And where is Humboldt’s President of Positivity wandering off to in the rain this week? Carlson Park in Arcata, turns out! There, she runs into her buddy John Shelter, whose organization, New Directions, has helped to clean up the piles of trash that used to plague the area. Thanks for all the hard work, John! 

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Perhaps You’d Like to Explore Previous Mondays With Michaele For Some Reason!

California Department of Fish and Wildlife:

Warden Mike Hampton and Warden K-9 Leeloo responded to a tip of subjects taking Dungeness crab out of season at the Del Norte Pier in Eureka. It wasn’t the first report. There had been prior reports of the same subjects committing the same violation on nights prior. Each time a wildlife officer arrived however, the suspects were gone, frustrating both the person who reported them and the wildlife officers who responded to the tips.

But this cool October night was different. Warden Hampton arrived in time to observe three subjects taking crab from the pier. Hampton waited until they returned to their vehicle before contacting them. During an inspection of their catch, Hampton located 20 undersized Dungeness crab taken out of season. The three men were cited for the take of crab out of season and possession of undersized crab. After properly documenting the crabs for court, Warden Hampton released them alive back into the water.

A recent disposition of the case proves the Humboldt County court system takes the poaching crimes seriously. Two subjects were fined $4,000 each and a third was fined, $3,500. CDFW thanks the California citizens who are often part of successful poaching investigations like this one. Our best tips are frequently from the honest hunters and anglers who recognize unlawful poaching behavior and call CalTIP, our 24/7 tip line at (888) 334-2258.

“…the Greeks…always found ways to emphasize the power and beauty of the naked body. Dressing this torso and giving it color was a way to make the body sexier.” (Archaeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann)

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Photo: Livioandronico2013, via Wikimedia. Creative Commons license.

Think of a classical statue and you’ll probably come up with something like the Venus de Milo (greeting visitors to the Louvre, halfway up the main staircase)—pristine marble, pearly white, not a trace of actual color. Which isn’t how the ancient Greeks originally saw her 2200 years ago on the Aegean island of Milos. She was almost certainly colored, painted with bright colors: green (from malachite), blue (azurite), yellow and ocher (arsenic), red (cinnabar) and black (burnt bone).

We know this because most statues from ancient Greece and Rome still have barely-visible flecks of paint on them. (As added evidence, consider Helen of Troy’s lament about her beauty in Euripides’ play about her: “If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect/The way you would wipe color off a statue.”) Time and weathering did the wiping, and now such traces aren’t obvious—researchers have had to tease out the original colors with ultraviolet cameras and high-intensity lamps. But when they’ve done so, the results are spectacular.

Take, for instance, this archer, dated to 500 BC, which many archeologists believe is actually a rendition of Helen’s abductor Paris, the dude who caused the Trojan war, according to the Homer and the other long-ago storytellers. German archeologist Vinzenz Brinkmann not only found sufficient flakes of color to determine the statue’s original polychrome appearance “with a high degree of confidence,” using physical and chemical analyses; he recreated the archer in plaster, painting it with the same mineral and organic pigments the Greeks used over two millennia ago.

Fast forward to the Renaissance. Michelangelo and other Florentine sculptors of that era didn’t realize that time had erased the colors of the ancient statues, so they carved their masterpieces in white Carrara marble. To this day, lily white is the norm for marble statuary.

Reading about these colorful Greek statues reminded me of my pilgrimage, ten years ago, to several of France’s 30-odd Gothic cathedrals built in 12th and 13th centuries. From Paris, I visited Chartres, Amiens, Beauvais, Rouen and Reims. In particular, Amiens, where, nearly 30 years ago, technicians who were engaged in cleaning hundreds of statues on the cathedral’s west portal found flecks of paint on virtually every figure. Experts concluded that the present gray stonework was once flamboyantly colored! How to recreate the original appearance without damaging the existing stone? Kodak to the rescue.

