday, which is supposed to turn people like myself who have...
(September 8, 2022)
I spent Labor Day weekend participating in two of the more sublime and less evil American pastimes: the yard sale and the barbecue. The former was nice — I certainly...
(September 1, 2022)
It's Virgo season, which, for an astrology heretic like myself, basically means "smokey summer/early fall." Last weekend was also my baby brother's b-day, so many happy returns, dear Tyler. This...
(August 25, 2022)
Laying out in my sunny backyard last weekend with my friend Chini and the two gray sister cats that make up my brood, I had a moment of pure summer...
(August 18, 2022)
It has stuck with me over the years is how haunted some artists are (or were). I'm talking about folks like John Fahey, Townes Van Zandt, early-career-pre-coming-out Janis Ian (her...
(August 11, 2022)
Cicero, writing a couple thousand years ago in a now dead tongue, wryly noted the habit among the wealthy men of Rome of copying the ostentatiousness of a great man's...
(August 4, 2022)
Last week I made a sly appeal to the Fates, suggesting we could all use a little break from the chaos of the front page and the never-ending news cycle...
(July 28, 2022)
As I write this, I am listening to John Entwistle's excellent first solo album, Smash Your Head Against the Wall, and although I am not following that particular piece of...
(July 21, 2022)
We've got a lot of great local gigs this week, which is about as good as it gets regarding midsummer Setlists. And many of them are free, which certainly doesn't...
(December 1, 2022)
O little towns of Humboldt … It’s December and cities and towns across the county are hosting hospitality or open house events this month with many starting this week. Here’s...
(December 1, 2022)
New venue alert, for this column, anyway. Here’s a cozy restaurant gig to ease you into the last month of the year. The Boardroom in Ferndale is hosting Deckhands,...
(November 30, 2022)
Multi-instrumentalist Grahame Lesh, son of Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, has become a dependable figure in the Dead-adjacent jam scene. Tonight at Humbrews, you can catch Midnight North, the...
