For better or for worse, we’re in a period of history when technology, innovation and industry are roaring ahead as if there’s no tomorrow. It’s easy for me to forget how different the world in which I now live is, compared to the one in which I was born. 1942: Stalingrad, El Alamein, Midway; computers and the digital age were in the future; the turbojet plane was three years old; the first mobile phone four years away; the Manhattan atomic bomb project was just getting underway; and for every living person then, three are alive now. In the 78 years since—barely a lifetime—the rate of invention has been one headlong rush. It hasn’t always been so. History tells us of times when scientific inquiry and technological ingenuity pretty much came to a halt. Here are three of those times.

Bronze Age Collapse

The most celebrated of these occasions is probably the “Bronze Age Collapse,” around 1200 BC (or exactly 1177 BC, “the year civilization collapsed,” according to historian Eric Cline, when the so-called “sea-peoples” invaded Egypt). Prior to this time, the world of the Bronze Age had been thriving and growing in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. And then, in the space of a couple of decades, Old World civilizations went belly-up. Virtually all the great Bronze Age cities of the Minoans, Mycenaeans, Trojans, Hittites and Babylonians were destroyed, most by fire—archeologists point to blackened layers of debris. Trade essentially stopped. Writing mostly disappeared (to be revived much later, around 750 BC, allowing the lliad and Odyssey epics to be recorded for posterity after four centuries of oral transmission).

What caused this comparatively sudden, widespread collapse? Probably a perfect storm of events—drought, climate change, overpopulation, disease—historians have been arguing about it for decades. For what it’s worth, my vote for the proximate cause: the tin trade routes were cut by brigands. Without tin, no bronze (tin + copper), no new weapons, leading to a crisis economy. (Copper was abundant in Cyprus, hence the name, while the source of tin is still debated.)

Dark Ages

Much later, the western world went through another hiccup, the Dark Ages, aka Early Middle Ages, following the fall of the Roman Empire. Learning only survived by “the skin of our teeth,” in the words of the late historian Kenneth Clark, whose 1969 BBC Civilization series presaged Ken Burns and all other TV historical documentaries; it’s still well worth watching. By Clark’s reckoning, remote Irish monasteries in the sixth and seventh centuries kept the flame of civilization burning. (His is now a minority view. Most historians give more credit to Arabic scholars centered on Baghdad during the Golden Age of Islam. Their efforts ensured survival of the works of Greek and Roman philosophers and inventors, via the 700-year-long Umayyad occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. Very little to do with Christian monks in Ireland.)

12th Century Reversal

Then there was a curiously synchronous 40-year period when, far apart, several disconnected cultures turned their backs on scientific curiosity and inquiry. Consider three unrelated events that took place between 1100 and 1150 AD: (1) In medieval Kaifeng, China, the most sophisticated mechanical device up until that time, Su Song’s astronomical clock, was destroyed; (2) In France, freethinker Peter Abelard of the University of Paris was attacked by St Bernard of Clairvaux, the guy who preached the disastrous Second Crusade; (3) In Baghdad, philosopher-mystic Al-Ghazali’s attack on learning was (arguably) responsible for the beginning of the end of Islam’s “Golden Age” of scientific inquiry.

Despite all these setbacks, the human capacity for novelty and invention survived and flourished, bringing one revolution after another: printing, industrial, mechanical, electrical, digital and—just around the corner—AI and cybernetics.

I wonder if the anti-scientism of our time will prompt the next collapse?

Kuzguncuk. Photo: James Tressler.

Kuzguncuk is a pleasant, tree-lined neighborhood that brushes along the shores of the city’s Asian side, the Martyrs’ Bridge in the backdrop as you approach on the coastal sidewalk.

In years’ past, my wife Ozge and I always liked Kuzguncuk, first because it’s easy to walk there from our neighborhood, and also because its bohème (or nearly bohème , if only it had a few more bars) aesthetic is always appealing. The narrow streets are cobbled, always shaded and cool even on the hottest summer day, and the sidewalks are filled with people sitting outside at small tables, sipping tea or coffee, having Turkish kavahlti at the many cafes, or kebab at Metet, or one of the many rich desserts served at the well-known places like Dilim. Browsing the pictures in the small galleries or the bookshops. Retro-chic hideaway from all the urban clamor.

