John Williams sells tickets
Comic Con helps symphony sell out concert of movie music
Garrett Harris 8 p.m., July 21
Cover Stories
It's 9:30 p.m., and the Gaslamp crackles with anticipation
"It seems like it's getting younger.”
It’s half past 9:00. The happy hour/dinner crowd is packing into their vehicles, creating precious new parking spaces for the new guard. Apart from a few locals blaring hip-hop from a boombox, the sidewalk of ...
How Navy culture may have caused the Fitzgerald disaster
Standing orders
It is a big ocean. Until you’ve been far into it, it’s really hard to appreciate how big it is. Bringing a ship back from Japan to Hawaii, I once went ten days without seeing ...
Grunioneers
I'm in a rush. It's Ocean Beach. The grunion are running.
It’s 11:40 p.m. on a Thursday night in Ocean Beach. I’m wolfing down a burrito from Roberto’s while padding across Dog Beach to the river. Salsa and greasy frijoles ooze between my fingers into the ...
Between Indifference and Hope — C Street: the manifestation of our vitality and gloom
The oracles of doom go unheeded
It’s decision day in the city-council chambers, Two Broke Girls vs. Billions. Call it a classic smackdown between local architectural preservationists who want to save any Spanish Colonial Revival building (and think someone should pay) ...
Fun things to do in San Diego
Choose the company of pigs, cats, or naked people, for example
Climb the California Tower in Balboa Park Balboa Park’s California Tower at the San Diego Museum of Man was closed to the public in 1935, but after extensive construction and safety renovations it reopened for ...
Trail angels: From Campo to Canada on foot
Bread Stick = Trail Food
“Each day on the trail was the only possible preparation for the one that followed.” — Cheryl Strayed, from her introduction to Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Bonkers for bonobos
The superfans devoted to the zoo's once forgotten apes
In late April of 1960, the San Diego Zoo’s curator of mammals, George Pournelle, traveled to one of the most inaccessible parts of the African rainforest on a collecting expedition. His goal was to acquire ...
Where karaoke is a dirty word and rap is “crap”
Sometimes "Piano Man" is all they want
Scott Skinner — the Godfather There’s an iron man caressing the ivories over on Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, and if you miss his act this weekend, don’t worry; he may still be playing there 40 years ...
Sometimes this looks like heaven
Homelessness is a choice — say what?
“Ranked in order, I honestly believe the most common causes of homelessness for this age group [18–24] are family, followed by mental health issues, and, third, drug or alcohol abuse,” explains Alexandra Cochran, 28, a ...
Tacos: A cross-border guide
Swaddled babes, fat pink curls, secrets under the corn
Taco means tiny taste of temptation. Satisfaction by a thousand different cuts of meat and veggies. Is it just me, this wacko taco love affair? I don’t think so. Every San Diegan has a secret ...
San Diego sidewalk cafe rules don't make sense
Set my drinkers free
Question: How come you can drink a glass of wine at some sidewalk cafés and not others? Scene One: You don’t even want to know when this is. But I was a student, in Wellington, ...
UCSD literature majors — why they exist
I read. And I know things.
As a sophomore at UC San Diego, I went home for the summer to get a cavity filled in at the dentist’s. I lay there, saliva ejector hanging out the side of my mouth like ...
Canyon of death
Two separate tragedies on the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation
Leonard Duguay’s 85th birthday came and went on July 5, 2016, without celebration. The Modjeska Canyon resident had disappeared and the search for him took a mysterious turn weeks later when his car was found ...
San Diego’s Top 12 Donors
Eye on our philanthropic giants
San Diego’s richest person is someone I’ve never heard of: Gwendolyn Sontheim Meyer. The Rancho Santa Fe resident owns a 7 percent stake in the family business, Cargill, a purveyor of grain and agricultural commodities ...
How much does it cost to settle a refugee in San Diego?
Costs, culture clashes, and the presidential threat.
On an airplane over the Atlantic Ocean, Talal Shaheen, his wife and three sons, who are Syrian refugees, looked forward to a new life in Florida. Shaheen says that American government officials had told him ...
