Hybrid Moments 

Belarius, the exiled lord and soldier who stole and raised the sons of the British pagan King Cymbeline in the play of the same name, is certain of a kind of noble "strain" of eugenics, where breeding shows through any humble environment (in this case, a rustic cave in the Welsh countryside). "Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base." Which I'm sure can happen, but there's got to be more going on than that and, with the exception of certain genetic traits, I doubt the nature of royal breeding produces anything that nurture can't scrub away. But while people understood things differently in Shakespeare's time, today many still hold onto a lot of weird ideas about intrinsic hierarchy and value. That makes for a steep road to progress for anyone like myself who believes in the hope of universal liberation and salvation for humanity. We can't just be show puppies with purely inherited traits like meat-wound clockwork, doomed to spin around in predestined formations until the springs wear out, right? Why am I bringing this up? Largely because it's raining out, I'm bored and am being forced to live through a seemingly endless, brutal, and deadly media discourse about the relative value of human life when applied to different races and cultures. I think we're all hybrids, with powerful, undiscovered internal plumage — as the late great Leonard Cohen put it, an "ape with angel glands," a base creature crawling in ignorance between the wet blindness of desire and the obscure light of the divine. I dunno. Have a nice week, stay dry.

Thursday

Alpha Rhythm Kings are a San Francisco sextet trading in the style jump blues and sassy, high energy, swinging lounge music that made Louis Prima a household name during the glory days of live American dance club music. Tonight at 7 p.m., you can capture a taste of those goods at the Eagle House Ballroom for a mere $20, courtesy of the good folks at the Redwood Coast Music Festival.

Friday

Once again, Friday means Fuego at the Arcata Theatre Lounge, a dance party celebration of modern Latin club music. Join DJs D'Vinity, Pressure and Statik as they curate an evening of reggaeton-plus for all the assembled crowd, including crews of in-house go-go and pole dancers, at 9 p.m. ($15, $10 advance).

Saturday

There are two world-class, world music ensembles available at your pleasure tonight at 8 p.m. but, due to the nature of time and space in our particular reality, you will have to decide which one fits your tastes better. Over at the Arcata Playhouse, as a part of the tail-end of the Zero to Fierce Festival, you will find the Balkan women's group Kitka, whose bright costumes weave into the incredible harmonies found in their source material, which includes everything from dances to dirges from one of the most culturally diverse regions of the planet ($25). Meanwhile, at the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts, Ireland's international ambassadors of native folk music, Altan, will be putting on a show in promotion of its latest record Donegal, named after the band's county of origin, as well as the style of music they play. Regarded as one of the country's finest musical exports since its inception in 1987, Altan has weathered steady touring, loss and the vicious nature of the music industry to remain a favorite for fans of Irish music worldwide ($35, $30 advance, $10 Cal Poly Humboldt students.

Sunday

Pianist John Chernoff, violinist Cindy Moyer and sax player Virginia Ryder make up the Vispisa Trio, a group of music department staff who have been performing together long before the CPH rebrand. Today at Fulkerson Hall, the trio will be performing a 2 p.m. matinee of music including the work of local alum and current University of California Los Angeles composition and theory teacher Dante Da Silva. There will also be pieces by the composers Marc Eychenne and Richard Wienhorst ($15, $5 children and Cal Poly Humboldt students).

Monday

It's just another Metal Monday over at Savage Henry Comedy Club at 6 p.m., so don't go wishing it were Sunday, even if that's your I-don't-have-to-run-day. These are fun, too. Tonight's gig brings two bands from Everett, Washington, KillCam and Resin Cough, for a meet-up with our local heroes GRUG! and Brain Dead Rejects. This all-ages gig requires a valid I.D. from anyone of proper age who wishes to drink alcohol and comes with a $5-$10 sliding scale door charge, which isn't bad at all, especially if you do a little math on the distance from Snohomish County to Humboldt and the current price of gasoline.

Tuesday

The World-Famous Glenn Miller Orchestra is an institution which will forever be associated with the pinnacle of World War II-era big band jazz, in no small part because its eponymous founder disappeared into the fog of war aboard an allied air force plane headed from England to France sometime in the hours before the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. Like the plane he was on and its crewmen, Miller has never been found, drifting into history and musical mythos like the ghost of a Zippo-lit Chesterfield fading away on melting celluloid reels from yesteryear. The orchestra, however, has endured, dedicated to playing the style and arrangements of its long-ago fallen leader, whose ears and mind produced a certain magic that defined the sound of joy, victory and pleasure across the free world. Tonight at 7 p.m., you can catch its current iteration at the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts, where the ticket pricing is as follows: $42 general, $27 seniors and children, $10 for CPH students.

Wednesday

Movie night! But rather than send you to see David Lynch's ponderous, visually gorgeous and baffling epic Dune — even if I do still enjoy the "Prophecy Theme" by Brian and Roger Eno and Daniel Lanois from the score — I'm going to suggest a flick with a great soundtrack (original and otherwise), lots of visual style, some great prop and stop motion work as well, and a legible and funny plot about fathers, sons and the hubristic destruction of an empire. I'm talking about Wes Anderson's 2004 movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which is being screened for free at the main branch of the Eureka Library at 5 p.m.

And if you REALLY want to see Lynch's Dune afterward, you can probably get to the Arcata Theatre Lounge within 10-20 minutes of its 7:10 p.m. start time. Don't worry if you are late, though, the exposition isn't the main attraction of this one anyway ($5, $9 with poster).

Collin Yeo (he/him) is older but no wiser. Et in Arcata ego.