Nowadays, that all has changed. The specter of the pandemic has crept here, as it has everywhere. With the restrictions, a good portion of the visible charms of the neighborhood have vanished. The sidewalks are empty, no tables. The trees, stripped of their leaves, present a stark beauty, the thin lines of the branches as noticeable as the absence of the colorful crowds. Many of the shops are closed, and a few shuttered, with “For Sale” or “Rent” signs in the windows. Kuzgun means “raven” in Turkish, and we can surmise that if the area’s namesake were observing from some tree nearby, it may well be echoing Poe’s famous forlorn decree: Nevermore. Fittingly, outside one of the closed cafes hangs a poster of the French New Wave classic, “Breathless,” showing the famous actors, only someone has thoughtfully taped Covid masks to their faces.

Not all is lost. The bakeries we like are still open, serving fresh pide bread and the baguettes we like to take home for sandwiches; Dilim’s is still open, with its colorful array of cakes and puddings on display. The small markets, with the winter sunlight presenting a bright still life of the vegetables and fruits on offer, still have the look of bustle. The butcher we like can be seen inside packaging minced meat or chopping a lamb leg with his mighty cleaver. The galleries are open.

The past week it snowed a few days, which we badly needed (the country faces drought conditions this year). But on Friday, it felt like a false spring, which is why we walked to Kuzguncuk. With our son Leo in the stroller, looking curiously at the passing cars and buses, and at the happenings along the sidewalk, we felt good to be out of the house.

One of the coffee shops was open, so we stopped and grabbed an Americano and tea for my wife. People were out, masked and still bundled up for winter, and they were mostly families, like us. At the park, lots of children were out playing in the green grass, the snow all melted in the becoming sunlight. A boy and girl, most likely siblings, were engaged in mortal combat with a pair of swords, while other children had fashioned more primitive swords out of the branches of nearby trees. Watching them reminded me of my brother and friends.

“We used to play war in the woods,” I mused to Ozge. “God, we’d play for hours.”

Ozge was busy with Leo. She took him out of the stroller and, holding his hands, let him practice walking. Four or five dogs, including one splendid looking golden retriever, were prancing and playing with each other nearby, and Leo regarded them with a mixture of fear and puzzlement. He looked at the other children with the same feelings. They were all a bit older, except for one or two in tow of their mothers who looked almost the same age. It occurred to me that Leo spends all his time with us, and perhaps he thought it strange that there were other “little people” besides himself.

“I wonder if he’ll be shy when he gets older,” I said. “I mean, because of the pandemic he’s never able to be around other kids.”

My wife didn’t say anything, but she was listening. She walked with Leo to the far end of the park, letting him look around at the other kids. Two older girls were batting a volleyball back and forth, and it looked odd with them wearing their masks, but they seemed to be having fun. As I sipped my coffee, I sat on the bench, while other parents also sat and talked while their children played. I overheard two women gossiping about the current US political situation in Turkish, but I didn’t catch much of what they were saying, other than the words “Trump” and “Midterms.”

It has been nearly a year since the pandemic entered our lives. None of us ever imagined things being this way. I thought of a restaurant we like in the neighborhood. It’s a simple, unpretentious local place that serves good, cheap (well, it used to be anyway) Turkish food and there is a wonderful rooftop terrace where you can drink your beer or wine after dinner and look out at the other rooftops in the neighborhood and even out at the Bosphorus and the boats passing, on their way up to the Black Sea or south to the Sea of Marmara. We used to go there regularly in the summertime, and I hoped that if things get better by summer we can go there again, if it is still open. We could even have dinner with Omer and Fatma, or our other friends, who we haven’t seen in nearly a year.

Later, we walked back through the neighborhood, and we stopped at a corner grocery store that has a really good deli, and where you can find things like Jif peanut butter and quality imported beers. Leo was behaving beautifully, just sitting peacefully in the stroller and taking in the scene casually beneath his wool tossel cap. Ozge was pointing out passing buses and shouting “Toot! Toot!” to keep him awake and interested, so that he would not waste his afternoon nap in the stroller, but rather have it at home so we could enjoy an hour or so to ourselves.

I thought about dinner as we walked back along the coastal road. The Bosphorus was a deep blue in the sunlight, and across the way the skyscrapers looked very sharp and clear, the Galata Tower looking like the tip of a fountain pen.

