Category: Far North

Speaking of sun and stars, here are two events for your Sunday that cover the domain of each (let’s not get pedantic and point out that our sun is indeed also a star, because you know what makes that holy exploding orb stand waaaaay out from its fellows in the lives of us earthlings). First up, if you feel like ponying up $50 and heading over to the River Lodge in Fortuna around 2 p.m., you can be a part of the pregame wind-up to the upcoming season of our fine Eureka Symphony. This prelude gala will feature a performance by the Temporary Resonance Trio and catering by the ever-scrumptious menu-master Brett Shuler. If the night’s the right time for you, the Jam has a high-energy gig tonight at 8 p.m. Los Angeles rockabilly band Rumble King will shake, rattle and roll with local Idle Spurs for a spiked sock- hop to remember ($10)…

Someone once said that you don’t just listen to Pink Floyd’s classic album The Dark Side of the Moon, you experience it. And if you haven’t experienced it yet, or it’s been a while, or you have yet to experience a psychedelic circus show intricately choreographed to it, then you’re in for a treat this weekend in SoHum. Bow & Arrow Circus from San Francisco performs its show Dark Side of the Circus at Redwood Playhouse on Saturday, Sept. 23, at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 24, at 2 p.m. ($15-$20). Director Genie Cartier says the performance loosely follows the narrative of the album’s classic companion piece, The Wizard of Oz. In it, Dorothy is transported to a magical circus world of both playful and terrifying experiences. While the show is recommended for ages 12 and up, Cartier says there’s nothing unsuitable for younger children. Tickets are first come, first served at the door, or available in advance online at Eventbrite…

Timbata is a local septet that specializes in Afro-Cuban music, as well as the many rhythmic derivations from the Caribbean and beyond. Tonight, this group, which has put in the time playing to many happy people under sun and stars, will be hitting it up at the Arcata Playhouse at 7 p.m. Just thinking about the warm luster of the wooden soundscape from the stage to the risers makes me smile ($15).

Grab some napkins — it’s NCJ Burger Week! And speaking of food, local nonprofit Food for People is calling for your help feeding kids in need. We’re also looking at why a local arrest blew up on right-wing media outlets. Finally, pick up some tips on local art and music shows this week, and what to work on in the garden. Hit subscribe for weekly updates on Humboldt stories.  …

Who’s your crawdaddy? Find out at The Swamp Stomp, billed as a “family event bringing a taste of the Deep South to Humboldt County,” on Saturday, Sept. 23, from 1:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Park by Fat Anne’s (164 Dinsmore Drive) in Fortuna ($30, $20 kids 11-16, free for kids 10 and under). See what spicy, deep-fried delights your favorite local food vendors will be serving up as they share their takes on Southern-inspired dishes. There’ll also be a Crawfish Boil, local beer, cider and wine and live music by Grammy-winning artist Louis Michot (Cajun fiddler), Grammy-nominated artist, Andre Thierry (accordion soul) and local bands Barn Fire (honkytonk) and Under The Influence (classic rock). Don’t miss it! Doors open at 1 p.m., music starts at 1:30 p.m. Get tickets at fatannesevents.com. …

Life’s hard. Ergo, so should your cider be. If you’re in this camp, or if you just love a daytime festival in the park for a great cause, get your ticket to Sip of Summer 2023, taking place Saturday, Sept. 23, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Rohner Park ($30, $60 VIP, $10 nondrinker). The fundraiser for Wild Souls Ranch offers an afternoon of unlimited cider tastings, local food and craft vendors, and live music. And all money raised supports the excellent work the ranch organization does for youth in need in our area. Tickets include a VIP experience and a lower cost option for non-drinkers. Get yours at northcoasttickets.com/events/sip-of-summer-2023-9-23-2023. Event is 21 and older with ID…