At night through summer months, eight powerful projectors now bathe the facade of the cathedral with light shone through Ektachrome transparencies, colored in strict accordance with the restorers’ findings. As the projectors slowly come up, the statues magically turn from gray to polychrome—a riot of blue, red, orange, yellow and green—restoring what hundreds of years of sun and rain had eroded. The illusion is perfect: the statues are painted. There’s no outward sign that the color is projected (other than the projectors themselves!). I was taken back to the Middle Ages, in thrall to the spectacle, feeling like a humble pilgrim from 800 years ago.

West portal, Amiens cathedral, by day. (Amiens photos by Barry Evans):

And by night:

One of eight projectors creating the illusion of colored statues:

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Hannah Eiloeffel is Holding Up

Spring has sprung and it seems like there’s so much look forward to this year, including the array of fresh produce that will soon fill our stores, farmers markets and food boxes. Juicy tomatoes, how we’ve missed you!

Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without our local farmers, who have been working harder than ever to keep people fed during the pandemic.

A look at some goodies in a Table Bluff Farm food box

On this week’s episode of Humboldt Holding Up — the Lost Coast Outpost‘s COVID-era podcast— owner of Table Bluff Farm Hannah Eisloeffel manages to find some time between feeding chickens and planting carrots to discuss her passion for producing food, how the farm’s operations have changed during the pandemic and the abundance of support she’s had from her Humboldt community.

Other topics discussed with Eisloeffel include:

• Providing delivery of affordable food through CSA boxes
  
• How she’s utilized social media to share life on the farm (the good and the bad) and taking on the social media trolls 
• Table Bluff Farm’s focus on regenerative agriculture and her advice for starting your own regenerative farm
• The challenges and benefits of farming on the cold, windy bluff
  
• more!

So satisfy your hunger for listening to other humans talking by clicking the audio player above to hear Farmer Hannah’s chat with Stephanie McGeary and Andrew Goff.

PREVIOUS HUMBOLDT HOLDING UP GUESTS:

• Logger Bar Owner Kate Martin
• Teacher/Rapper Zach “Zigzilla” Lehner
• Madaket Captain “Zippo” Libby Tonning
• Event Planner Alegria Sita
• Food For People’s Anne Holcomb
• AHHA President Nezzie Wade
• Performance Artist Noël August/Tucker Noir
• Eureka Mayor Susan Seaman
• Eagle House Owner Jennifer Metz
• Absynth Quartet Drummer Mike “Tofu” Schwartz
• HACHR Executive Director Lasara Firefox Allen
• Alchemy Distiller Owner Amy Bohner
• Eureka City Councilmember Kati Moulton
• Eureka City Councilmember Scott Bauer
• Ungraceful Ager Barry Evans
• Arcata City Councilmember Sofia Pereira
• HumBrews Music Booker Laurel Weston
• Eureka City Councilmember Kim Bergel
• Film Commission’s Cassandra Hesseltine and Nate Adams
• Marble Maker Topher Reynolds
• Arcata Playhouse Director Jacqueline Dandeneau
• Humboldt Political Junkie Eric Kirk
• Rio Dell Mayor Debra Garnes
• Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell
• Arcata Food Aficionado Jada Calypso Brotman
• Body Piercer Jackie Silva
• Dick Taylor Chocolate’s Adam Dick
• FUHS Teachers Mark Thom and Inma Thompson
• Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery
• Savage Henry Co-Founder Chris Durant
• Eureka Street Art Festival Organizer Jenna Catsos
• SCRAP Humboldt Founder Tibora Bea
• Gym Owner Tyler Parr
• Six Rivers Brewery Co-Owner Meredith Maier
• Multicultural Skincare Therapist Levia Love
• Annie’s Cambodian Server and Social Worker Joshua Coppock
• Eureka City Councilmember Austin Allison
• HSU Professor Deidre Pike 
• Pastor Bethany Cseh
• Singer/Songwriter Chris Parreira
• Eureka City Councilmember Leslie Castellano
• Arcata City Councilmember Paul Pitino

On this first day of spring, you might be ready to emerge from your winter hibernation and get some fresh air and exercise on our many local trails. While hiking this season, you will likely see one of our local spring wildflowers the Pacific trillium (Trillium ovatum) — a white, three petaled flower that is usually found growing on the forest floor. 

