Speaking of The Cheech, as we sometimes do, a free show in the Riverside museum’s community gallery is devoted to an exhibit by San Bernardino-area artists and titled “Life Logistics.” Many of the pieces take aim at warehouses in general and Amazon in particular. Others are more about the resilience it takes to live in San Bernardino. I talk to some of the artists for my Sunday column.

Care for a little backstory? On Feb. 25, a Saturday, I drove to Riverside for opening receptions at the California Museum of Photography and then at The Cheech, where the artists involved were present. I left with notes for three (!) columns.

My column space was already kind of booked for the coming week, alas. This past week, though, I was able to write them all in turn: KD Ganaway exhibit (Wednesday), MexiCali Biennial exhibit (Friday) and “Life Logistics” exhibit (Sunday).

That’s a bit more of an art focus than I really intend here, art aficionado that I am, but that’s how it worked out, and there was no good reason to delay any of them to next week. Better to get them out in the world and out of my way. Anyway, hope you enjoyed at least one of them, if not all of them, and thank you for your forbearance.

The Cheech’s new upstairs exhibition is a product of the MexiCali Biennial, in which dozens of artists from California and Mexico contributed pieces around agriculture, food and labor. The show is titled “Land of Milk and Honey.” While the effort is mostly serious, the biennial is something of a joke on pretentious art events. Also, one artwork is made up entirely of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos as a comment on unhealthy food. I tell you about it in my Friday column.

Recently I attended the opening of an exhibit at Riverside’s California Museum of Photography about forgotten Black photographer KD Ganaway. For race-related reasons, Ganaway had been forgotten by much of his own family, who passed for White, but members have been collecting information about him in recent years, and several attended the opening. I attempt to tell this complicated, fascinating story in my Wednesday column.

Would you like an update on Riverside’s (and the IE’s) only independent bookstore? I hope so, because that is the subject of my Friday column.

The Mark is the name of a new apartment building on what is arguably Riverside’s most prominent corner. It’s seven stories tall and occupies a full block across from the Fox Theater. I watched it go up, and now that’s about to open, I got a tour, then put the development in context in my Sunday column.

I’ve written about the 1905 Korean American settlement in Riverside that appears to have been the first in the nation. It was the subject of a 2021 museum exhibition. And now the Mellon Foundation has granted $850,000 to bolster the exhibit and send it on a national tour. I write about that as well as give some history about Baseline Road in my Friday column.

When I was at Riverside’s Weber House recently to check out the pile of 19th century bricks from the Golden State Theater, I was asked if I’d like a tour of the house while I was there. Sure, why not. A charming, handmade little structure in the shadow of a Courtyard Marriott, the house was saved from demolition in the 1980s. I write about it for my Sunday column.

I check in with the actor and art collector seven months after his namesake art museum, The Cheech, opened in Riverside. He was in town for the State of the City event Jan. 26 and we got to chat beforehand. Although he has no official role at the museum, he’s around nearly every month. I write about him for my Sunday column.

You remember our friends from Wednesday’s column, the stash of 1890 bricks from a demolished landmark? They all sold within hours of the publicity in my column. [blows on fingernails] I cannot right the wrongs of the world, but I can sell bricks, and I guess that’s something. I explain more about how the bricks came to be available, and the couple who once bought 10,000 of them (!), in my Friday column.

About 30 bricks from the Loring Opera House/Golden State Theater in Riverside, which was built in 1890 and burned down in 1990, are available for purchase from the Old Riverside Foundation. Also, more items about the theater, Cellar Door Books and the State of the City event last week. Yes, it’s an all-Riverside items column. I must be settling into this expanded role, eh? Read ’em all in my Wednesday column.