On a sweltering El Cajon evening this past summer, I found myself inside Testo Pepesto, the Main Street Italian restaurant. As I waited for the hostess, I inspected a wall next to the entrance that …

Among the body building cognoscenti, Frank Zane — the Mr. Universe of 1971, Mr. Olympia of ’77, ’78, and ’79, and resident of La Mesa since ’97 — is a legend with few peers. His …

Two years ago, my wife fulfilled a dream she’d had since she was old enough to drive: owning a Volkswagen camper van. She hunted for a good long while before eventually finding just what she …

Thanks for noticingLost Abbey finds a new wayAnderson’s apogeesAntique modernHeavenly hall undergroundMounting MadraParent-friendly playgroundThe van man canPeaceful, eaze-y feeling

When I first got in touch with Multiver3e at the end of May, the group was still a sound healing trio. Jamie Shadowlight, Lindsey Roach, and Leah Lipson had by that point been doing events …

While Jude Kodama and I are sitting and drinking kombuchas in the sun on his Mt. Helix back porch, he draws my attention to one of the photos in the brown leather album — the …

My introduction to the writer and artist Edward Gorey came on some cold, dark midwestern evening about 30 years ago, as I sat with my father and first beheld the animated opening sequence of PBS’ …

It’s 10 o’clock on a Thursday morning, and the members of the San Diego Prowlers Hot Rod Club — along with some fellow travelers — have taken over Steele 94. The place is a roadhouse …

Gina Tang has spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a good life, and trying to effect changes accordingly. Much of her career has involved working on projects that she believes in, whether …

The bus you see here being readied for a new paint job is Red Rover, or at least, it will be. That’s Gina Tang, Creative Director of Little Shepherds Nature Lab, applying some tape before …

It was December of 2021, and Harsimran Sandhu was beginning to feel troubled by a sense of urgency. A business major at SDSU with a minor in critical film studies, he was halfway through his …

National Geographic’s Beyond King Tut is the latest immersive experience to be held at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. The exhibit features some typical museum-style sections: displays of text providing historical background, a short film giving …

Jessica Johnson has been on many outings during which she has thought to herself, “We might die today.” Like the time she and some companions were six miles deep into the back country near the …

There was hardly a time in Milan Djokich’s life when he wasn’t building. He was only nine when he started carrying blocks on the construction sites worked by his father, who had himself learned masonry …

Like other sentimental San Diegans I was disappointed when I learned that the Red Fox Room was being booted from its home in the Lafayette Hotel — a space that it had occupied for half …

I. “Everyone around San Diego at that time has a memory of the shooting,” Nicholas Leigh Hunt tells me. Hunt, to whom I spoke remotely at his home in Buckinghamshire, grew up in San Diego …

From Oberlin to the Forest Back in the late 1960s, when Thanissaro Bhikkhu was a college student at Oberlin and was still called Geoffrey DeGraff, he signed up for an inter-term practicum taught by two …

On Thursday September 8, members of the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance arrived in San Diego from all over the country to take part in their annual Ride 2 Remember, a three-day event focused on Holocaust education …

Scott Emerson has always loved books. He seems to have come into the world that way, without the influence of parents or peers. And his love of collecting began fairly early as well. “What really …

Anyone who has been in downtown El Cajon has probably noticed the large El Cajon Typewriter Co. sign at 130 E. Main that, alas, no longer announces a real live typewriter shop. Though the internet …

When the stage production of The Lion King arrives in San Diego on August 24th, T. Shyvonne Stewart will be arriving along with it. For Stewart, a swing player in the production who also covers …

Warner Recabaren is telling me one of the Australian origin stories of the didgeridoo, as he remembers it. It begins with a group of guys sitting around a campfire. One of them throws a stick …

“I always have many irons in the fire,” Jarrod Ekengren tells me. “I’m not really a single track-minded person.” Some of those irons, in no particular order: Ekengren is a PhD. student in clinical psychology, …

It was about a decade ago, in the jungle city of Iquitos, Peru, that Caitlin Thompson first heard about Kambo, a traditional medicine used by some indigenous groups in the Amazon. Kambo is the poisonous …

