There was a war on?

Once Leonard Bernstein smiled at little Henry on an airplane. And there he goes, conducting the entire concert from row M of the balcony.

Tom Voss

The Smell of the Crowd

Who goes to theater and classical music concerts, broken into types.

"Her pierced earlobes hold up elaborate, finely wrought mobile sculptures with the most cunning miniature Japanese temple bells in their midst."

By Jonathan Saville, Aug. 4, 1977 | Read the full article

Map showing proposed new location of San Diego. "I see nothing but blue skies going forward. Well, maybe brownish skies."

San Diego in talks to move to Los Angeles

Municipality could head north as early as 2016.

“It was so hot and so dry that we might as well have been in Arizona. As we enter this rebuilding stage and look back over what's happened, one thing becomes clear: this situation is no longer working. San Diego needs to plan for an eventual move to L.A."

By Walter Mencken, Jan. 2, 2015 | Read the full article

Beneath the headline “It’s as hot here as the desert,” is a large, full-color photo of tomboyishly-clad O’Connor and DaRosa parading past a half-naked, black homeless.

A Summer Night's Fever Dream

Mayor O'Connor's night as a homeless person in Balboa Park.

"See the shameless millionaires schlep bottles of Evian and tubes of heavy-gauge sunscreen through this, the City without Pity. See her sycophantic cohort DaRosa brazenly prostitute sacred journalistic values to record the mayor’s exquisite horror slavishly. See them: Sisters in Suffering. Chip and Dale chez the Disappointed."

By Abe Opincar, Sept. 15, 1988 | Read the full article

You could wear an “I Don’t Like Hugs” shirt or hat, but I bet people will see that as a dare.

Caught between a hug and a hard place

You could move, or get a shirt, or maybe just be a jerk.

If you move to somewhere on the East Coast, such as Boston, NYC, or Philadelphia, fewer people will try to hug you, mostly because they’re all too caught up in trying to get ahead.

By DJ Stevens, Jan. 14, 2015 | Read the full article

On the Town

The social scene in San Diego.

"Horton Plaza. A dizzy, busy weekday noon. The perfect place and time to sneak a peek at San Diego fashion fundamentals. Execu-femmes wearing sharply lined suits in this season’s hot parrot’s plumage tones make a beeline for Nordie’s their padded shoulders the perfect defensive tool with which to brush Mervyn’s-bound suburban matrons in polyester flower print blouses out of their path."

By Liz Lang, May 10, 1990 | Read the full article

The art lacks Seuss's later subtlety and wit, but the ambitious rhyming is already in play.

Seuss-SNAFUS!

Mayor accidentally reads wartime propaganda of famous children's author at birthday celebration.

“Someone must have found Trap that Jap!, which bore the ominous subtitle Oh, the Places You'll Go!, when the Mayor asked for Seuss's 1990 book by the same name … let's just say that mistakes were made and never speak of it again, okay?"

By Walter Mencken, March 7, 2015 | Read the full article