A week after negotiations to rescue California’s floundering home insurance market stalled out in the Legislature, the state’s top insurance regulator put out his own rescue plan that effectively amounts to a trade for the state’s major insurers.  Under proposed regulations Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced Thursday,  major insurers will be required to cover a certain share of homeowners in the state’s most wildfire-prone areas. In exchange, the Department of Insurance will allow companies to charge more to cover the rising costs of doing business in a fire-ravaged state.  Lara called the package of new proposed regulations “the largest insurance reform” since 1988, the year California voters passed a proposition requiring insurance companies to get prior approval before raising premiums.  The plan is meant to reverse what has amounted to a slow-motion exodus of private home insurers from the state. In the last year and a half, seven of the top 12 property insurers operating in California have either placed new restrictions on where they do business or stopped selling new policies here entirely.  The biggest player of all, State Farm, announced a freeze on

A 57-year-old Carmichael man was killed and a Leggett man arrested after a hit-and-run crash on U.S. Highway 101 near Richardson Grove State Park on Wednesday. According to a California Highway Patrol press release, the 67-year-old Carmichael man was walking from a trail on the west edge of the roadway south of the park entrance when he stopped to wait for a family member. At that moment, a black Toyota Tundra heading south allegedly driven Earl Castillo, 53, drifted off the roadway and onto the dirt shoulder, hitting the man. The truck then fled the scene. Based on evidence found at the crash site and witness statements, police put out a be-on-the-lookout advisory for the pickup truck, which was spotted by some Caltrans workers, who called police. Two CHP officers then attempted to pull over the vehicle, which again fled at a high rate of speed, eventually turning up a private driveway only to be blocked by a locked gate, according to the release. Police were then able to detain Castillo, who was later determined to be impaired, according to the release, and booked into

Everyone hip to the deal of living in Humboldt knows our county magically balances a relatively mild-yet-diverse climate with an approximation of four distinct seasons. This is a rarer thing than one who is used to this way of living might readily acknowledge, so I am always in favor of celebrating a new season. A good way to tip our hats to the coming local season of mists and noble decay is a show full of local talent. The Miniplex has one of those going on tonight at 9 p.m., with a soundboard that scans the scales from cabaret to cumbia to loud and jammy psychedelic rawk. Mambo Green, Drastic Gnarlys and Vegan Slaughterhouse are the artists on the docket, and, as is often the case with these local shindigs, the door price isn’t firm, so bring a few bucks and a good story if they ain’t quite enough. Folks are pretty nice about these things around here, especially this time of year…

Celebrate the rich and diverse cultural heritage of Latin America at the fourth annual Humboldt Latin Dance and Music Festival, happening Sept. 21-24 in the Creamery District (ticket price varies, see website). Brought to you by Humboldt Latin Dance Collective, the festival offers a variety of workshops in salsa, bachata, zouk and Cuban dances taught by world-renowned dance professionals and provides three evenings of late night dance parties where you can show off the hot moves you’ve learned. Highlights include a welcome party at Arcata Playhouse on Thursday, Sept. 21, with Tropiqueño, a salsa dance party at Redwood Raks on Friday, Sept. 22, with DJ Panchanguero and a Mega Latin Party at Redwood Raks on Saturday, Sept. 23, with guest DJs. Get more info and tickets at humboldtlatindance.com…

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I’ve long been a fan of larger ensemble groups playing traditional or genre music. I am thinking of the country swing sounds of the mini orchestras that famously back-up singers like k.d. lang and Lyle Lovett, or the large tropical pop groups that were the sonic palette of composers like Sergio Mendes and Henry Mancini. So I am immediately intrigued by a touring act that pulls off the same feat with mariachi music, a genre for which a strong argument can be made is one of the world’s great examples of music of the people. The group in question is Mariachi Herencia de México, a Chicago-based outfit that has garnered quite a bit of renown in the relatively short time since its inception in 2017. Tonight at 7 p.m., you can catch ’em in action at the Van Duzer Theatre, and I suggest snagging your tickets sooner rather than later, as the Center Arts website was flashing the ominous “limited” link as of press time ($15-$35). …

