Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Alexander Theroux describes his remarkable father

Editor's picks of stories Theroux wrote for the Reader

Albert Eugene Theroux - moral, almost beyond words
Albert Eugene Theroux - moral, almost beyond words
  • Decent life led by ordinary man

  • He loved Lincoln, above all, and was word-perfect as to every facet of the assassins’ lives, especially Booth’s. Of special interest to him was the Battle of Bunker Hill, literary New England, and the Pilgrims. My father loved words. He had a rhetorician’s love especially of: Polonius’s Advice to Laertes, which my dad was too guileless to see was, at bottom, sententious and pettifogging. (Nov. 9, 1995)
A full-scale replica of the Pilgrim l lies at Old Dana Point, at the west end of the Plaza.
  • Richard Henry Dana in San Diego

  • He touched land at San Diego on Saturday, March 14, 1835. It was not only a strangely new place, California was a new word. In a decade, thanks to a gold strike, it would leap into prominence as a new El Dorado and infect the dreams of every restless, acquisitive American, many of whom, preferring death by water than by Indian arrows or covered wagons, sailed precariously around the Horn. (July 6, 1995)
  • Grammar of rock and roll

  • It was modish, especially in the latitudinarian ‘60s, to speak of the lyrics of rock as “poetry.” And to a degree a certain few lyrics — quixotic, inventive, careening or reflectively lyrical — came sufficiently close. We tend to listen to lyrics, ponder the words, heed and harken to their advice. “And rock is also educational,” said Frank Zappa. “How to ask a girl for a date, what love is like.” (July 20, 1995)
I received the alarming telephone call early one morning in Coronado, where I was living at the time and writing some articles for the San Diego Reader, that the New York Times was ready to release the story the very next day.
  • Hateful, hurtful, and Hellish

  • I was accused of plagiarism in an article in the New York Times on March 3, 1995. It was an ignominious moment in my life, to be sure, although the accusation, which was literally true but morally not — since intention was not involved — had a dirty provenance, to my mind, not only because it was a nonstory (it was given a “kicker” on the front page of that august paper!) but because I have had ongoing problems for several years with that newspaper, more specifically a particular person there, a former editor of the Times Book Review by the name of Rebecca Sinkler, more about whom anon. (June 1, 1995)
Ted Williams, 1941. "In 1939 my mother and father separated and there was more grief, so I just stayed away from San Diego."
  • Ted Williams' climb from San Diego to Boston

  • He lived and grew up at 4121 Utah Street. The North Park playground was a block and a half from his house — "It had lights and we could play until nine o'clock at night" — and would become a refuge in what it offered of play for a kid who had few alternatives for fun. There was no television, were no videogames, no malls, nothing to take his attention away from what would lead, not so much to an interest in sports, but to an almost monomaniacal fascination with baseball — and particularly hitting. (May 11, 1995)
15. Jackie Onassis; 16. Elvis Presley; 17. Ayn Rand; 18. the Joker (cesar Romero); 19. Charlie Chaplin; 20. Mia Farrow; 21. David Letterman; 22. Larry Bird; 23. Morton Downey, Jr.; 24. Errol Flynn; 25. Billy Joel; 26. John Denver; 27. Edward G. Robinson; 28. Carly Simon; 29 George Bush; 30. Maurice Chevalier
  • I would vote for Lauren Bacall as having the perfect mouth

  • Bogart’s was scarred, Stacy Reach’s harelipped, Harry Reasoner’s — even wider than Peter O’Toole’s — shaped like the slot of a letter box. Picasso had a loose mouth, the kind for some reason often described as sensual. Rasputin, the mad monk, had one the size of a sand trap, as does Morton Downey Jr. (Jan. 19, 1995)
Anza-Borrego at night. Your eyes constantly play tricks on you in the desert. Or is that the desert does it to your eyes?
  • Hell with the fire gone out

  • I picked up a hitchhiker, a quiet Mexican named Carlo, who, for a ride to Borrego, cheerfully agreed to show me pictographs four miles off County Road, where the road leads to a trailhead for a relatively easy one-mile trek through cat’s claw and silver cholla, agave and brittlebush, to a boulder of some size inscribed with faded figures in red and yellow hues by desert Indians, probably Kumeyaay. (Feb. 13, 1997)
  • Myself and my brothers, part of the Theroux family

