Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
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What made Rian Johnson's 2019 "Knives Out" so much fun is also present in his 2022 "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" sequel on Netflix, in that it can be appreciated on more than one level. Both films, whose sole shared character is Daniel Craig's master detective Benoit Blanc, are metafictionally unabashed celebrations of the murder-mystery subgenre within murder-mystery stories. Whereas the petty, feuding family of "Knives Out" was bound together by their common interest in the fortune of...
The Dewatto River Campground has been closed since September, but it has not lain fallow. The Port of Dewatto Commission recently reviewed how the campground has been worked on while it’s been closed to campers. Port of Dewatto Commissioner David Haugen said he bought and installed two new gates, replacing the existing gates at the front of the campground, due to their continued damage and poor condition. Haugen brought the existing gates to the Port of Dewatto building, where the port might be...
The North Mason School Board's meetings Dec. 8 and Dec. 15 drew testimony from three area residents on the proposed transfer of the Theler wetlands, trail system and associated properties from the school district to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. Herb Gerhardt and Don LePere supported the transfer, while Ken VanBuskirk requested certain conditions for the transfer to proceed. Gerhardt's written comments, which were read into the record by district Superintendent Dana Rosenbach,...
For chef Sara Harvey, making good meals is more than a profession - it's an ethos, a way to help improve her corner of the world by practicing her values and doing something pleasing for other people. Back after a three-year hiatus, Harvey has worked at Alderbrook Resort & Spa for two years this go-around, starting as the chef and retail manager of the Union City Market, the resort's sister property, before stepping into the Alderbrook's executive chef role, overseeing the menus and food...
How does James Cameron expect this franchise to sustain three more films? When I saw Cameron's first "Avatar" film in 2009, my reaction was similar to most reviewers and moviegoers. Its immersive, richly realized visuals absolutely blew me away, but its story and characters felt like a ham-fisted mashup of "Dances With Wolves" and "FernGully: The Last Rainforest." The plotlines and relationship dynamics of "Avatar: The Way of Water" are more complicated and populous than the original film, but...
"She Said" is a solidly competent, impeccably well-acted true-crime journalistic procedural film, essentially serving as an entirely deserved paean to how the efforts of New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey helped expose the serial sexual predation of film producer Harvey Weinstein, but one might be forgiven for thinking they've seen this film before. The first impulse of a lazy reviewer is to compare such films to 1976's "All the President's Men," but closer comparisons are...
The Port of Allyn’s Dec. 5 public hearing, to address adjusting its water system’s residential and commercial connection fees, ended with commissioners unanimously adopting a three-tiered commercial connection fee scale, without adopting the proposed increase to residential connection fees. Port Executive Director Lary Coppola said the port’s rates adjust annually on a scale adopted in 2019, running through the end of 2024, which needs to be reviewed and re-evaluated before the beginning of 20...
One month after the works of her wife and "muse" made a second appearance at Belfair Self-Storage, multimedia artist Alice Durrie has followed suit, with her artwork returning to manager Barbara Treick's art wall in December. Durrie's pursuit of Asian art techniques has continued - her fascination with bonsai miniature tree cultivation has evolved into a new form of self-expression. "I live alongside the Tahuya River, which provides an ever-changing beach canvas of sand, gravel and rock,"...
'Wednesday' on Netflix "Wednesday Addams attends Hogwarts" is such a stupidly obvious idea for the next young adult horror dramedy franchise that I'm amazed it wasn't rolled out sooner. Ditto hiring Tim Burton as one of the streaming series' directors and executive producers, especially when you remember that this is Burton's first real involvement with the Addams Family, beyond a planned stop-motion film that was announced in 2010 but never developed. Both 1991's "The Addams Family" and 1993's...
Port of Grapeview Commissioner Art Whitson closed out the fall by informing port officials of the list of maintenance projects and procedures he’s been compiling. Whitson said he’s inventoried port assets whose sustainability needed to be addressed, including landscaping, the port bathroom building, the boat ramp and dock systems, the oil/water separator, inspection and maintenance of port signs and buoys, and parking lot surfaces on the ramp side of the port, which is primarily asphalt and conc...
Port of Hoodsport officials recently contacted the Shelton-Mason County Journal to sum up the work being done at the Hoodsport Trail Park and the Hoodsport Hills Disc Golf Course, both of which are closed to the public. Port Commissioner Lori Kincannon said the removal of diseased, dying and fallen hazardous trees at the Hoodsport parks started in mid-July, and upon assessment of those trees, workers discovered that poria-laminated root rot was widespread and that the Douglas fir bark beetle...
Stallone triumphs on TV with “Tulsa King,” while Netflix takes us for a wild ride with “Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?” ‘Tulsa King’ One of the themes of the later years of Sylvester Stallone’s career has been his ongoing struggle to stay relevant in an ever-changing world, whose changes always seem to be turning away from the sorts of conditions that helped make him a success in the first place. In this sense, “Tulsa King” on Paramount+ seems ideally suited to the big man, casting him as a Mafioso wh...
