This Week
The Gristle
FarmGate
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
FARMGATE: The U.S. Department of Agriculture released preliminary data from the 2012 Census of Agriculture, providing a snapshot of a rural America facing difficult times. The five-year update of the nation’s farm report holds mixed news for Whatcom County, which while economically stable—perhaps even surging—continues to lose precious acres to conversion and encroachment by development. Statewide, Washington has lost more than 2,000 farms since the last census update and shed nearly
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News
Whatcom Watch
Libel is claimed, an editor resigns
By Tim Johnson · Wednesday, March 5, 2014
A threat of legal action fractures the delicate web of environmental activism.
Whatcom Watch is a monthly journal of environmental activism and public policy analysis. The publication is produced by volunteers with oversight by a volunteer board of directors and is now in its 22nd year of publication. The publication, which has admirably and thoroughly covered the issue of Northwest coal export, met one of its greatest crises earlier this year with the threat of legal action in response to a
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Music
Moistboyz
Say hello to Mickey and Dickie
By Carey Ross · Wednesday, March 5, 2014
A couple of months ago, when a local talent booker asked me whether I thought Moistboyz would draw in Bellingham, I didn’t hesitate or equivocate in my response: “Yes, I think that show would do well here.”
It was a bit of an understatement on my part. What I meant to say was, “Hell, yes. There’s a real live Ween in that band. People are going to lose their damn minds.”
I was not wrong in my assessment, and at press time, the Sat., March 8 show at the Shakedown was very close to
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Food
Rhododendron Cafe
A new take on a familiar favorite
Story and photos by Jessamyn Tuttle · Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Visitors to the Rhododendron Café on Chuckanut Drive may be surprised to find some changes in the works. Although the restaurant looks the same as ever, the business was taken over last September by the owners of Edison’s Farm to Market Bakery, Jim and Lisa Kowalski. Jim, who was a chef at Nimbus in Bellingham, is a brilliant cook and I’ve been excited to see what he would do with his spacious new kitchen.
Under its original owners, Don and Carol Shank, the Rhody’s big focus was its monthly
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Words
Finding Safety
A tale of two mothers
Reviewed by Terri Schlichenmeyer · Wednesday, March 5, 2014
You’ve had the best of times. You’ve seen the worst of times.
The former seems like a tissue in a hurricane: here, then whisked away in a blink, as though it never occurred. The latter is something like a car stuck in a snowstorm: you just spin in place, waiting for the right push.
Best. Worst. You’ve known them equally. And, as in the new book Safe with Me, by Seattle-based author Amy Hatvany, you know that you’ll live through both of them.
Salon owner Hannah Scott was sure she’d
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Outdoors
On the Fly
Winging it in Whatcom County
By Amy Kepferle · Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Despite last weekend’s recurring theme of snow and inclement weather, those paying attention probably can’t help but notice that, as we edge ever-closer to the official beginning of spring, the sweet sounds of birdsong are getting louder and louder. And, although I’m well aware dedicated birders don’t take time off regardless of the season, I’d like to draw your attention to a few ways to learn more about the winged creatures among us.
For more than 40 years, the North Cascades Audubon
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Visual
Camano Island Creativity
Northwest by the numbers
By Stephen Hunter · Wednesday, March 5, 2014
One gets the impression Karla Matzke can do anything: she paints, sculpts in stone and stainless steel, wrote the salient text of the recently published book 100 Artists of the Northwest, operates her gallery in a sculpture park she carved out of the woods on Camano Island and, not too long ago, curated and hung a stunning show of the works of 25 artists she represents (including herself).
The exhibit—which features those artists, who are also included in the book—opened last week with a
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On Stage
Sketchopedia
Edu-tainment makes the grade
By Amy Kepferle · Wednesday, March 5, 2014
A quick look at the hefty list of props needed to pull off Kimberly Ross and Krissa Woiwod’s “Sketchopedia” reveals just a hint of what to expect when the duo opens its two-week run of the show Thurs., March 6 at the iDiOM Theater.
Among the more curious components to be found among the long itemization of onstage wants and needs: aerobics accessories, American flags, Achilles’ battle armor, alps, an aboriginal child, Attila’s mustache, art supplies and a giant, sparkly rendition of
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Film
Mr. Peabody & Sherman
Adventures in doggie daycare
Reviewed by Guy Lodge · Wednesday, March 5, 2014
It was Samuel Butler who wrote of dogs that “you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.” He did not reckon with the prissy, annoyingly infallible canine hero of Mr. Peabody & Sherman. Swift, peppy and defiantly unendearing, DreamWorks’ latest toon updates the zany adventures of the time-traveling dog-and-his-boy sideshow from Jay Ward’s 1960s TV series Rocky and Bullwinkle—an arcane starting point for contempo
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Film
The Square
The revolution, televised
Reviewed by Lisa Kennedy · Wednesday, March 5, 2014
With props to Gil Scott-Heron and his 1971 spoken-word classic The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Because one of the lessons of The Square—Jehane Noujaim’s unblinking, Oscar-nominated documentary about the mass gatherings in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011 and the roiling changes they set into motion—might be that even when the revolution looks like its being globally televised, it really isn’t being captured in all its aching, dogged, vulnerable complexity.
Those mass protests led to the
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Best of Bellingham
The center of gravity has shifted in Bellingham.
In the years we’ve been polling readers on their favorite haunts and hidey-holes, we’ve seen the focus crawl from the Southside to Columbia, veer south again to the central district and now eastward to what was not so very long ago perhaps the least likely of favorite neighborhoods, Sunnyland. Why Sunnyland? Well, Trader Joe’s, for starters. HomeSkillet. Kulshan Brewery and StrEAT Food. Hardware Sales. In fact, it is that delightful mix of residence and industrial-strength business that yields Sunnyland its wondrous, quirky charm. Artists work from their back of their homes and sell from their commercial storefronts—their efforts showcased each summer in the Sunnyland Stomp.
But favorite places are found all over Bellingham. Here again we present our readers picks of the best, brightest and boldest in the City of Subdued Excitement.
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