Two Views of San DiegoI used to consider San Diego roads relatively sane, compared to L.A. Now the freeway is full of lunatics. Everyone’s trying to go faster than the next guy. People used to …

Theodore Dreiser Unlike Hurstwood, Dreiser was able to save himself. In 1907, Sister Carrie was republished by B.W. Dodge and Company and received acclaim from reviewers and readers, establishing Dreiser as an important American novelist. …

V.S. Naipaul Naipaul, on one October after another, witnessed the Nobel’s crown placed on other heads, including that of another Trinidadian, the poet Derek Walcott, who won the prize in 1992. Paul Theroux writing in …

Wallace Stevens I remember why I bought The Collected Poems. Stevens’s “Anecdote of a Jar,” from his first collection, Harmonium, published in 1923, was in an anthology I owned. I read and reread “Anecdote of …

First Lines of Novels “I have been here before,” I said; I had been there before; first with Sebastian more than twenty years ago on a cloudless day in June, when the ditches were white …

Professor Horrdendo Discovers on Page 23 That I've Called an Orange a Tangerine “Then there were a couple of older gentlemen here in California, one an ophthalmologist in Santa Monica and the other a retired …

India Street and Beyond: A history of the Italian Community of San Diego, 1850-1980 Pietro Lusardi came to San Diego with his brother, Francesco. They ran sheep on Mt. Palomar, then built a 3000-acre sheep …

The Deadly View from Sunset Cliffs “We used to average about a hundred calls a year,” he says, “but in 1986 it was down to sixty-nine, and in 1987, there were only forty-three.” These figures …

Birth of the Beat Farmers “Somewhere along in there, Herrera became partners with Jim Pagni, who brought in a lot of concerts in those days, and the Palace changed its name to JJ’s. Glory ended …

Eucalyptus It Is The eucalyptus tree and its history are not so different from the human influx into the area. Everywhere from El Cajon and La Jolla to Scripps Ranch and South Bay, up to …

Arrested development: Teddy Kennedy, Hunter Thompson, Jim and Artie Mitchell Kennedy, according to Burke’s memoir, “roared with laughter.” He grabbed a handful of the poppers from the box and tossed them to Burke, saying, “Here …

Low to the ground Dachshunds and the people who love them. “One afternoon in the park I said it would be fun to run one of those free classified advertisements in the Reader and see …

Arms and the Men: Shooting for Happiness These were good men, overzealous to a fault, maybe, but not killers. Hell, Rudy is of Samoan descent. Wil is a liberal Communist activist actor. It was the …

There’s Only One Hitch At first I didn’t take him for a hitchhiker, even though he was standing at the on-ramp at Via de la Valle. He had a preoccupied look, as if being without …

Robert Faggen re Milosz In talking about American television, one would think that Milosz’scomplaints would be about television’s stupidity or insipidity. But what he said was, ‘The thing I don’t like most about television are …

Say Ahoy, Somebody Their inability to tack against the wind cost the novices three agonizing hours from the time they reached Mission Bay until they landed. Somewhere in the bay there was a slip Rusty …

What on Earth am I Settling For? I let the front yard go and worked on building a fence in back. I got so angry digging postholes in the rain one afternoon that I had …

Pioneer in Oceanside “In San Diego, the most important piece of architecture is, of course, the Mission San Luis Rey. But I feel strongly that this [the Oceanside museum] is the next most important piece.” …

None Darker Than Me “Another fact concerning the woman that occasioned surprise yesterday was the appearance at the undertaking parlors where her dead body lies of H. Milne, a colored blacksmith who lives on K …

When It’s Over When I was there in Vietnam, toward the end, I wanted only to get home again alive. I prayed to God and promised him that I would believe in him and tell …

ABCs of SD AIRPORT Drive the 5 from downtown and — boom! — just overhead, an aircraft with a bloated belly screams. Wheels down, tilting for landing, 50 yards between plane and road. Or how …

Christmas Letters The letters sent during her children's early years offered tales of Bud's rise through academia, each new pregnancy, larger home, additions to those homes, children's grade-school successes, vacations. When the boys began to …

Border Angels "We know the kind of people we catch here. They're horrible people." The Border Patrol agent's tone was no more than blandly informative. It was 7:00 p.m. July 16, and we were at …

Third Spud from the Sun: Cameron Crowe Then and Now “A couple things about Cameron set him down a peg from even the rank and file of ’zine greenhorn dust-suckers. He for all intents & …

Amy Lowell: Selected Poems "I've had amazing experiences since I started working on this, saying to people 'Amy Lowell,' and they say, 'Oh, I love Amy Lowell.' Or, 'When I was young, I always read …

