American street gold San Diegans,” declares Shirley Lindemann, owner/director of the Museum of American Treasures, “aren’t interested in culture. They don’t want to support the arts.” She indicates a butter-colored marble bust that tops a …
Thursday, May 31
A Spartan existence is a tiny cottage a block from the Imperial Beach pier doesn’t bother Dana Clark. Nor does the mattress on the floor that covers a third of his living space; he’s never …
Thursday, May 24
Harry Aberle died in the Pitts Special. He crashed after takeoff while Yvonne watched from in front of the hangar. "The only other witness said he was doing an aerobatic maneuver, but I know he wasn't.”
When Gill undertook the redesign of the plaza in 1908, the prospect before him was bleak. The plaza looked like a desert. The Cocos Plumosa palms were turning yellow due to soil devoid of nutrients.
Thursday, May 17
I stop Faulkner, ask what a maggot feels like when he holds it in his hand. "If it’s a blowfly maggot and it’s alive, it feels pretty sturdy. They’re resilient. They are soft. They’re not warm.”
As a teenager, I dismissed adults’ dismissal of the new with the thought that these grown-ups (who also hated Elvis and despised Jerry Lee) merely preferred elevator music for canvas, eye Muzak.
Humor is a funny thing. What is the appeal, exactly, of standing before a room full of strangers, risking humiliation for the sake of “evoking an expulsion of air from the lungs” of your audience, …
Friday, May 11
Pete tells Wayne about survival food, the bazooka. Wayne rubs his brow with an Amtrak napkin. Pete says that one night, in Detroit, when he’d smoked too much crack— ‘‘You guys know crack?” he asks and we nod obediently.
Thursday, May 10
Last Wednesday, May 2, was a day of reckoning foretold by many Tijuanans. They may not have been able to peg the exact date it would happen, but they knew it was coming: Antonio Vera …
MAY DAY! MAY DAY!! Now is the time for all socially-conscious guys ‘n’ gals to come to the aid of their balmy corner of the continent! The eyes of the world are upon us. As …
“This town’s not getting any smaller," Gordon sighs. “We’ve got too much urban sprawl.” Dorothy cuts in. “The main problem is too many foreigners coming here. We’re just too close to the border.”
Thursday, May 3
‘Spare change. Spare change,” says the beaten voice of a white, 40ish bum. The man’s oval face has the shaky, unfocused quality of a 1950s porno film. The last distinct lines left on an otherwise …
You are merely tolerated. They do not need you. You love them anyway.