“Hey, it’s Friday,” I said. “Maybe for dinner we could order from the Kuzuncuk Steak House.” They do delivery.

“Maybe,” my wife said. She was busy singing “Wheels on the Bus” in Turkish to Leo, and Leo was still awake and not nearly sleepy. It felt really good to be outside. I thought about Kuzguncuk as we continued walking. In many cultures, the raven is a symbol of death or ill omens, and in other cultures the raven is said to foretell the future. I prefer this raven to the former, and later I thought about how nothing lasts forever, not even the pandemic. Never say, “Nevermore.” At some point Kuzguncuk will return to how it was, and all the people will be out sitting at the tables, and everywhere will be full of life again. At home, we ended up ordering Iskender kebab from Metet’s, and settled in for another quiet Friday evening together.

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James Tressler, a former Lost Coast resident, is a writer and teacher.

(AUDIO) Mayor Susan is Holding Up

Subscribe to Humboldt Holding Up on iTunes!

Look out, y’all. The Mayor is here.

On this week’s edition of Humboldt Holding Up, the Lost Coast Outpost’s Good Enough Podcast™, we Zoom it up with Eureka Mayor Susan Seaman about what this particular weird new year may have in store for Eureka, Humboldt and the ol’ U.S. of A as a whole. In addition to the requisite COVID-19 check in, topics discussed include:

• President Joe Biden’s inauguration and the tone of our politics
• Eureka’s housing issues and their contributing factors
• The City’s marketing arrangement with Eddy Alexander
• The never-ending HACHR saga
• Traffic safety in Eureka
• The Mayor’s desire to personally participate in more drag racing
• More!

Click the audio player above to tune into Mayor Seaman’s chat with LoCO’s Stephanie McGeary and Andrew Goff and/or scroll through previous episodes of Humboldt Holding Up below:

PREVIOUS GUESTS:

• 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

If you like Eureka and want to help it look a little nicer, the Humboldt Area Center for Harm Reduction (HACHR) invites you to grab a trash bag, put on some gloves and join the staff for a community cleanup event on Saturday, Jan. 30.

Volunteers will meet at 11 a.m. in the HACHR parking lot — 1522 Third Street, Eureka — and break into groups to spread out and focus on different parts of the neighborhood. HACHR Executive Director Lasara Firefox Allen told the Outpost that the cleanup will cover the area roughly between the Humboldt County Library, Target, the Northbound 101 and the Waterfront.

Hot drinks and snacks will be provided to volunteers, as well as trash grabbers, sharps containers (for syringes) and garbage bags, Allen said. Volunteers are asked to provide their own work gloves and masks and to please follow all COVID safety protocols, including remaining masked and staying at least six feet away from anyone not in your “pod.” Allen added that the event will take place rain or shine, so be sure to dress accordingly.

HACHR’s syringe exchange program — which is not currently operating in Eureka — has been the focus of many recent Eureka City Council meetings and on Tuesday the council approved the nonprofit’s plan for a mobile syringe exchange. Allen said that HACHR is working with the city on some of the particulars, but they are hopeful that the mobile outreach vehicle will be operational in a couple of weeks or so.  In the meantime, HACHR continues to offer syringe services outside of Eureka, and its many other harm reduction services — including free food, clothing, overdose prevention supplies and guidance to medicated treatment — at its Third Street location.

HACHR also has a designated “community cleanup liaison,” Allen added,  who will respond to calls for syringe cleanup. If you find any syringes, you can call HACHR during business hours and they will come get them and dispose of them safely. HACHR can also provide you with a sharps container to keep on hand. 

As for Saturday’s cleanup, volunteers will focus on picking up all garbage, not just syringes. And Allen hopes the event will also serve as an opportunity for participants to connect with other community members and HACHR employees.

“We’re definitely excited to see folks there and to have an opportunity to build some sense of community,” Allen told the Outpost. “It should create a starting point for better relationships.”

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The 2020 August Complex was the largest fire in recent history, burning over one million acres. Scientists warn that large fires like these will likely become more common in the future, as climate change produces longer fire seasons and more extreme weather.

