"... Because it was the last evening of the year, it seemed important to have a night on the town. Up the street, at the Arcata Theatre, a gypsy jazz band was getting under way. The band was very good, but the crowd was going in for styles of West Coast whimsy irksome to a peevish East Coaster like myself. People in the throes of air-palming jam-band dances kept revolving in my personal space. Someone dressed in a dark shroud with a spray of foam swimming-pool noodles jutting from the top exhibited his or her liberty from hangups by painfully whacking the noodles into my and everybody’s face. Soon, it was necessary to go..." READ ARTICLE