Busy Fingers Are Happy Fingers — Joe Deegan Mother Reader — Barbarella Build Your Writing Muscles — Ollie Let the Tape Recorder Do the Work — Matthew Lickona Faith — Abe Opincar Make Something Better …

"Writing is like a muscle, honey." Judith always called me honey, and her voice was warm like cinnamon tea. "The more you use the muscle, the stronger you get; the more you can write. Write …

I used to send Judith gifts around Mother's Day. Not on, but around -- because she wasn't my mother. But among her many titles -- mentor, boss, friend -- there was also this: the mysterious …

Our dealings from the beginning had a mother-daughter feel. Judith played the loving, nurturing mother; I, the eager-to-please daughter. It was curious, because we never met. But she headed her e-mails "Dear heart," "Cream puff," …

I knew Judith Moore only through her voice: a baritone with a slight Southern accent. And I knew her writing. The first time I spoke to Judith -- in early 1997 -- she called me …

Aside from my father, the only real, if informal, writing teacher I've ever had was Judith Moore. I met her in 1989, when I was working at Hunter's Books in La Jolla, one of the …

I could almost be tempted to resent Judith for getting my hopes up. When she signed my copy of her food memoir Never Eat Your Heart Out back in 1997, she inscribed it, "To Matt …

As a loose rule, whenever you hear "question authority," you can replace it with "be a lazy ass." When a hippie in an organic oats and horse apples store says, "The government doesn't want you …

Judith was a ghost to me. She was present, but never corporeally. It strikes me as ironic that I never met her, considering that the body — her body — was one of her principal …

Title: Musings and Mud Prints Address: http://muddymuse.blogspot.com Author: Lannice From: San Diego Blogging since: December 2006 Post Date: July 16, 2007 Post Title: Uncle Walt -- Friend or Foe? I've identified myself as a feminist …

What's nice about outrigger canoeing is that you're facing forward, so you get to see where you're going," says John Wascher, vice president of the Oceanside Outrigger Canoe Club. "And [the canoes] are built to …

Judith Moore called me in the fall of 1995, when I was living temporarily in Laguna Beach and teaching at UC Irvine for a semester. Judith was familiar with my poems and deduced from some …

Name: Mike Turner Home: Chula Vista Vehicle: 1995 Ford F-150 Surfing: Ocean Beach Pier Mike Turner surfs a 9'4" Bear and is committed to environmental causes. He inherited a gas-guzzling V8 Jeep that didn't have …

This restaurant is closed. Chef Chris Walsh must be the culinary patron saint of Hillcrest. After a long stint at California Cuisine and a shorter one nearby at his own Cafe W (which burned down), …

"Old school vs. new school, Bob Hope vs. Adam Sandler, dirt vs. fruit."

I was contacted by a guy who runs a nudist camp. He asked me to be a judge in an American Idol-style competition called "Ultimate Idol." The winner would get an iPod and go to …

The law doth punish man or womanThat steals the goose from off the commonBut lets the greater felon looseThat steals the common from the goose. -- anonymous 18th-century English epigram These pithy words should be …

The Tijuana neighborhood of Adolfo Ruiz Cortines sits north of the river about five miles east of the San Ysidro crossing. The east-west thoroughfare Avenida Defensores de Baja California bisects the lower-middle-class neighborhood. Campaign signs …

Longtime cynics greeted last week's announcement that architect Hal Sadler has been chosen the next Mr. San Diego, to be awarded on August 23, with a hearty laugh. Sadler, a wealthy pillar of the local …

The state's Fair Political Practices Commission is set to approve a stipulation between it and ex-Chula Vista mayor Steve Padilla and Padilla campaign treasurer Donald Wroe that settled charges arising from Padilla's 2002 mayoral campaign. …

Qualcomm, the big La Jolla-based cell phone outfit, hasn't been having a lot of luck in its long-running patent battle with competitor Broadcom. Last week, George Bush declined to alter a ruling by the U.S. …

Shanna Roberts Age: 20 Occupation: College student Lives: UCSD area "Cutty" is a good one. "Cutty" means shady. Like, you just came up to me, you're freaky and weird; you're "cutty." It describes a person's …

Beginning in September, all San Diego--area Borders stores will begin taking a 40 percent cut of musicians' revenue generated by CD sales. In the past, Borders has allowed artists to pocket all of the money …

Slow ticket sales are the likely reason Live Nation moved Street Scene from the Del Mar Fairgrounds to Coors Amphitheatre and its parking lot. Why the slow sales? Live Nation hasn't yet sold single-day tickets; …

When drummer Morgan Young played his last gig with Silverbird on August 3 -- just shy of a year after forming the group -- few local music fans were surprised. Young has played in area …

"We open at 2:00 every afternoon," says Morena Club owner Steve Billings. "But sometimes the bartender lets in regulars a few minutes earlier." The front door was open at about 1:45 p.m. on Sunday, August …