If large fires are the new future, what can we learn from the August Complex? One lesson that might be surprising to some is that the fire had large beneficial effects on the fire-adapted landscape.

Ryan Henson from the California Wilderness Coalition joins Gang Green to talk about wildfires, the environmental costs of fire suppression, and how we should (and should not) approach post-fire management.

AUDIO:

“The EcoNews Report,” Jan. 23, 2021.

LINKS:

• “Post-Wildfire Logging Hinders Regeneration and Increases Fire Risk,” Science, Jan. 20, 2006.
• “Salvage Logging, Ecosystem Processes, and Biodiversity Conservation,” Conservation Biology, June 20, 2006.
• “The forgotten stage of forest succession: early‐successional ecosystems on forest sites,” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, March 2, 2010.
• “Stop the Salvage Logging of Post-Fire Forests,” EPIC, Sept. 21, 2020.

Happy Saturday and thank you to all the Humboldt County creatives who continue to submit your fun, interesting and totally weird videos.

Due to an overwhelming response, LoCO is still spacing out recent submissions over the course of a few weeks. However, new submissions are still being accepted and we promise to share them all.

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.

Now, on with the videos.

“¡Gracias, Santiago!” - a Film by Oryan Peterson-Jones:

Gracias, Santiago! is a hypnotic journey into the sights and sounds of Carnaval culture in Santiago de Cuba,” Peterson-Jones said. “The film was shot entirely on location in Cuba (in addition to a second, more traditional documentary about Grammy winning Latin Jazz legends and Rumba street performers in Havana that will be released next year). ¡Gracias, Santiago! has been projected onto big screens in Arcata and Portland, and has been busy making the festival circuit rounds (most recently it was shown at the Gary International Black Film Festival and at the First Time Filmmaker’s session. It was also a finalist in the Kharkiv International Festival of Arts & Travel, in Ukraine).”

“Bitch On Wheels” By Iron Rain:

“Iron Rain has been in Humboldt County since 1996,” the band said. “Just started producing videos for our music in 2020 and have started recording again. The first NEW song recorded with a video is Bitch on Wheels.

Tour of the Garden of Rock ‘N’ Roll Delights Part 1:

Local artist Seana Burden shares a virtual tour of her artwork “Garden of Rock ‘n’ Roll Delights.”

“I am a local artist who does mostly oil painting and glitter art,” Burden said. “This is Part 1 of a guided tour of a painting I did that is permanently installed in the hallway at Arcata Pizza & Deli. It is a very detailed rock and roll themed oil painting with more than 70 famous rock stars in some strange rock ’n’ roll world. During normal, non-pandemic times, when they allow dining in, you can go see the painting in person. In the video, I plan to walk through this world, give you a guided tour, and introduce some of the characters over the course of multiple videos.”

“For the Masses: The Forgotten: Book 1” By Nadia Duerson:

And now for something completely different. Here’s a reading submitted by local author Nadia Duerson.

“I’m a local author and live in Eureka,” Duerson said. “This is a video of Rainbow Rose reading an excerpt from my book.”

“BREATHE” By James David:

“I am a local artist, producer and songwriter,” David said. “This here is a song about slowing down, taking the time to BREATHE and BE for a minute. It’s a reminder to get back to what matters and to remember to be grateful for what we have now. Visually, it showcases some of Humboldt County’s beautiful scenery.”

“Glad Jol” By Nick and Matt:

“This is a video my husband and I made a few weeks ago to send to our friends and family for Yule as we couldn’t be with them, his being in LA and mine in England,” Nick Hayhurst said. “Matt has played the accordion for a few years and I (Nick) started learning the mountain dulcimer a few months ago to help pass Pandemic time and these are the first songs we’ve learned together. We live near Whitethorn with our 2 dogs and get to spend 3 months of the year as field data collectors in the tributaries of the Mattole for the Mattole Salmon Group, which is where some of the footage comes from.”

 

Virginia “Vikki” Young
June 22, 1945 – Jan. 6, 2021

Virginia Isabella Cooley was born in Coronado to Mildred Frances Kennett and James Siggins Cooley, an officer in the U.S. Navy. Though they were posted to multiple states over the years, they always returned to Coronado. Early on she started using the name Vic, based on her initials, and at some point this turned into her alternate spelling of Vikki.