“Trying to bring every animal here would be like trying to empty a river with a teaspoon,” says Jordan Russo, founder of Campo’s Farm Animal Refuge. Because of that, she says, their focus is on …

On the two date nights a month that we customarily keep, my wife and I typically go out to eat, drink, and talk. But recently, we decided to take a break from that routine and …

Anderson Lawfer, Artistic Director at Fever Originals USA — a clearly enthusiastic and warm character, and the man who oversaw the implementation of creator Cinereal's vision for the Acey Deucey Club — says that he …

As far as I am concerned, being inside of a submarine for any amount of time would be a form of mental torture. Underwater + enclosure = nightmare. Last Wednesday’s boarding of the Acey Deucey …

Recently, I had dinner at a small gathering in Mission Beach hosted by some new friends, Dimitri and Ali Kalemkeris, in a charming cottage that was built in the time of Ali’s grandparents. Soon after …

If you happened to be on the internet looking for the “oldest restaurant in San Diego,” or wanted to find some information about, say, “Lubach’s Restaurant”, defunct since 1990, those queries would have led you …

The Lamplighter in Mission Hills is, in its own estimation, “San Diego’s Favorite Dive & Karaoke Bar.” This may be true, and I’ve had a good time there myself, but for the purposes of this …

In 1988, my parents were on their way to become sworn American citizens in Hartford Connecticut when they were surprised by an unexpected throng. Long haired and tie-dye clad, they crowded around the Civic Center, …

I just got off the phone with John Edward, the self-described psychic medium who came to prominence around 20 years ago on the television programs Crossing Over and Cross Country, through his appearances with Larry …

I could have interviewed Dr. Arsalan Azam about lots of different things. I could have asked for stories from his nearly 10 years of working in emergency medicine: delivering babies, assessing the schizophrenic and the …

The mushroom: a symbol of ecological renewal, of alternative medicine, of psychedelic exploration. I see them everywhere these days: on clothing and murals and stickers, in cultivation kits that I can buy at my kids’ …

In the middle of February, the Reader got word regarding an upcoming rally at Teralta Park in City Heights. Kwame from the San Diego branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) wanted to …

It is nine in the morning on a Wednesday, and within the confines of Balboa Park’s Japanese Friendship Garden, a few bonsai enthusiasts are moving quietly among the birds and the dew, tending to their …

When I worked in North County some years ago, I would regularly drive by Cap’n Keno’s on the 101 and admire it, in the same way I would admire Leucadia’s Log Cabin Apartments or the …

Immersive art exhibits have grown in popularity recently, with installments like the recently closed Sistine Chapel Exhibition in Mission Valley now featured all over the world. Here in town, we still have Beyond Van Gogh, …

Ae Southammavong says she always liked cooking. As a little kid in Laos, she learned things in the kitchen at home, and by the time she was about 10, she was helping her parents prepare …

As a rule, I drive slowly whenever I’m not on the freeway, slowly enough that it bothers even my patient wife a bit, But I need to drive slowly enough to allow for my persistent …

Even if you knew nothing at all about artist Bosko Hrnjak, you could glean a pretty good sense of who the man is and what he cares about just by taking a look around his …

Carlsbad’s PHES Gallery is an attractive and compact building that sits on a quiet stretch of State St. close to the heart of the Village. While it is a new institution — having opened in …

I am driving slowly down Imperial Avenue, looking for parking. My van’s windows are down, and I can hear the buzz of morning activity. Some barbers are opening their shop, joking about something. Across the …

Briar boss The dwindling remnants of San Diego’s coastal glow are fading into a mild Autumn dusk as I arrive for my meeting with master pipemaker Jeff Gracik. I find him in the spot where …

Best Friend to Joshua Trees Is there anything to be done about the plight of the Joshua tree? While state and federal agencies dither over whether the imperiled desert dweller deserves endangered species protections, one …

The situation of so many structures in Southern California feels haphazard: buildings plunked down here or there by whim or whimsy. But the Integratron really belongs in its place: an auspicious spot in the Mojave …

I’ve wanted to interview local health practitioner Ryan Smith (www.santesmith.com) ever since an observer at one of his presentations told me, with admiration rather than scorn, “He is like a mad scientist.” Smith himself has …