Here's something you might be interested in.
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
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
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
Novelist Lawrence Osborne wrote all about San Diego – part 1
Bingoland, bus ride from Mexico City to TJ, gourmet chefs diss San Diego, the meaning of Borrego desert, Mormon cathedral, Lucha Libre
Mille Fleurs' Martin Woesle: "There’s even a reluctance to wait 15 minutes for a dish."
Lawrence Osborne is a British novelist who wrote feature stories for the Reader from 1992 to 1994.
His novels include The Forgiven, The Ballad of a Small Player, Hunters in the Dark, Beautiful Animals, Ana Malina.
Only to Sleep, a Philip Marlowe novel, was an NPR Best Book of 2018 and was nominated for a 2019 Edgar Award.
His nonfiction includes Paris Dreambooks, American Normal, The Naked Tourist, The Accidental Connoisseur, Bangkok Days, Poisoned Embrace, The Wet and the Dry.
Editor's picks of stories Osborne wrote for the Reader:
Suddenly it occurs to him he is not just on a small road in the middle of nowhere on the edge of Dehesa.An alien's adventures in bingoland
- Next to him, an immense pile of blue satin holds a hardened female gambler with bulbous veins on the backs of her hands and a face terrifying in its bingoed cynicism. To judge by the bitter peony mouth with its radial cracks on either side and the haunted, mascaraed eyes — which have in them the kind of worldliness one sometimes discovers in the eyes of certain dominant pigeons — bingo can certainly harden the soul. (Feb. 6, 1992)
Highway 57 is one of the few modern roads in the Republic and takes the Expresso through rich farmland to the outskirts of Queretaro.Mexico City to Tijuana on Autobuses del Norte
- The mechanic with the gold tassel jumps up and begins shouting at the driver and at the three helpers squatting in the cabin. He draws his finger playfully across his throat. The bus is, in any case, grinding to a halt of its own accord. It has stopped in the middle of a small plain littered with concrete drums, shreds of plastic trash, and a million warbling cicadas. (April 2, 1992)
Rene Herbeck: "I now do a buffalo with cranberries. We do have complaints. It’s like serving up Bambi."
Most San Diegans won't eat snooty food
The foreign gastronome is always hearing dark remarks about the French “lurking behind their sauces.”. (May 28, 1992)
The dealer then had his pupils examined and his pulse taken. A hundred fifty heartbeats a minute and no pupils. High on methamphetamines.
Why National City is called Nasty City
The hinterland just behind the base is packed with small businesses. And compared to the gang-infested wastelands of Los Angeles. the homicide rate is relatively low: only one a month. (August 6, 1992).
King Chiropractic Clinic. "We are open at night because people cannot sleep."
Those who stay up past midnight
They have come to watch a sunset, to immerse themselves in the melodrama of oncoming night or else to fondle some Juliet who will accept a postprandial Romeo. And they can do all this only first lawless moments of night. (August 11, 1992)
Anza-Borrego Desert. The Spanish hated the desert. For them it was a vision of Hell.
Faith and love in the Anza-Borrego Desert
In the days of the British Empire it was said that if you penetrated any desert on earth, you would eventually find some lone pink Britisher sitting in a tent playing Patience and listening to the wind. (August 20, 1992)
The Southern California male does find his center of gravity — where he is comfortable and swaggering.
What men get away with wearing in San Diego
The windows announce at once the quiet, refined La Jolla image that the boutique aims to preserve. Bottles of Royall Bayrhum all-purpose lotion sit with Panama hats. L.B. Evans slippers, bottles of malt. (August 27, 1992)
"This armor is made to last, unlike the armor of the Middle Ages, which was made to survive one battle."
We live in a pre-industrial world and prefer it thereWalk through Balboa Park on a weekend afternoon and there is a chance you will come upon a sight you might think had passed with the War of the Roses or the Field of the Gold Pavilion: warrior knights in perfectly crafted, meticulously authentic armor, chain mail, and Crusader helmets, fighting . (October 8, 1992).
Roy Bohmfolk: "A .38 is much, much better than those small toys, .22s and so forth."
San Diegans who cling to their guns
"Thirty years ago there was very little crime here — I can tell you, California was a fabulous place to live, and people carried guns more than they do now." (October 29, 1992
The kids are in an uproar. “Miedo! Miedo!” they are screaming.
Origins and reality of Luxha Libre
Already from the street — that sloping section of Ninos Heroes cluttered with tape stalls, shawled beggarwomen, and mini-skirted whores gobbling palm-sized tacos — the frenzy in the hall is audible. (December 3, 1992)
Already from the street — that sloping section of Ninos Heroes cluttered with tape stalls, shawled beggarwomen, and mini-skirted whores gobbling palm-sized tacos — the frenzy in the hall is audible. (December 3, 1992)
Surreal Mormon architecture comes to La Jolla
- Because of spiraling costs, the tiered fountain that was to have poured water into a reflecting pond south of the temple has been scrapped. And the “marble” towers turn out, on closer inspection, to be sheathed in a marble-like acrylic material called EIFS. Nevertheless, says Clyde Romney, “We have tried to create something as near perfect as possible.” (Nov. 25, 1992)
The Noa-Noa is easily the most crowded of Tijuana’s redlight bars.
The medieval pleasures of Tijuana's Zona Norte
Sitting at tables with cocktails while watching half-dressed boys and girls mime to Liza Minelli songs as they wade through a miasma of dried ice is a concept of entertainment that has died out elsewhere. (March 26, 1992)
Here's something you might be interested in.