The Port of Dewatto’s 2023 budget discussion began with port volunteer Kris Tompkins going over what the port accomplished in 2022, from replacing four fire rings to repairing the campground’s electrical system. The concrete parking area next to the port building was cleaned, new striping was painted, as were picnic tables and doors. The port also implemented the campground’s online reservation and payment system. Tompkins said she and Port Manager Jeana Crosby budgeted $4,000 for new blind...
The Port of Hoodsport’s budget hearing last week saw its port commissioners unanimously approve all three budget-related measures, which included a $40,000 transfer of money to the port’s parks and a $5,000-per-year increase in the annual contracted fee for Port of Allyn Executive Director Kathleen Wyatt. Wyatt outlined the specifics of next year’s port budget. Wyatt said the port’s ending balance for 2022 had originally been projected at $95,956, but its true ending balance for 2022, and the...
"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" is a film tasked with multiple missions. Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe expect it not only to pay tribute to actor Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer in 2020, but also to show how the concurrent death of Boseman's King T'Challa would affect his fictional African nation of Wakanda, all while introducing the long-awaited Marvel Comics character of Namor the Sub-Mariner to the MCU. Ryan Coogler co-wrote and directed both "Black Panther" films, and given...
Port of Allyn commissioners’ discussion of its 2023 draft budget on Nov. 7 concluded with commissioners scheduling a public hearing later this month to finalize and approve the budget.Port Executive Director Lary Coppola said the budget’s only staff increases were for cost of living, at the same 8.7% rate as Social Security’s increase. The lack of revenue figures from Mason County as of Nov. 7 would mean refining those figures before the port’s budget is to be voted on on Nov. 21. “We used last...
The original "Quantum Leap," which ran for five seasons and 97 episodes from 1989 to 1993 on NBC, is one of the most well-built shows in the history of television. It used its sci-fi premise of Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) time-traveling within the span of his own lifetime, by "leaping" into the lives of other people, to stage a stealth anthology series. Each episode, the time, the place and just about all the characters except for Sam and his holographic best friend, retired Navy Adm. Al...
Four months after photographer Teresa "Tree" Smith's work first appeared on Barbara Treick's art wall at Belfair Self-Storage, Smith has returned. Smith said the months between her two showings have passed as she suspects they've passed for many others. Sometimes, it feels like a month since her last exhibition; other times, it feels like years. This vague sense of time passing has been compounded by caring for her mother, which led to a bit of artistic dormancy for her. "Creating art and...
We're closing out this year's spooky season with two engagingly suspenseful streaming series that premiered during the final full week of October 2022. "Cabinet of Curiosities" on Netflix Part of what makes Guillermo del Toro such an appealing figure is his effusive enthusiasm for the art of onscreen storytelling itself, which manifests not only in the craftsmanship and ideas inherent in his own films, but also in his frequent tributes to the works of other filmmakers. "Guillermo del Toro's Cabi...
Art Whitson, District 1 commissioner for the Port of Grapeview, was appointed Oct. 25 by Mason County commissioners to fill an open slot on the Mason County Clean Water Advisory Committee. The committee’s purpose is to implement laws designed to protect and improve water quality. Whitson’s responsibilities include establishing programs and projects to reduce nonpoint source pollution that threatens surface water quality in Mason County. He’s one of the committee’s nine stakeholder members...
The Port of Allyn Commission had a public hearing during its special meeting Oct. 24 about its proposed plans to not significantly revise its district boundaries this year. “I’m good with not moving things around, because water is going to find its own level,” Port Commissioner John Sheridan said. “It’s not significant enough.” Area resident Ken Van Buskirk noted the Port of Shelton has at-large commissioners, adding that Mason County officials had told him the Port of Allyn could create at-large districts of its own. A petition of 10% of its...
Port of Hoodsport commissioners devoted much of their Oct. 12 meeting to an update on the progress of tree and debris clearing at the port’s park spaces. Port Operations Manager Kathleen Wyatt reported revenue of more than $10,000 from the more than 34 truckloads of trees that have been removed so far, which will ultimately be added to the 2023 budgets for the Port of Hoodsport trail park and disc golf course. Commissioner Lori Kincannon said she looks forward to having that money applied to t...
"Black Adam" is a dark and explicitly political film with unlikely origins, since the ancient Teth-Adam began as an antagonist to magically empowered child hero Billy Batson in the relatively sunny and inoffensive "Shazam" mythos but evolved over time from a villain into the would-be liberator of the fictional Middle Eastern country of Kahndaq. Dwayne Johnson portrays Teth-Adam as a slave under Kahndaq's original tyrant king, during the dawn of civilization millennia ago, whose wizard-derived...
North Mason Superintendent Dana Rosenbach presented a draft of the capital facilities plan that she and Facilities Director Joan Moore have been working on at the school board's Oct. 20. Rosenbach said the district recently agreed to contract "with an expert in giving us the reports we need on the state of our buildings," because certain data needs to be compiled, updated and submitted to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction years ahead of time. In part, this is to help secure...
Before scheduling a public hearing for their next regular meeting Nov. 15, Port of Grapeview commissioners and the port manager last week reviewed proposed budget cuts they’d addressed at an earlier meeting. Port Manager Amanda Montgomery said the November meeting will also involve the passage of five resolutions related to the port’s budget. Port Commissioner Jean Farmer said the budget workshop was useful to familiarize the port commission’s two relatively new members with how port budge...
