All clips written by Roger Coryell, owned by their publishers
A clearing in the Noyo River Canyon sports a red-topped circus tent. There’s no road access. Starting Sept. 11, the way in is a train.
Ask around Mendocino County for the oldest bar, and you’ll get a confident answer, then another one, then a third. All can be right, because nobody is answering the same…
Everyone knows the Inuit have a hundred words for snow. Everyone is wrong. The anthropologist who started it counted four, and the number has been inflating at dinner parties for…
Summer is the season that needs no defense and gets one anyway. Everyone claims to love it, nobody agrees on it, and half the words we use for it secretly…
Don’t worry: the fog will burn off by midday…late afternoon…evening?
It is small on paper but enormous in practice. It can turn an ordinary day into something you remember. It can make hard days survivable. It can loosen the grip…
Not the normal ones. Not snow and holly and “ugh, relatives.” The weird ones. The words that sound like they’ve already had three hot toddies and are reading obscure poetry…
Word junkie: the bull market in buzzwords, with boots on the ground
Orillia, Ontario. CAN – October 16, 2012
Sebastopol’s free neighborhood music festival is back Sept. 13, but not on porches. After a packed debut on High Street in 2024, PorchFest organizers will shift this year’s event to…
Ah, September. The pencils are sharpened, the lunchboxes are mispacked, and parents across Sonoma County are trying not to weep tears of joy at the return of structure. While the…
Welcome to Cotati, where the accordion is king, the tuba is queen, and absolutely no one is taking themselves too seriously. Aug. 16 and 17, La Plaza Park will once…
My extended family is big and messy and impossible to chart. Cousins I smoked dope with behind the toolshed. Nieces and nephews now raising their own kids. A whole other…
Summer is a mood, a verb, a barefoot way of being. It’s the time when serious folks loosen their belts, responsible folks stay up too late, and even the chronically…
For kids in Sonoma County, the sound of possibility starts with a single chord. At Guitars Not Guns, students ages 8 to 18 are learning more than just music—they’re building…
The year turns again. Another January arrives, crisp and clean. The hills are damp, the air smells of earth, and for a moment, the world feels quieter. I look at…
January: the month that insists on staring deeply into your soul just after you’ve eaten your weight in holiday cookies and overspent on gifts nobody asked for. It’s a time…
Winter is a season steeped in traditions, imagery, and feelings that span cultures and centuries. While words like “snow” and “cheer” get plenty of airtime this time of year, there’s…
November’s chill introduces some intriguing words into our vocabulary. Here are a few that might surprise you.
On Halloween 2024, Sonoma County is wrapped in a scent almost like rain — that perfect Halloween mix of cool, damp air that makes every shadow seem a bit darker.…
Welcome to the strange, delicious lexicon of fall, where words like crepuscular slink in at twilight, painting the sky with shades of dusky purples and smoky greys. It’s a word…