  • Reading in our family was paramount. I have always been struck by the incongruous fact that young Jack Kennedy, because he was a sickly and often bedridden boy (his mother has always cited this as the main reason he grew up reading) turned to books as an alternative to sailing or football. One looks in vain for literary influences anywhere in this family. The Kennedys were doers, not makers, and unlike us, very unlike us, were never intellectuals. (Oct. 3, 1996)
Black's Beach
  • Last Eden

  • Trying openly to inquire about nudism, it began to dawn on me, was not going to be easy. Prurience, even priapism, or what is inevitably taken for such, if not an unprepossessing persona in the first place, is not in most cases an encouraging one. I realized to approach women down there would make me look suspicious, if not unwholesome. Gay men would think I was hitting on them. And single men of whatever sexual persuasion were not down there, I concluded, to give interviews. (June 13, 1996)
  • Every time I go out among men, I come back less a man

  • Although I had attended a public high school, starred on the basketball team, and adored girls, even “made out” with them — is this peculiar euphemism still used? — I had an early fascination with the clerical life, which is not such a big thing. So did Stalin, Marlon Brando, and Jerry Brown, to name a few oddballs like me. And when the Fr. Guestmaster suggested I try that life, when I began making retreats at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, I thought, why not? (Dec. 21, 1995)

Who it Alexander Theroux?

Sponsored
Sponsored

Theroux is an American novelist and poet and brother of novelist Paul Theroux and Peter Theroux, a translator of Arabic literary work.

Alexander Theroux's best-known novel is Darconville's Cat (1981). Among his non-fiction works are Primary Colors (1994), Secondary Colors (1996), The Grammar of Rock: Art and Artlessness in 20th Century Pop Lyrics (2013), and Einstein's Beets: An Examination of Food Phobias (2017)

Theroux, who considered his time in San Diego a "joyless" experience, wrote for the Reader from 1995 through 1997.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Todd Gloria gets cash from McDonald's franchise owners

Phil's BBQ owner for Larry Turner
Albert Eugene Theroux - moral, almost beyond words
Albert Eugene Theroux - moral, almost beyond words
  • Decent life led by ordinary man

  • He loved Lincoln, above all, and was word-perfect as to every facet of the assassins’ lives, especially Booth’s. Of special interest to him was the Battle of Bunker Hill, literary New England, and the Pilgrims. My father loved words. He had a rhetorician’s love especially of: Polonius’s Advice to Laertes, which my dad was too guileless to see was, at bottom, sententious and pettifogging. (Nov. 9, 1995)
A full-scale replica of the Pilgrim l lies at Old Dana Point, at the west end of the Plaza.
  • Richard Henry Dana in San Diego

  • He touched land at San Diego on Saturday, March 14, 1835. It was not only a strangely new place, California was a new word. In a decade, thanks to a gold strike, it would leap into prominence as a new El Dorado and infect the dreams of every restless, acquisitive American, many of whom, preferring death by water than by Indian arrows or covered wagons, sailed precariously around the Horn. (July 6, 1995)
  • Grammar of rock and roll

  • It was modish, especially in the latitudinarian ‘60s, to speak of the lyrics of rock as “poetry.” And to a degree a certain few lyrics — quixotic, inventive, careening or reflectively lyrical — came sufficiently close. We tend to listen to lyrics, ponder the words, heed and harken to their advice. “And rock is also educational,” said Frank Zappa. “How to ask a girl for a date, what love is like.” (July 20, 1995)
I received the alarming telephone call early one morning in Coronado, where I was living at the time and writing some articles for the San Diego Reader, that the New York Times was ready to release the story the very next day.
  • Hateful, hurtful, and Hellish

  • I was accused of plagiarism in an article in the New York Times on March 3, 1995. It was an ignominious moment in my life, to be sure, although the accusation, which was literally true but morally not — since intention was not involved — had a dirty provenance, to my mind, not only because it was a nonstory (it was given a “kicker” on the front page of that august paper!) but because I have had ongoing problems for several years with that newspaper, more specifically a particular person there, a former editor of the Times Book Review by the name of Rebecca Sinkler, more about whom anon. (June 1, 1995)
Ted Williams, 1941. "In 1939 my mother and father separated and there was more grief, so I just stayed away from San Diego."
  • Ted Williams' climb from San Diego to Boston