Editor: I was interested to read the letter by Ellen Golla in the recent mailbox (“All Wood Smoke is Toxic” Sept. 14), as over a decade ago I had done a significant amount of reading on the topic of the combustion chemistry of vegetable matter, albeit my interest was in a combusting material other than wood. I have long had impaired lung function as a result of working as a research scientist with some fairly nasty aromatic organic chemicals in the 1970s, and I am quite comfortable reading about matters of complex chemistry and biology before forming an opinion. Upon moving to Humboldt in 2011, I once more took up smoking cannabis after a 30-year hiatus, and found that my enjoyment was diminished as a result of the smoke in my lungs. At a friend’s recommendation, I looked into temperature-controlled vaping as an alternative, and found that indeed smoking cannabis at combustion temperatures (often exceeding 900°F) produced the same nasty gasses and nano-particulate ash that Ms. Golla identified. But with temperature-controlled vaping of cannabis, the desired cannabinoid chemicals can be extracted (volatilized) from the plant matter

Join us as we revel in our annual celebration of the hamburger. This year, 31 restaurants from Trinidad to Shelter Cove are participating in the revelry — topping patties with everything from peanut butter to pastrami to kimchi to waffles — to offer up mind-boggling creations. So many burgers, so little time. Is it humanly possible to try them all? We super believe in you. NCJ Burger Week Pro Tips See all the burgers here at ncjburgerweek.com Sometimes restaurants run out of burgers. #NCJBurgerWeek is going to be bigger and meatier than last year! That also means more fellow diners showing up and, because kitchens aren’t staffed with genies and supplies are not infinite, a given restaurant could run out of its #NCJBurgerWeek burger toward the end of a shift. If that happens, know that we feel your pain and it’s going to be OK. There’s always a tomorrow when you can come back and order the burger we all want you to have. Don’t let your hangry self get the better of you and remember that making and serving burgers is a noble calling.

Backcountry Metaverse at the Brenda Tuxford Gallery On the heels of the COVID pandemic, many of us wonder what comes next for us as humans on planet Earth. We have seen — and continue to see — big changes with technology, our environment and beyond in recent years. Looking at our impact on our planet and how we live with it is exactly what the latest exhibit at the Ink People’s Brenda Tuxford Gallery is all about. Backcountry Metaverse is an exhibit centered around trying to make sense of what it is like to live in the Anthropocene Era in which humans have significant impact on, well, pretty much everything. Running through Sept. 29, the group art show is the brainchild of Ink People Marketing Director and writer, critic and Journal contributor Gabrielle Gopinath and her partner, sculptural artist and art educator Benjamin Funke. As marketing director for the Ink People, Gopinath regularly coordinates scheduling for the Brenda Tuxford Gallery. However, this is the first show she and Funke have personally curated there. (The two curated a show together called Sublime Frequencies at the Redwood

Things sound scarier, sadder or sexier in French. Take, for example, the mid-century jazz standard “Autumn Leaves.” Every pianist in America from that era had a crack at that tune, from the block-chord, frenetic mania of Bill Evans’ version to the over-sweetened hit by Roger Williams. The original French composition was called “Les Feuilles Mortes,” which translates to “the dead leaves.” Quite a bit more morbid for the sensibilities of an American audience, similar to how Rimbaud’s Une Saison en Enfer rolls with much more seeping, nuanced romantic dread than its direct English translation A Season in Hell, which is barely different from one of the blunter titles from the golden era of the thrash metal kings Slayer. Something gets lost in translation. Speaking of the French, I’ve mentioned before that one of my more enduringly annoying tastes is that I prefer aspects of the short-lived French Republican Calendar, conceived when the architects of the Revolution were attempting to — ahem — sever any relationships with the gods and leaders of the past and replace the months named after them with names which evoked the