Border Angels "We know the kind of people we catch here. They're horrible people." The Border Patrol agent's tone was no more than blandly informative. It was 7:00 p.m. July 16, and we were at …

Where to find an Easter Sunrise in San Diego County Whether or not you hold religious beliefs (Christian or otherwise), or you simply appreciate a fine, early-morning pilgrimage (Easter or otherwise), consider the following treks …

Tiny rooms in Little Italy On a Little Italy plot where a Victorian house stood for more than a century, construction of tiny apartments is underway. The house, built in the 1890s at the corner …

Was Jesse Ventura a SEAL or a UDT guy? Well, I thought, Jesse certainly looks and sounds like many SEALs I’d known during my 16 years in the Teams. But I’d never known or even …

Raised not to hope too hard Sherley Anne Williams was delighted when the New York Times listed her novel on its recommended reading list. The book had gone into a third printing, and her publisher …

Mafia in San Diego before World War II (first in series of six stories) “The raids, all made with search warrants, started soon after noon and were not completed until early evening. All of the …

In time for the morning glass For a few years back in the '60s, Mike Doyle was the hottest surfer in the world. With an unusual combination of power on big waves and stylistic grace …

Sister Santa’s once-a-year smile I fell in love with America for the first time on a sweaty night in a Bangkok refugee center in March 1991. “In America people have meat with every meal,” my …

The Hale blinks Twilight has ebbed to a fringe of lapis on the western horizon, and the stars spin slowly as the dome of the 200-inch Hale telescope on Palomar Mountain blinks awake. Bob Thicksten, …

Till death do us part For so long, she wanted so badly to talk about her relationship with Daniel Broderick. Betty Broderick wanted to tell the their divorce and the awful injustice she felt she …

Ku Klux Klan 's John Metzger talks of hate and tears "My father was in the Crusaders, a national organization that was pretty powerful in San Diego, which was part Christian Identity. It’s a church …

Explosion! The sighting of San Diego was a welcome event for the crew of the GSS Bennington on a sunny July 19,1905. The patrol gunboat had just completed a rough, seventeen-day journey from Hawaii, and …

Was James Gibson tortured by Mexican police? When two Mexican police officers and two FBI agents showed up at his beachfront Playas de Tijuana apartment on October 17, James Gibson had reason to suspect that …

The spirit of Steve Ponchetti It has forever been the custom of the Diegueño Indians to bury their dead twice: once at death, and then once again a year later. And so it was that …

From San Diego's 41st Street, Japan was a more odious enemy than Germany I may be the youngest San Diegan to remember the Second World War, especially the time immediately following the attack on Pearl …

The ideal hipster Thanksgiving As I’ve pointed out before, no holiday lacks the potential for a hipster makeover. Thanksgiving is no exception. Not only is it nestled comfortably between epic Halloween costumes and ugly-Christmas-sweater parties, …

Medical explanation of Christ's crucifixion and other Easter stories The severe scourging, with its intense pain and appreciable blood loss, most probably left Jesus in a preshock state. Moreover, hematidrosis had rendered his skin particularly …

Unafraid of Virginia Woolf On the morning we met, he lit my cigarette and his, a nonfilter Pall Mall (you could still smoke then, at the library's front desk), with a quivering hand from which …

A Loeb Classical Library Reader (Loeb Classical Library), edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Oxford University Press, 2006; 234 pages; $9.95 (paperback). FROM THE DUST JACKET: This selection of lapidary nuggets drawn from 33 of antiquity's major …

Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man by Jim Cummins and David Lehman; Illustrated by Archie Rand. Soft Skull Press, 2006; $14.95; 143 pages Jim Cummins and I were talking one afternoon about the sestina …

Sinners Welcome: Poems by Mary Karr. Harper/Collins, 2006; 93 pages; $22.95. FROM THE DUST JACKET: Mary Karr describes herself as a black-belt sinner, and this -- her fourth collection of poems -- traces her improbable …

Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve by Sandra M. Gilbert. W.W. Norton, 2006; $29.95; 580 pages FROM THE DUST JACKET: Prominent critic, poet, and memoirist Sandra M. Gilbert explores our relationship to …

American Movie Critics: From the Silents Until Now, edited by Phillip Lopate. Library of America, 2006; $40; 700 pages FROM THE DUST JACKET: American Movie Critics is an anthology of unparalleled scope that charts the …

A Primitive Heart: Stories by David Rabe. Grove Press, 2005; $24; 287 pages FROM THE DUST JACKET: David Rabe is one of the finest playwrights in America, possessed of a muscular voice, singular gift for …

My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood by Christine Rosen. PublicAffairs, 2005; $24; 231 pages FROM THE DUST JACKET: A touching, funny memoir of growing up in St. Petersburg, Florida, in a household, …