Relevancy for the less-than-rabid — Ian Pike The Cali-Baja art scene — Chad Deal Art spaces that cultivate communities — Barbarella Fokos Beyond selfie curation — Deirdre Lickona The theater scene has rhythms — Jeff …
February 3, 2016
News & Stories
2016 San Diego Guide to the Arts
Gaslamp 15, we hardly knew ye
How an art cinema situated in the land of drunken college kids and raucous conventioneers — who only stopped in to use the theater’s restrooms — lasted eight years is in and of itself a …
February 3, 2016
Donkey Water
How does a band stay together for more than ten years? For the Donkeys, chemistry is key, but having little faith in one’s own abilities doesn’t hurt either. “I think we all share a lack …
February 3, 2016
Music and comics
Launched in 2012, San Diego Comic Fest is organized by several original promoters behind the first San Diego Comic-Cons. This year’s edition, staged at the Town and Country Resort (February 12–14), features music performances by …
February 3, 2016
Dive into a Stars & Stripes hot tuna at Club Marina
Hmm... Keep thinking of that warm bar with the hugging hostess.
February 3, 2016
Roosevelt called Lindbergh a Nazi
The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, operator of Lindbergh Field, is looking to replace its Lindbergh history display in the lobby of Balboa Park’s Air and Space Museum with a trendier and possibly more …
February 3, 2016
Church for the religious and irreligious alike
Covenant Presbyterian Church of San Diego Membership: 150Pastor: Patrick KingAge: 34Born: ChicagoFormation: Wheaton College, Chicago; Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, ALYears Ordained: 4 San Diego Reader: What is your favorite subject on which to preach? Pastor …
February 3, 2016
Perhaps hope in life after death is the only answer
Merely good might become great.
February 3, 2016
Clarinetist down!
From the Ben Folds Five through solo projects and rubbing shoulders with William Shatner, Regina Spektor, and Weird Al Yankovic, pianist/composer Ben Folds likes to keep folks head-scratching. In concert with the San Diego Symphony, …
February 3, 2016
Paula Boggs Band comes to town
I had to ask — what did Paula Boggs’s dad say when she announced that she was ditching her career as lead counsel for the Starbucks corporation in exchange for a career as a musician? …
February 3, 2016
He got bikers to go against me
A gooey mess regarding band finances led to an ugly departure of a four-year member and some malicious slurs between bandmates including “thief” and “deadbeat.” Singer/guitarist Ron Houston founded the Sickstring Outlaws 12 years ago. …
February 3, 2016
The Jewish Film Festival has some winners
Normally it takes eight to ten films to find the three or four needed to pad a film festival overview, but this year’s San Diego Jewish Film Festival hit me with four winners right out …
February 3, 2016
Where Camino Ruíz and Peñasquitos Canyon got their names
Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve is a 4000-acre open-space area that includes both Los Peñasquitos Canyon and Lopez Canyon. Both canyons may be accessed from a western approach. The canyon walls are responsible for its name …
February 3, 2016
El Niño wakes up the Cove
On January 7 waves at the La Jolla Cove roared to life for the first time in two years. Unruly weather and rainfall weren’t enough to deter most surfers from entering the water to tackle …
February 3, 2016
San Diego overcharged FEMA $1.2 million for disaster
Just as the city is wrestling with issues of falling trees in the wake of the latest storm, a Homeland Security Department audit of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (known as FEMA) says officials here …
February 3, 2016
Between words and images
Now open at Cedar and Kettner downtown is yet another San Diego monument to the commute: a $24 million, trolley-side, ten-story (three levels below ground, seven above), 645-space parking structure, bestowing parking slots on County …
February 3, 2016
Expiration dates are for suckers, not Supersuckers
The Supersuckers have drifted back into country mode on their new album, Holdin’ the Bag. It’s the first time the band has released a country collection since 1997’s Must’ve Been High. “We were on tour …
February 3, 2016
The theater scene has rhythms