Novelist Lawrence Osborne wrote all about San Diego – part 1
Bingoland, bus ride from Mexico City to TJ, gourmet chefs diss San Diego, the meaning of Borrego desert, Mormon cathedral, Lucha Libre
Novelist Lawrence Osborne wrote all about San Diego – part 1
Bingoland, bus ride from Mexico City to TJ, gourmet chefs diss San Diego, the meaning of Borrego desert, Mormon cathedral, Lucha Libre
Mille Fleurs' Martin Woesle: "There’s even a reluctance to wait 15 minutes for a dish."
Lawrence Osborne is a British novelist who wrote feature stories for the Reader from 1992 to 1994.
His novels include The Forgiven, The Ballad of a Small Player, Hunters in the Dark, Beautiful Animals, Ana Malina.
Only to Sleep, a Philip Marlowe novel, was an NPR Best Book of 2018 and was nominated for a 2019 Edgar Award.
His nonfiction includes Paris Dreambooks, American Normal, The Naked Tourist, The Accidental Connoisseur, Bangkok Days, Poisoned Embrace, The Wet and the Dry.
Editor's picks of stories Osborne wrote for the Reader:
- Suddenly it occurs to him he is not just on a small road in the middle of nowhere on the edge of Dehesa.
An alien's adventures in bingoland
- Next to him, an immense pile of blue satin holds a hardened female gambler with bulbous veins on the backs of her hands and a face terrifying in its bingoed cynicism. To judge by the bitter peony mouth with its radial cracks on either side and the haunted, mascaraed eyes — which have in them the kind of worldliness one sometimes discovers in the eyes of certain dominant pigeons — bingo can certainly harden the soul. (Feb. 6, 1992)
- Highway 57 is one of the few modern roads in the Republic and takes the Expresso through rich farmland to the outskirts of Queretaro.
Mexico City to Tijuana on Autobuses del Norte
- The mechanic with the gold tassel jumps up and begins shouting at the driver and at the three helpers squatting in the cabin. He draws his finger playfully across his throat. The bus is, in any case, grinding to a halt of its own accord. It has stopped in the middle of a small plain littered with concrete drums, shreds of plastic trash, and a million warbling cicadas. (April 2, 1992)
- Rene Herbeck: "I now do a buffalo with cranberries. We do have complaints. It’s like serving up Bambi."
Most San Diegans won't eat snooty food
The foreign gastronome is always hearing dark remarks about the French “lurking behind their sauces.”. (May 28, 1992)
The dealer then had his pupils examined and his pulse taken. A hundred fifty heartbeats a minute and no pupils. High on methamphetamines.
Why National City is called Nasty City
The hinterland just behind the base is packed with small businesses. And compared to the gang-infested wastelands of Los Angeles. the homicide rate is relatively low: only one a month. (August 6, 1992).
- King Chiropractic Clinic. "We are open at night because people cannot sleep."
Those who stay up past midnight
They have come to watch a sunset, to immerse themselves in the melodrama of oncoming night or else to fondle some Juliet who will accept a postprandial Romeo. And they can do all this only first lawless moments of night. (August 11, 1992)
Anza-Borrego Desert. The Spanish hated the desert. For them it was a vision of Hell.
Faith and love in the Anza-Borrego Desert
In the days of the British Empire it was said that if you penetrated any desert on earth, you would eventually find some lone pink Britisher sitting in a tent playing Patience and listening to the wind. (August 20, 1992)
The Southern California male does find his center of gravity — where he is comfortable and swaggering.
What men get away with wearing in San Diego
The windows announce at once the quiet, refined La Jolla image that the boutique aims to preserve. Bottles of Royall Bayrhum all-purpose lotion sit with Panama hats. L.B. Evans slippers, bottles of malt. (August 27, 1992)
"This armor is made to last, unlike the armor of the Middle Ages, which was made to survive one battle."
We live in a pre-industrial world and prefer it thereWalk through Balboa Park on a weekend afternoon and there is a chance you will come upon a sight you might think had passed with the War of the Roses or the Field of the Gold Pavilion: warrior knights in perfectly crafted, meticulously authentic armor, chain mail, and Crusader helmets, fighting . (October 8, 1992).
Roy Bohmfolk: "A .38 is much, much better than those small toys, .22s and so forth."
San Diegans who cling to their guns
"Thirty years ago there was very little crime here — I can tell you, California was a fabulous place to live, and people carried guns more than they do now." (October 29, 1992
The kids are in an uproar. “Miedo! Miedo!” they are screaming.
Origins and reality of Luxha Libre
Already from the street — that sloping section of Ninos Heroes cluttered with tape stalls, shawled beggarwomen, and mini-skirted whores gobbling palm-sized tacos — the frenzy in the hall is audible. (December 3, 1992)
Already from the street — that sloping section of Ninos Heroes cluttered with tape stalls, shawled beggarwomen, and mini-skirted whores gobbling palm-sized tacos — the frenzy in the hall is audible. (December 3, 1992)
Surreal Mormon architecture comes to La Jolla
- Because of spiraling costs, the tiered fountain that was to have poured water into a reflecting pond south of the temple has been scrapped. And the “marble” towers turn out, on closer inspection, to be sheathed in a marble-like acrylic material called EIFS. Nevertheless, says Clyde Romney, “We have tried to create something as near perfect as possible.” (Nov. 25, 1992)
The Noa-Noa is easily the most crowded of Tijuana’s redlight bars.
The medieval pleasures of Tijuana's Zona Norte
Sitting at tables with cocktails while watching half-dressed boys and girls mime to Liza Minelli songs as they wade through a miasma of dried ice is a concept of entertainment that has died out elsewhere. (March 26, 1992)