Reviews STAN & OLLIE. Chefs, even impassioned eaters, will often credit their grandmothers with the inspiration to pursue their passion. I only got to know my paternal grandmother; she wasn’t much of a cook. She was, however, a devout comedy acolyte eager to share the tenets of her beliefs. And so my younger brother and […]
Section Feature
Posted inLetters + Opinion
The Doctor Who Dosed a Preschooler
The Medical Board of California has revoked a Hollywood doctor’s medical license after he prescribed a 4-year-old boy cannabis cookies to treat “episodes of uncontrollable behavior and temper tantrums.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the board also found that Eidelman is just a really bad doctor. That second part shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone who […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
The Hidden Palace
Franz Bernau was 37 years old when he first set foot in the United States, arriving Sept. 1, 1888, on the steamer Amsterdam, which sailed from Rotterdam in the Netherlands and docked at the Castle Garden immigration center on Manhattan’s Battery Park waterfront. Three years later the painter traveled to faraway Humboldt County. His head […]
Posted inMusic
This Wheel’s on Fire
Local fuzzy Americana quartet Hollow Down began the year on the road with a plan to tour the United States in their beloved home and bus, bringing their vibrant live gospel to the masses. Last week that dream was destroyed when the rig in question went up in flames on a lonesome stretch of State […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Making it Official
I remember well when I was editor of the Arcata Union in 1986. The Hadley family, which had owned the weekly for more than 50 years, sold the newspaper to a pair of investors from the Bay Area. I interviewed the new publisher, a guy from Nevada, and he said all the right things: “No […]
Posted inNews (NCJ)
On the Go-Slow
Yielding to massive public pressure, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors backed off from a giant re-zoning effort Jan. 15 and instead adopted a go-slow planning process that could take up to two years to implement. The previous plan, which involved re-zoning thousands of parcels with minimal notice to the public, had evoked hours of […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
A Low Barr and a Cashed Bowl
In case you’ve been living under a rock — or just glaze over at the mere mention of Russia — the Senate Judiciary Committee held a confirmation hearing last week for President Trump’s attorney general nominee William Barr. While the vast majority of news coverage of the hearing focused on whether Barr would recuse himself […]
Posted inMusic
Fiddles, Violins and Killer Sax
This week features a folk-heavy lineup of artists, as well as some odd ducks and assorted bright things. And because I have an interview with one of them elswhere in this issue and an album review in the works, I am going to be a man of few words in this intro and simply wish […]
Posted inMusic
Gothically Feminine
Four-time Grammy winner and Nashville Songwriters’ Hall of Fame inductee Rosanne Cash plays with John Leventhal at the Arkley Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 25 at 8 p.m. The Journal interviewed her by phone from Nashville about her newest album She Remembers Everything and her relationship with writing. North Coast Journal: What was […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Border Dispute
Neighbors can be odd. Next-door neighbors even more so. You’re not under the same roof, like siblings. But you are expected to get along with them, albeit for reasons of geography rather than genetics, and, like family, you don’t always get to choose them. In the comedy Native Gardens by Karen Zacarias, the first offering […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Survival Strategies
Reviews THE FAVOURITE. Lanthimos is a writer and director of comedies not for the faint of heart. He makes movies I find hilarious; others seem to come away despondent at their misanthropy and absurdity. Some might call what he does psychological horror. But to me, the critical distinction lies in his emphasis on humor as […]
Posted inEat + Drink
Celery at Center Stage
An ingredient of Italian soffritto, French mirepoix and the Cajun holy trinity, celery is rarely at center stage in a recipe. We’ll change that in 2019. Celery has a long history that goes back to the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. A National Geographic article describes what Howard Carter, the archaeologist who discovered King Tutankhamun’s tomb […]