  • He lived and grew up at 4121 Utah Street. The North Park playground was a block and a half from his house — "It had lights and we could play until nine o'clock at night" — and would become a refuge in what it offered of play for a kid who had few alternatives for fun. There was no television, were no videogames, no malls, nothing to take his attention away from what would lead, not so much to an interest in sports, but to an almost monomaniacal fascination with baseball — and particularly hitting. (May 11, 1995)
15. Jackie Onassis; 16. Elvis Presley; 17. Ayn Rand; 18. the Joker (cesar Romero); 19. Charlie Chaplin; 20. Mia Farrow; 21. David Letterman; 22. Larry Bird; 23. Morton Downey, Jr.; 24. Errol Flynn; 25. Billy Joel; 26. John Denver; 27. Edward G. Robinson; 28. Carly Simon; 29 George Bush; 30. Maurice Chevalier
  • I would vote for Lauren Bacall as having the perfect mouth

  • Bogart’s was scarred, Stacy Reach’s harelipped, Harry Reasoner’s — even wider than Peter O’Toole’s — shaped like the slot of a letter box. Picasso had a loose mouth, the kind for some reason often described as sensual. Rasputin, the mad monk, had one the size of a sand trap, as does Morton Downey Jr. (Jan. 19, 1995)
Anza-Borrego at night. Your eyes constantly play tricks on you in the desert. Or is that the desert does it to your eyes?
  • Hell with the fire gone out

  • I picked up a hitchhiker, a quiet Mexican named Carlo, who, for a ride to Borrego, cheerfully agreed to show me pictographs four miles off County Road, where the road leads to a trailhead for a relatively easy one-mile trek through cat’s claw and silver cholla, agave and brittlebush, to a boulder of some size inscribed with faded figures in red and yellow hues by desert Indians, probably Kumeyaay. (Feb. 13, 1997)
  • Myself and my brothers, part of the Theroux family

  • Reading in our family was paramount. I have always been struck by the incongruous fact that young Jack Kennedy, because he was a sickly and often bedridden boy (his mother has always cited this as the main reason he grew up reading) turned to books as an alternative to sailing or football. One looks in vain for literary influences anywhere in this family. The Kennedys were doers, not makers, and unlike us, very unlike us, were never intellectuals. (Oct. 3, 1996)
Black's Beach
  • Last Eden

  • Trying openly to inquire about nudism, it began to dawn on me, was not going to be easy. Prurience, even priapism, or what is inevitably taken for such, if not an unprepossessing persona in the first place, is not in most cases an encouraging one. I realized to approach women down there would make me look suspicious, if not unwholesome. Gay men would think I was hitting on them. And single men of whatever sexual persuasion were not down there, I concluded, to give interviews. (June 13, 1996)
  • Every time I go out among men, I come back less a man

  • Although I had attended a public high school, starred on the basketball team, and adored girls, even “made out” with them — is this peculiar euphemism still used? — I had an early fascination with the clerical life, which is not such a big thing. So did Stalin, Marlon Brando, and Jerry Brown, to name a few oddballs like me. And when the Fr. Guestmaster suggested I try that life, when I began making retreats at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts, I thought, why not? (Dec. 21, 1995)

Who it Alexander Theroux?

Sponsored
Sponsored

Theroux is an American novelist and poet and brother of novelist Paul Theroux and Peter Theroux, a translator of Arabic literary work.

Alexander Theroux's best-known novel is Darconville's Cat (1981). Among his non-fiction works are Primary Colors (1994), Secondary Colors (1996), The Grammar of Rock: Art and Artlessness in 20th Century Pop Lyrics (2013), and Einstein's Beets: An Examination of Food Phobias (2017)

Theroux, who considered his time in San Diego a "joyless" experience, wrote for the Reader from 1995 through 1997.

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Filmora 14’s AI Tools Streamline Content Creation for Marketers

Next Article

Dia de los Muertos Celebration, Love Thy Neighbor(Hood): Food & Art Exploration

Events November 2-November 6, 2024
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader