Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: SD’s Fringe Festival includes award-winning New Zealand act The Only Bones ProjectWhen I hear Fringe Festival, I think of Scotland’s Edinburgh. Its Fringe Festival is as famous as its mainstream one, and it …
June 5, 2024
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Stories by Bill Manson
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San Diego’s Fringe Festival includes award-winning New Zealand act
Crochet is not just for girls
“It’s a very trending hobby right now,” says David Caywood-Hernandez. I have spotted him at a 901 bus stop, crocheting away at something pink and aquamarine and woolly. He’s poking a single hooked needle into …
May 17, 2024
Shanti Hershenson: 15 books by 16 years old
This is scary. I’m here at the April 6th San Diego Writers Festival, a modest gathering that people are starting to take seriously: the organizers were able to promise “90 speakers at 40 events” all …
May 15, 2024
Maggie Starfire douses drinks at Danny’s
Video:Famed SEAL’s daughter makes a show out of her crazy hobbySome exotic goings-on at Danny’s Palm Bar on Orange Avenue in Coronado. A girl dances on the bar top, waving live flames about herself. Suddenly, …
May 1, 2024
73 Blue Heron Way’s precarious perch
Which building at UCSD is the more iconic: the ziggurated Geisel library or the Falling House? The question occurs as I emerge from the elevator on the library’s sixth floor, turn right and right again, …
May 1, 2024
Climbing Cowles toward the dawn
“You’re on your own, dude,” says Tim. “I ain’t coming.”He says his gammy knee won’t handle the climb. Great: Now he tells me. On the other hand, we’re standing at the sign that has a …
April 24, 2024
Design guru Don Norman’s big plans for San Diego
These look like glory days for design in San Diego. Not only has the San Diego-Tijuana twin-city region been named the Design Capital of the World for 2024 — the first binational conurbation ever to …
April 24, 2024
The Gentlemen of San Diego want to be better versions of themselves
It’s an odd feeling. I’m standing here at 12th and Imperial, waiting for my stretch limousine, aka the number 901 bus, when I spot these gentlemen. And gentlemen they are: they’re dressed in white shirts, …
April 2, 2024
La Valencia Hotel brings back The Whaling Bar
Whew. Something has been made right in La Jolla. For the last decade, everybody I’ve spoken to has talked as if a little piece of this town’s soul had been ripped out. A piece that …
April 2, 2024
Pet pig perches in pocket
Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Escondido doula gets a taste of celebritySometimes, you get reminders that Escondido is still a country town in some ways. Like today, this gal comes into one of the coolest coffee hangouts here, …
March 14, 2024
Looking back at race relations in Coronado
Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Looking back at race relations in CoronadoWas Coronado San Diego’s most culturally diverse city, back in more racially divided days? The city’s historical society would like you to think so: it’s holding a …
March 13, 2024
Why parrots are so good for San Diego
Video:COVER: Why parrots, godwits, and bushtits are so good for San Diego“Get there by dusk,” says my friend Larry, “and prepare yourself for a whole lotta noise.”Photograph by Jim Brown, iStock / Getty ImagesSo here …
February 28, 2024
The two Mary Beths break out, buy a truck camper, and hit the road
Video:GOLDEN DREAMS: Two Mary Beths break out, buy a truck camper, and hit the road.What are the odds? Two women sitting next to each other. Strangers. They introduce themselves.“Hi. I’m Mary Beth.”“Well actually, I’m Mary …
January 17, 2024
San Diego's mural maestro, Hanna Daly
Hanna Daly is putting finishing touches on the larger-than-life dancing lady she has painted, freehand, on the alley-side wall of a dance studio in Coronado. It’s the kind of mural Daly can knock off on …
December 29, 2023
Tracing the vibrant history of cochineal
Tuna found in the desert? OK, fair enough: that’s tuna, as in the Spanish for prickly pear, the fruit of the nopal. Ken Factor and I have spotted an ancient cactus tree growing close to …
December 27, 2023
Rubber band boy Shay Horay makes his way into the Guinness Book of Records
Talking of boy wonders: Shay Horay is known as Rubber Band Boy, or the Master of Rubberbandology, or The One-Man Rubber Band. He was my last interview before returning from Aotearoa-New Zealand (as it is …
December 1, 2023
Mainly Mozart commissions Edric Saphire to write a work honoring Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Robert Schumann, Edric Saphire? The kid is 17, a high school senior, and the Mainly Mozart organization commissioned him to write a work honoring Mozart. Tonight, he’s here at the Conrad Prebys …
December 1, 2023
Gradual awakening with Guru Rattana
“My job is to bring this unity of consciousness through a woman who has practiced for over 50 years daily, and how I have experienced my gradual awakening.” The woman Guru Rattana (it means “jewel”) …
November 13, 2023
San Ysidro – forgotten corner of San Diego
San Ysidro – where it's cheaper for kids to live in a motelWe pass the Las Americas Outlet Mall, where upscale shoppers and Border Patrol agents coalesce. It’s here, across the street, that a completely …
November 13, 2023
On the road with the cue card person from Wheel of Fortune, Family Feud, and other game shows
It’s a sunny morning. Scot Walker and I are sipping coffee. He’s got one of those humor-ready faces that a pretty good life on the road gives you. He’s a roadie. And it’s been a …
November 8, 2023
Under the Coronado bridge is the largest group of outdoor murals in the U.S.