Growing up in Coronado meant the lots of time at the beach and visits to Tijuana. During high school Vikki was part of the “animal” crowd that always skipped Fridays, and made regular booze runs across the border. She hated P.E. with a passion. She always got straight As.

Vikki married her first husband, David Eaton Young, just after graduating from Coronado High, and they had two childrenrolyn and Joe. Dave was killed in Mexico in 1975, leaving Vikki to lead the family.

Vikki never had any specific vocation. She had many jobs, but no career. Wherever she was hired, she would end up filling whatever gaps were needed to make a place better. One of her longest stints began with tour-guiding for Safaris and Tours of San Diego. There she ended up managing huge events for thousands of people at venues across the country. She used to tell a story about transforming a remote patch of California sand into a desert oasis for a grand Arabian Nights theme party, with huge colorful tents, gold colored sand, an artificial pond and visiting elephants. The afternoon was hot, the elephants drank the pond, the guests were miserable… but it made one great story. She was always a great storyteller.

Vikki was a confirmed Coronadoan, having stated that there was nowhere else on Earth she would rather live. However, on a trip to California’s North Coast to visit her daughter in 1995, Vikki visited the town of Ferndale and saw a photograph of the Victorian house at 1337 Lincoln Street in a realtor’s window. It was love at first sight and she bought the house that very same day, re-locating from southern to northern California.

Always eager to help, Vikki became a surrogate Mom to her grand-daughter Natalia for a few months, while Vikki’s son Joe was balancing being a single parent and completing his PhD at the University of Chicago.

Vikki had a life-long love affair with live theatre, with more than 200 credits across California. She occasionally appeared onstage, but preferred to design sets and costumes as well as direct and produce well-attended and often sold out shows. As with her other jobs, she would step in to fill whatever role was needed. Vikki spent 20 years volunteering at the Coronado Playhouse spanning the tenures of Artistic Directors Bill Bruce and Tom McCorry. Work at the Playhouse was a family endeavor, with both her children and her mother volunteering on many of the productions there. The tradition extended back to Vikki’s grandmother, Isabella Smith Kennett, who helped found the theater in 1946.

After moving to Ferndale, Vikki soon began volunteering at the Ferndale Repertory Theater. She served as the Theater’s Business Manager for a decade during the tenure of Artistic Director Marilyn McCormick. During that time she wrote original scripts and directed the annual holiday matinees for schools, in addition to working on mainstage productions. Together with Marilyn, Vikki initiated the Fourth of July parades, patriotic shows and picnics held in Ferndale for many years.

On October 25, 1997, Vikki married her third husband, Robert Dwain Clark, in a ceremony at the Victorian Inn in Ferndale. They did it their own way, arriving by horse carriage and writing their own vows. Bob to Vikki: “I found an Angel quite by chance. I’ve called her my best friend… Didn’t realize that we could dance, A tango that might blend, Some terpsichore, a rhapsody, a song, a lyric line, To soothe my soul through thin and thick, And transcend the test of time.”

Vikki was many things, but above all, an artist. She was a fine draftsman, a witty writer, and a clever creator, skilled with tools ranging from sewing machine to jigsaw. She was the newsletter editor for the NORBAG Book Arts Group for many years and was active with the local Miniatures group. Every year from 1987 to 2018, she worked with her daughter Carolyn, and friends Dorothy Swendeman and Terri Tinkham, to create crazy, original, limited edition calendars. For her son-in-law Tom, she created bizarre “keepsake” Christmas gifts made of items from her “dead collection” and barely identifiable objects from the depths of the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator.

Vikki was never bored. Even in her later years, when physical limitations made it impossible to do the things she loved, she could always amuse herself by playing word games in her head, or pondering the art on the walls, or just enjoying the company of her cats. She needed a lot of help during the last few years, and she accepted it with grace.

Vikki is survived by her husband of more than 23 years, Robert Clark, of Ferndale, her daughter Carolyn Jones and son-in-law Tom of Bayside, and son Joe, grand-daughter Natalia, and daughter-in-law Anna, of Montrose, as well as her brothers Steve Cooley of Auburn and Jim Cooley of San Jose.

No memorial service is planned. If you would like to honor Vikki, reach out to family and friends, raise a toast, and share a good story. She would have liked that.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Vikki Young’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here.