On Sept. 7 an unheralded piece of legislation passed 30-6 to put California unequivocally on the side of protecting traditional Medicare. Assembly Joint Resolution 4 requests President Biden to eliminate Wall Street profiteering from Medicare via a new program, ACO REACH. REACH is an invention by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) that began this year without any Congressional approval or oversight. Ending this program will not only be a boon to California with its 6.6 million seniors and people with disabilities but to an entire nation that has enjoyed 58 years of traditional Medicare — the public program we all pay into with our taxes. The acronym ACO REACH (which stands for Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity and Community Outreach) sounds pleasant but is wholly misleading. It has opened the floodgates to Wall Street plundering by private equity firms, investment bankers and venture capitalists. Fifty-eight years ago, the idea of Medicare was to remove all cost sharing and provide unencumbered access to health care for seniors and disabled persons. But from the 1970s forward, a healthcare revisionist history has unrolled in pushback

Editor: I want to bring attention to the “community member” who may have saved many lives by coming forward with information that a 15-year-old Eel River Community School student planned to arrive at school with weapons to deal with a dispute between that student and another (“A Troubling Trend,” Sept. 14). It takes courage to speak up when someone you know is acting in a dangerous way. Maybe nothing would have happened; or students, teachers, law enforcement officers and parents could have been wounded and killed. This was a heroic act.  Please know what you did was exactly the right thing to do! Hopefully your act will get both students involved in their dispute the necessary mental health help they need. You may have saved them from years of incarceration and wasted lives in the prison system, with or without debilitating injuries from gun shots. Teen gun violence is obviously a problem, but far worse is the underlying problem that guns are thought of as necessary tools for solving problems. You have been courageous. Thank you! Judy Sears, Arcata…

A HAUNTING IN VENICE. I am both an Agatha Christie fan and philistine, coming to her stories second hand, via my mother’s avid reading and BBC productions. Drinking tea with jam and toast beside my mother on the sofa as we watched, Belgian dandy Hercule Poirot became and remains my favorite of Christie’s detectives. Christie famously detested him but dutifully ground out books for a delighted public. One can see why he grates: arrogance, pettiness, OCD that manifests with a sense of superiority, occasional lecturing, a then-unmanly preoccupation with cuisine and, in a fat-phobic world, a stout figure he dresses in fussy style. Add to that the sins of being a foreigner and always, eventually, right. Peter Ustinov and Albert Finney are among the actors who’ve taken up the iconic role, but, like a baby duck, I imprinted on David Suchet’s portrayal, his vanity and humor (mostly the former yielding the latter) balancing Poirot’s occasional darkness. His was an indelible 24-year run and I knew going into each of the three adaptations directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh — Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

In case you missed it — and unless you follow “news” websites of a certain political persuasion, you likely did — a story out of Humboldt County made national headlines last week. And if you missed the coverage, we’ve probably got you wondering what story was deemed so noteworthy or important that it pierced the Redwood Curtain to travel across the nation. Was it the push for a first-of-its-kind offshore wind development, perhaps? Maybe another exposé on our beleaguered skilled nursing home chain and its profiteering owner, or a retread on plummeting cannabis markets and the communities being crushed under their weight? Or maybe something truly groundbreaking, like a deep dive into Humboldt County’s staggering poverty and food insecurity rates, or why we have some of the highest rates of childhood trauma in the state? Sadly, no. The story that went viral — appearing on dozens of websites over the course of about 24 hours, beginning with a post by the Daily Wire on Sept. 12, which was quickly followed by the likes of the Daily Caller, One America News Network and even Fox News

As we approach the autumnal equinox, there are plenty of things to do in your garden. Sure, the calendar says that summer is coming to an end, but we often get some of the nicest and warmest weather in September and October here on the coast. What things should you think about as the days get shorter? Watering. Your shrubs, trees and flowers are very thirsty, since we’ve had very little rain so far, which is typical for our area. The general rule is about an inch of “rain” per week. Consider using drip or soaker hoses, as overhead watering wastes a lot of water due to evaporation. Deadhead some of those perennials. But not all! This is the time of year when migrating birds are searching out food sources and those dried seedheads make an excellent snack for many birds. I’ve watched chickadees, nuthatches and white-crowned sparrows picking over the seeds on my spent flowers out in the yard and down in the garden. It looks a little messy but the wildlife will thank you. Clean up spent veggies and vines. Perhaps the four