Original Artists Work to Restore Chicano Park MuralsArmando Nuñez is touching up a skeleton. He and I are standing amid blue scaffolding beside the wall of an I-5 ramp to the San Diego–Coronado Bridge on …
October 21, 2023
Cyrus Lakdawala lets us inside chess player's brain
Last year I was the youngest player in U.S. Championship"I played Nakamura. He was 18 years old at the time, at the 2005 U.S. Championship. His name is Hikaru Nakamura. And he's the top U.S. …
October 9, 2023
David Ross – knew San Diego homeless intimately
He loves the people no one wants"I'm used to voices downtown, of agony and pain and just dysfunction, and I had the window down a little so I could hear. I look and there's a …
October 2, 2023
Sad story of Andrew Cunanan and even sadder, his mom
The murderous saga of Andrew CunananWhen Vulgar Favors, Maureen Orth's book about the murderous saga of Andrew Cunanan, hit the best-seller lists last month, a national audience was offered a sinister portrait of San Diego, …
August 28, 2023
Fled my father in La Jolla
La Jolla 1962 Dressed in long trousers and boat shoes and a white Lacoste tennis shirt, I accompanied Toby across Vista del Mar and Neptune Place to the Pump House and down concrete steps to …
August 19, 2023
Peter Jensen, the bridge-lover
Bridges of San Diego County I drive the roads of San Diego County with an agenda: You don’t know when you might spot another canyon dancer, a concrete Nureyev. I hike gorges and find them …
August 12, 2023
Cats, small dogs, and toddlers don’t last long in Borrego
Ten Reasons Why You’d Have to Be Crazy to Live in Borrego Springs To paraphrase what Gertrude Stein once said of Oakland, there is no there there — no people (population: about 3000), no movie …
June 18, 2023
People drive past Linda Vista on their way to somewhere
Linda Vista in conflict with itself Linda Vista is San Diego’s cucuy room. People drive past it on the way to somewhere. Sometimes they go there for a specific place like Skate World but don’t …
May 22, 2023
Updating McKinley Elementary’s library with designer Heather Vitti Pruett
“McKinley Elementary’s library hadn’t been updated since 1970,” says interior designer Heather Vitti Pruett. “Fifty years!” Then, back in 2018, Pruett suddenly found herself in a position to do something about that, after she enrolled …
May 17, 2023
The Artificial Intelligence of the Generative Grounded Transformer: this time, it's personal
“It’s almost like an infant,” says Jonathan Bickoff. It’s a refreshingly simple take on one of the most tortured topics currently getting bandied about among La Jolla’s digi-pioneering crowd: AI. Artificial Intelligence: an evolution-leaping phenomenon …
May 17, 2023
Moko man in a Maori world
“I live in the Maori world,” says Te Mairiki Williams. He says this because I have asked him about his moko, the tattoo that covers his face. I asked because this is not a usual …
April 21, 2023
The Star of India’s connection to Lyttelton, New Zealand
It’s an odd feeling, meeting in a five-million-year-old crater halfway down the South Island of New Zealand, and then hearing a San Diego song blast in your ears. I’m in Lyttelton, a harbor in New …
April 19, 2023
Kiwi coffee talk
Popped down (up?) to my once-upon-a-time homeland, New Zealand, after a lo-ong time away. To, uh, marry the beautiful Diane. We have been talking about it on and off for years. Finally feel mature enough, …
March 10, 2023
Erica Saphire’s tiny world
Take two Titan Krios microscopes, a whole lot of viruses, and a sharp scientist, and you have full-on war against immune-disease. I’m still in the thrall of this local research tank which is looking into …
March 9, 2023
Descanso shelters Border Fire animals
Behind the Border Fire fire wall Behind the lines at the Border Fire, neighbors, volunteers, county animal-control crews, and Border Patrol agents are caring for the animals left behind during the fire's sudden spread. By …
March 6, 2023
La Jolla Institute for Immunology studies the affects of Alzheimer’s in women
Dr. Sonia Sharma makes no bones about it: when she’s studying immune diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, she concentrates on women, not men. She is also one of those vital, loquacious academics who actually likes …
February 3, 2023
Grand Decant soiree in Liberty Station hosts Napa, Sonoma, and San Diego wineries
“Watch your step,” says the girl. “Watch your…oh dear. You okay sir?” I brush off dust, drink, pride, and reply, “Yes of course.” And it’s true — except for the pride part. I’m with a …
January 5, 2023
The Mira Mesa library security guard’s tale
Gregg Fajardo noticed the Bowie knife on the man’s hip as the man sat there in the Mira Mesa library. Fajardo is telling me this in Clayton’s Coffee Shop in Coronado. We both came in …
December 7, 2022
Astronaut Bill Shepherd takes a piece of McP’s Irish Pub in to space
“I’m not super happy,” says the normally cheery astronaut Bill Shepherd. “It’s been 50 years, and we have not been back to the moon. We have three space shuttles that don’t fly any more, that …
October 26, 2022
Meet a giant pink poodle named after Stevie Nicks
“Are the DT’s finally setting in?” I mumble to my friend Carlos, “or did you see what I saw?” It’s this giant…pink…poodle, walking along the avenue. We’re frozen, mid-mug, unable to continue with our morning …
September 29, 2022
Handfasting: a unique, ancient, Celtic ceremony on the rise
“Handfasting,” says Donna Lynn, “is an ancient way to get married.” My novia Diane and I are interested. We are engaged. We want to know if we can get married this way. “It is going …
September 28, 2022