San Diego is one of the only basketball meccas where beach sand tracked onto the court is part of the game. At South Mission or Crown Point or in North County at Pillbox or Glen Park up in Cardiff.

Crazy-quilt patches of somber and giddy sound formed the literal fabric of my tender world. I grew up in homes where the verbal jam session was a floating and usually festive fixture. Clusters of people …

On day 193 of the major-league baseball strike, we were five rows behind the Padres dugout in the seats my friend Anna had struggled to reserve. Anna lives in Scottsdale. One Saturday, she set out …

Hey, Matt... Suppose for a moment Earth’s core isn’t composed of molten lava. Now suppose that a tunnel was bored straight through, beginning here in San Diego, and out the other side of the planet. …

Dear Matt: Where do we get the expression to give someone the raspberries? Or why is that razzing sound called raspberries? — Not My Real Name, San Diego Best I can piece this together, we …

Grunge replaced Goth as the year’s passing fashion fad, and soon she was wearing ripped jeans and flannel shirts to school, apparently no more acceptable to the peer groupies than black velvet and wan looks.

When I taught creative writing at UCSD, I was impressed by the adventurous sculpture sited around campus — The Stuart Collection. Since campuses are gardens, these sculptures are garden sculptures, animating and conferring scale on …