As much as you may be compelled to pick these beautiful flowers, the City of Arcata would like to remind you: please don’t! Picking trillium flowers or leaves can seriously injure the plant and even prevent it from growing the next year.  Of course, in general, you should probably always operate under the “take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints” concept while enjoying nature.

More from the City of Arcata Environmental Services Department:

Spring is here, and the Environmental Services Department would like to offer some tips for community members on how to harmlessly appreciate the beauty of native wildflowers growing in Arcata’s natural spaces.

When visiting the Arcata Community Forest, one of the first promising signs that winter is passing is coming across the beautiful white clusters of Pacific trillium (Trillium ovatum). These simple, elegant flowers are ephemeral bloomers, which means they flower for a short period of time and go dormant until the next year. While Pacific trillium are beautiful, they are also fragile. Touching or picking trillium can injure or even kill this native wildflower, so it is important that community members appreciate their beauty from a distance.

Picking these wildflowers have harmful impacts that can damage the plant so it is unable to regrow in the future. Picking trillium also negatively impacts insects and animals who rely on the flower for food or protective cover. In order to ensure trillium blooms in the Arcata Community Forest for generations to come, the Environmental Services Department has a few tips for flower lovers on how to appreciate wildflowers without harming the plants:

● Take photos. A photo can last a lifetime, and it is a great way to appreciate floral beauty without touching the plant.

● Make some art. Sketching, drawing, painting, or even felting a native flower is a fun way to get creative and keep a piece of nature inside your home.

● Download a nature app. Apps such as Inaturalist or Picture allow users to identify and share photos of the plants in the wild.

● Plant a native plant garden. Planting native flora is a great way to keep nature close to home, and native plant gardens benefit native insects, birds and mammals. Not only are native gardens good for the environment, but once established they are often lower maintenance than ornamental gardens, as they are well equipped for the local climate. Please be sure to only buy native plants from reputable nurseries and never remove the plants from the wild.

The Environmental Services Department encourages all community members to get outside and take a safe stroll through the Arcata Community Forest to admire the trillium while they are in bloom. For more information, email eservices@cityofarcata.org or call (707) 822-8184.

The Northcoast Environmental Center is celebrating 50 years of activism, and its staff want to let you in on their secrets to success. They are excited to present two new programs – Activate NEC and Thrive: Eco Grief Circle—to teach you how to be a better, more effective environmental advocate and how to avoid the doom-and-gloom burnout that can plague activists). Plus, learn about how you can help keep our streets and beaches clean with this year’s trash-a-thon and how to get a *FREE* cigarette butt receptacle outside your local business!

AUDIO:

“The EcoNews Report,” March 20, 2021.

REQUIRED READING:

• Activate NEC
• Thrive: Eco Grief Circle
• Trash-a-thon 2021
• Butt In: Cigarette Litter Prevention Program

To submit a locally-filmed (or produced) video, upload it to YouTube and email the link to News@LostCoastOutpost.com with your name, a brief description of your work and “TRL” in the subject line. Please do not submit videos containing any form of violence, racism, illegal activity, pornographic material, bullying or harassment. Also, no advertisements or duplicated submissions please.

(Grunge Cover) “I Ran” by Flock Of Seagulls - Charlie Ritchie

Charlie Ritchie is back with another grunge cover submission. Ritchie lives in Eureka and decided to share a few cover tracks that she recoded while learning to use some fancy new studio software. Enjoy!

“Change” - Birdpaw

Humboldt’s favorite emo band shares another live garage performance.

“Finally Leaving Fortuna” - Cat & Carson

“Cat & Carson offer original songs in wild places,” the duo says. “Magic and medicine woven musically for you.”