Muslim Jew Love doesn't have any lyrics about world harmony. "Sometimes people think we're a hippie band about peace and love," says guitarist Toofun Golchin. "We don't have any lyrics at all." Inspired by the …

Some gems from July posts on the San Diego Musicians page at craigslist.org: "Seeking U2Heads to portray U2's Boy/October era in sight and sound...seeking a Bono, Adam, and Larry. The Edge portrayer position is taken. …

Judith Moore remains an enigma to me. When first asked to write for the Reader, I was instructed to run everything by Judith. Who was this lady? Why did she live in Berkeley if she …

A friend once told me, "Nothing ruins a bird but its beak." It wasn't until Judith told me that the biggest mistakes a writer can make are (a) talking about what he or she is …

This is where it started: minorleaguefootballnews.com. I read, "The 4th Annual 'Hall of Fame' All-Star game is Saturday, December 8, 2007, 3:00 p.m., at Virgin River High in Mesquite, Nevada. Mesquite is the home of …

Judith came out of nowhere. She called one evening and asked if I'd like to write something for the Reader. I'd read the Reader enough to feel flattered, since the writers I'd encountered in it …

I never met Judith Moore. To me she was a voice over the phone: slangy, half-cynical, eager to talk about her dog, and passionate about writing. I first talked to her in the summer of …

Her first order to me, sent by fax, was to buy and read Joan Didion's Slouching towards Bethlehem. I was 23 and recently graduated from Thomas Aquinas College, a Catholic liberal arts school where the …

I was 26 and unemployed when a friend told me about the San Diego Reader and its editor, Judith Moore. I had published a few essays and stories in small literary journals while amassing a …

Though she was my editor, I never met Judith. I knew her instead via calls and e-mail. When she phoned, there'd be that throaty alto, so sure, so self-possessed. I'd grab a pen, and she'd …

Though I never met Judith Moore, she was one of the most significant people who's ever entered my life. She believed in and nurtured my writing abilities even before I really did. She liked my …

Judith often referred to herself in the third person as "Mother Reader." An appropriate epithet, considering that after coming across my blog, she elicited a job offer from "Father Reader," thus giving birth to my …

"Execrable." And... "You sound like a fluttering dilettante." There were many more in a similar vein. I have all her editorial comments saved somewhere on the jittery hard drive of my old computer. The two …

Point-blank, Judith is the reason I'm here. When she found out that I, at 20 years old, had a love for writing, she wanted to see for herself. A piece I'd written for another magazine …

Judith and I shared an October 14 birthday. We met when a mutual friend threw a party for us both, 30 years ago. I was freshly graduated from a state teachers' college, where I had …

My long conversation with Judith Moore about writing began in 1980. We first met at a monthly campus ministry shindig for the faculty of Central Washington University, in Ellensburg, Washington. Judith was escaping the small-town …

Some of the Beatles' first recordings -- before they became "The Beatles" -- were collaborations with English rocker Tony Sheridan. Today Sheridan frequently appears at Fab Four events, though Blizzard singer/guitarist Chris Leyva says, "I …

Name: Ruby Tsaturyan Age: 27 Occupation: Florist Neighborhood: Normal Heights Where Interviewed: Borders Books in Mission Valley What book are you currently reading? "I just finished The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Luiz Zafon. …

Dear Matthew Alice: I understand how cordless phones can pick up signals from other devices. HOWEVER, my wall-mounted (very corded) telephone has been picking up a religious radio station for the past several months. How …

Hey, Matt: I seem to be the only one noticing this, but it's driving me crazy! I keep seeing California license plates that follow this pattern: a few numbers followed by the letters MA. The …

Hey, Matt: I make tea nowadays by microwaving both the water and tea bag together. It works just fine. It's quick and easy. But I've been told to never put metal objects into a microwave …

Thirty Years Ago PENNSYLVANIA natives: Re-incarnate as groundhog, coal, smokestack at America's Finest City picnic, Saturday, August 27, 3--7 p.m., Balboa Park, near Sixth, Upas. Prizes for unique Pennsylvania costumes/posters/representations. NEW IN TOWN? So am …

"I ran away from home when I was 16," she says when I get nosy.

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us. -- Ashley Montagu It was a brilliant idea. Machiavellian genius. Why hadn't I …

"This is horrible, this stuff about your mother. Just awful, Susie." Not since my father had someone called me Susie. And not since my father had the endearment arrived with such menace. "It's what I …

Judith made this whole gig happen, I mean Tin Fork and the cheap-eats world she gave me. Actually, it wouldn't have happened without Carla either. She met Judith first and must have mentioned this layabout …

The e-mail was titled, "When Wildlife Comes Visiting the Garage." My curiosity was piqued. My friend Austin lives in an exciting world. Her nickname is Lucy — think Lucille Ball — because her calamities are …

UCSD's Stuart Collection of outdoor sculpture seeks to enrich the cultural and intellectual life of the campus and the surrounding community. The current 16 works in the collection are sprinkled throughout several hundred acres of …