Most companies open every eight weeks or so. Their routines are often the same, at times almost identical: what people wear, where they cluster before the show and intermission, levels of excitement (the more intimate …
February 3, 2016
Art spaces that cultivate communities
In my home, art is personal. Each piece is a quiet reminder for me to smile to myself or contemplate the world. Sometimes both. Outside of my home, art is community. We gather around it …
February 3, 2016
Old Farty-Fart skips question, launches into diatribe
Dear Hipster: So, I’ve been planning on writing to you for some weeks now, but I just never got around to it. Too lazy, or whatever. But, today I got to thinking, “Hey! If I’m …
February 3, 2016
The increasingly weird story of Peyton Manning
The abiding question: Can a first-round NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, a legitimate superstar, who is now, according to many, in his football dotage, play one more beautiful game? The answer is no. The hope …
February 3, 2016
Art in every corner of San Diego
There is so much more to San Diego than a good tan and 70 miles of coastline. We are a city overflowing with creators, dreamers, and breathtaking natural beauty. In San Diego, art is found …
February 3, 2016
Knucklebusters
In 1972, a couple of decades into the post-World War II explosion of California sportfishing, a man bought an old reel at a flea market at the Rancho Bernardo Winery. This was Mike Farrior’s first …
February 3, 2016
The Cali-Baja art scene
Whether you’re a pending Picasso or an underactualized E.E. Cummings, or only a dabbling fan of surreal cinema, song, and dance, the greater Cali-Baja region has something for you. Come with me on a tour …
February 3, 2016
Two poems by Sydney Brown
the wilder shores of love cannot sustain life, so love is only an abstraction feral ghosts carve in the hard sand. the coconut’s endosperm is inedible, too salty, its meat without sweet. syringes and bottles …
February 3, 2016
Allow me to shed some light
I was born and raised in Chicago, but every movie theater is my home. Fifteen years and countless subleased seats after making the move to weatherless San Diego, my slippers click comfortably together and I …
February 3, 2016
Sempra Energy, Pacific Gas & Electric, Edison overspend with impunity
From the cradle onward, we are told to be thrifty. Unfortunately, public utilities do the reverse. They fatten up their bottom lines spending gobs of money on things they don’t need. Pro-utility, anti-consumer regulators reward …
February 3, 2016
Relevancy for the less-than-rabid
The arts carry a terrible burden. They are supposed to elevate our culture, to separate us from the beasts. Art moves the Guggenheim Foundations of the world to unburden themselves of money by the truckload …
February 3, 2016
Austin Beutner is back, kind of
Last May, when Chicago-based Tribune Publishing bought the San Diego Union-Tribune from developer Douglas Manchester, Austin Beutner seemed poised to take the city by storm. Appointed publisher of both the U-T and the Los Angeles …
February 3, 2016
Something San Diego’s musicians taught me
Classical music in San Diego is always in transition. Organizations have come and organizations have gone. General directors and conductors have retired, moved on, or shuffled away in disgrace. Attendance has been up and attendance …
February 3, 2016
Beyond selfie curation
I’m always amazed at those tablet commercials that show children creating wonderful art on their digital devices. If my kids get near a glowing screen, it doesn’t matter what apps are available; they instantly switch …
February 3, 2016
Public banking, Colombus, tiny houses, and ethnic reviews
We Deserve Public Banking As a lifelong San Diego resident, I must address impending financial burdens. The San Diego Reader has reported on the economics of our city, most recently addressing Imperial Beach (Neighborhood News: …
February 3, 2016
January 28 Sudoku Contenders
Evil Joe Arbusto, Rancho Penasquitos, 1. La Chix Barker, Lakeside, 1. (winner!) Bliss Beedle, Encinitas, 1. Gregory Chauncey, La Jolla, 1. Joseph Ciprian, Little Italy, 1. Paula Davis, Spring Valley, 1. Patrick Driscoll, Santee, 1. …
February 3, 2016
January 28 Crossword Contenders
Mary Arana, Encinitas, 1. Martha Awdziewicz, Clairemont, 1. L. Barling, El Cajon, 1. Johanna Barry, Pine Valley, 1. Evelyn Bowser, Hillcrest, 1. Dennis Butterworth, San Diego, 1. Chris Byzewski, San Diego, 1. Leslie Chase, Campo, …
February 3, 2016