If You’re Making Art and Getting Paid for It... “People used to say, ‘Oh, I love your music; I put it on when I go to sleep.’ At first, I was insulted: ‘Thanks a lot. …
February 8, 2017
News & Stories
San Diego Reader 2017 arts issue
Before it was Princeton
The goings on of God were then seen in his sanctuary, God’s day was a delight and His tabernacles were amiable. Our public assemblies were then beautiful; the congregation was alive in God’s service, everyone …
February 8, 2017
La Jolla grub-hunt started out innocently enough
Lord. Trying to concentrate. Ten percent, double it, aargh! Sixteen bucks. And that’s just the tip. Total for this lunch, $105.97. I try not to let it show as I usher the two ladies out. …
Wussification of music
Clint Sobolik’s latest project takes on the nickname he picked up in his last band, the Whiskey Avengers. “I squint a lot and I’m a man of few words, so I guess I just gravitated …
February 8, 2017
Gambling and plastic politics
As food containers made of polystyrene continue jamming San Diego’s landfills, a maker of the ubiquitous plastic has been pouring money into the Greater San Diego Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee at a record-setting …
February 8, 2017
Love in a Life/Life in a Love
Love in a Life I Room after room, I hunt the house through We inhabit together. Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her — Next time, herself! — not the trouble behind her …
February 8, 2017
You can call her Babbalicious Neezbite
"I miss the ocean,” says songstress Barbara Nesbitt, who left San Diego in 2011 for the musical mind-meld that is Austin, Texas. Her new album, Right as Rain, debuted January 13, sporting production and guest-playing …
February 8, 2017
Music before poetry for Robert Pinsky
It turns out that Robert Pinsky is also a sax player. We spend minutes talking about the beloved Buescher 400 series tenor sax he once owned but that got stolen. “Tenor sax,” he tells me …
February 8, 2017
San Salvador for lovers
In 1542 from a 100-foot Spanish galleon carrying officers, crew, slaves, a priest, and the ship’s captain, explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, landed in San Diego Bay near Point Loma. They were the first Europeans to …
February 8, 2017
Singer/songwriter's "Alternative Facts" finds footing online
“The phrase ‘alternative facts’ immediately hit me as being very Orwellian,” says Matthew Stewart, who used the phrase coined by presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway as both title and topic of a new tune currently popping …
February 8, 2017
Theater moves at human speed
San Diego has an international reputation for quality theater. And far too many locals aren’t aware of it. In the past 25 years, we’ve sent at least 45 shows to Broadway. We average around two …
February 8, 2017
Forget the jewelry and chocolate — get creative on Valentine's Day
How to celebrate Valentine’s Day out beyond dinner and jewelry? Does your pudding like plays? Mystery Café dinner theater in Bankers Hill (619-460-2200) has a Valentine’s Day murder-mystery show on February 14 entitled I Do, …
February 8, 2017
Not your dad’s youth group
Arms wave in the air, hands outstretched as if to grab something fleeting. It’s Friday night at MyCity Youth, fists and music pumping. Teenagers and preteens sway transfixed, all eyes on the stage, where a …
February 8, 2017
Where art resides
“Artist residences are about taking the time to explore your work in a new way,” says Melissa Walter, who is currently the artist-in-residence at Bread & Salt, “a gallery and experimental center for the arts.” …
February 8, 2017
No room at the Farm-to-Table Inn for the sensibly mature
Dear Hipster: I found my first gray hair about five years ago, and ever since I’ve been plucking them out, one by one, as they arrive on my head. I consider them the forward scouts …
February 8, 2017
If you’re making art and getting paid for it...
Guitarist William Wilson loves his children too much to suggest they follow in his footsteps. “It’s too hard,” he says flatly. Still, “the other day, I was talking to a banker, and when I told …
February 8, 2017
The Room splits the difference between art and stupidity
Attending a midnight screening of 2003 cult film The Room is kind of a train wreck, if train wrecks were accompanied by group chants, spontaneous games of football, and multiple plastic spoonados. It’s widely regarded …
February 8, 2017
Say something
The story of Coyote begins with a horse. A Trojan horse. The year is 1997. A ten-year-old Daniel Espinosa weaves through traffic at the San Ysidro Port of Entry to get a closer look at …
February 8, 2017
Trump/Navarro saber-rattling has already shaken up China
In San Diego County from 1992 through 2001, Peter Navarro ran unsuccessfully for mayor, county supervisor, city council, and Congress. Then he became an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine. Now he is …
February 8, 2017
When life hands you Lemon Twigs...
The Lemon Twigs sound like a rough cut of the Beatles from way back before the Fab Four had gotten tight from playing all those marathon gigs in Germany. Throw in some Bay City Rollers, …
February 8, 2017
Classical music hidden in the city
To find classical music in this town you’ve got to want to find it. Without consulting Google, can you say where Symphony Hall is? The only people who can answer this are people who already …
February 8, 2017
Trumping Tronc
President Donald Trump hasn’t been drawing much support from the traditionally Republican San Diego establishment, much of which derives a big chunk of change from its free-trading ties to Tijuana and cheap manufacturing. Another component …
February 8, 2017
In fair San Diego, we lay our scene
The great weather. The beaches. The Navy and Marines. The zoo and SeaWorld. Bad to mediocre (and exiting) sports teams. Comic-Con. Free associations on San Diego call up these images. But, “Oh me, the gods,” …
February 8, 2017
On the other end of the line
Never in the News Regarding the January 26 cover article, “The Government Made Me a Sex Offender” — I don’t know how the CBP officers can call anybody a sex offender. [Names omitted] — all …
February 8, 2017