On breaking out of a routine

For decades, Duane Bolster, a harp builder from Portland, tried to learn one instrument after another — piano, clarinet, coronet, accordion — but reading music remained mysteriously difficult for him. He couldn’t comprehend how musicians sight-read so fluidly. Read more

Poems, stories and personal essays presented at the annual FisherPoets Gathering often ask: How can humans live in balance with the natural world, what do we lose when we don’t, and how do we communicate this message in a society running on self-interest and short attention spans? Read more

Arnie Hummasti had two brothers. Read more

In an artist statement for a new series of abstract landscapes titled “Discover Solitude,” Ryan Dobrowski refers to the paintings as a search for a “moment of discovery.” Read more

Coast Weekend now serving foodie features. Read more

Help us cover the Columbia-Pacific. Read more

A short list of book recommendations. Read more

Christmas confession: “The Muppet Christmas Carol” is my favorite holiday movie. Read more

The Daily Astorian’s Edward Stratton got it into his head recently that we writers should do karaoke together sometime. He’s been using it to venture outside his social comfort zone, he said. Good on him. Karaoke, if nothing else, forces you to care a lot less about what others think of you. Read more

Over Thanksgiving weekend, while staying at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, I came upon a preciously rare sight: a roomful of strangers silently reading. Read more

In the early 2000s, director Gus Van Sant wanted to use the Flavel mansion on Franklin Avenue and 15th Street in Astoria in his film “The Last Days,” an art-house look at the slow, pathetic decline of a Kurt Cobain-type musician. Read more

Cheese and I have a complicated history. Read more

Focus, people! Read more

A comedian, almost by definition, has had to overcome hurdles. “You wouldn’t become a comedian if you didn’t,” said Rachael O’Brien, a stand-up comic from Los Angeles, invoking the pain-plus-time-equals-comedy formula that governs her profession. Read more

My recent email exchange with Kim Stafford, Oregon’s Poet Laureate, was one of those interviews in which every response could be turned into a story, the deleted scenes as compelling as the feature presentation. Read more

Last fall, with well-meaning doubters informing me I’d made a huge, possibly life-threatening mistake by signing up for the Great Columbia Crossing — the 10K race across the Astoria Bridge — the challenge was simply to survive with my knees and dignity intact. (In the end, both were wobbly, … Read more

When I met some of the “Ghost Adventures” crew last April, they were playing the blues at Uniontown’s Workers Tavern — a sound engineer on guitar, a writer/editor doing vocals and harmonica, a cast member pounding the djembe. Read more

In the Feb. 15 special issue of Coast Weekend, we reveal the results of the 2017 Readers’ Choice Awards, our annual contest honoring excellence in Columbia-Pacific business, dining and activities — as chosen by you, our discerning readers. Read more

Earlier this month, I reconnected with Professor Prakash Chenjeri, the chair of Southern Oregon University’s philosophy program who, along with chaplain and author Fred Grewe, led a community talk at the Astoria Library about what makes life meaningful. Read more

Coast Weekend’s 2017 Photo Contest opens Friday, Nov. 17, and closes Sunday, Dec. 17. Read more

A friend asked me: You’re running the race? Like, running it? Read more

If natural selection, the driving force of evolution, really depends on whatever set of traits makes an organism more or less likely to reproduce and pass on genes, where does altruism come in? Why does anyone work to benefit others at his or her own expense? Read more

Good comedy is famously known as a high-wire act. Timing, tone — everything must be finely calibrated for a show to be funny, for it to actually work as comedy. Read more

’Stackstock — an indie music festival held Saturday at Haystack Gardens in midtown Cannon Beach — rocked. Plain and simple. Read more

When you read the title “Dog Gone: A Lost Pet’s Extraordinary Journey and the Family Who Brought Him Home,” what do you imagine this book is about? Read more

Coast Weekend is hiring freelancers to write one to three stories per month and help paint the arts-and-entertainment landscape of the Columbia-Pacific region. Read more

By now, many of you have read the recent Willamette Week story “Astoria is the Best Place in Oregon For A Weekend Bender” by Matthew Korfhage. Read more

A feature story this week focuses on Arvi Ostrom, an Astoria man who owned and tended a bar in Uniontown while, unbeknown to his loved ones, he drew thousands of striking pictures before his death in 1995 (see Page 6). Read more

When I learned last week that Mary Todd, owner of Mary Todd’s Workers Bar & Grill, had agreed to sell the tavern to Astoria author Diana Kirk, my reaction was something like: “No way!” followed by, “That’s perfect.” Read more

John Patrick Shanley’s “Doubt, A Parable,” a play showing in Nehalem and the subject of this issue’s cover story (see Page 8), is a unsettling piece of theater, and not simply because it involves whether a priest molested a boy at a Catholic school. Read more

I finally got around to reading “The Mountain Shadow,” Gregory David Roberts’ long-promised sequel to his gorgeous 2003 debut novel, “Shantaram.” Read more

My writing first appeared in Coast Weekend on July 21, 2011, when I worked as The Daily Astorian’s summer intern. It was a “Shanghaied in Astoria” preview — a centerspread I proudly laminated, framed and mounted on my bedroom wall as if it was a fresh kill. Read more

It’s time to vote! The 2015 Coast Weekend Readers’ Choice Awards are here. Read more

When I told people I was attending the Astoria Music Festival’s Night at the Movies: Classic Film with Organ concert last Thursday, I got the same response from everyone: “Did you go last year?” Read more