1. Back in 2019, Reader writer Bill Manson profiled local plein-air watercolorist Tony Trowbridge — and was taken by some of the same things that struck me about the man when I met him this year: …

I’d passed by and admired the Sasan — the Miami-ish, deco-ish pink eight story mixed use building in Mission Hills — half a dozen times before I ever went inside.  I think the Sasan is …

This month’s cocktail recipe comes to you from the most stoked bartender I’ve yet spoken to for this little column. That would be Adam Sanchez, who has been “in the hospitality game for more than 20 …

IThe spirit of Aloha can prove elusive, particularly at around 7:26 in the morning, as you sprint through a series of crowded parking lots and equally crowded docks in Maui’s Ma'alaea Harbor. The Calypso was set …

This month’s drink recipe does not require access to a handheld smoke infuser, nor do you need anything exotic:  no falernum, orgeat or arak. In fact, not even alcohol.  I recently had a chance to revisit …

I asked organist Alison Luedecke how she first got into playing the Queen of Instruments. She recalls that her first childhood church had a pipe organ, which she liked the sound of, but she didn’t …

The  Denny’s on El Cajon Boulevard has an unfortunate location. Not because a car plowed through its window and into its dining room— that would be the Denny’s on University Avenue in City Heights. Not …

Whenever I go to one of the San Diego cities that has "Beach" in its name, that's when I feel I have truly arrived in San Diego. Here is the real thing: the San Diego …

“The art that speaks to me most,” says John Perkins, "is the art that seems most in tune with the fact that humans just have an art-making instinct. Whatever else we are doing, we will …

"Marriage. Marriage is what brings us together today. Marriage, that blessed arrangement, that dream within a dream…”  - The Impressive Clergyman in The Princess Bride David and Cheryl Ross met in 1964 at a San Diego …

Leila is Consortium Holdings’ newest project, the 22nd or so depending on how you count the local food and drink juggernaut’s various establishments within the Lafayette Hotel. It looks stupendous, having executed construction of a …

Robin’s Nest Rescue in Ramona is a family affair, says its president, Kimber Williams. “I could not do it alone, and I’m not alone, thank goodness,” says Williams, who grew up in Texas and has …

The first thing worth mentioning about Wolf in the Woods is its location, which used to belong to Espresso Mio and, well before that, to a branch of Siesel’s market. This compact restaurant and wine …

In 2007, absinthe returned to America’s bars and liquor stores. The “green fairy" was historically famed as the beverage of the Bohemian french demimonde, a favorite of Van Gogh and Baudelaire. Adding to its mystique, …

I’m sitting in a window seat at Lestat’s coffee shop on Adams Avenue in Normal Heights, waiting, as one does, to meet with a clowning duo who go by the moniker Fancy and the Loop. …

<inline type="photothumb" id="159166" href="" align="right" />Last month, I wrote about some of the humble pleasures of one of San Diego’s best dive bars. Let’s do something a little different this month. Allow me now to …

<inline type="photothumb" id="158997" href="" align="right" />Yes, San Diego has any number of places you can go for a fancy drink. But The Tower Bar, says owner Mick Rossler, is “not really a fancy cocktail place,” …

On a sweltering El Cajon evening this past summer, I found myself inside Testo Pepesto, the Main Street Italian restaurant. As I waited for the hostess, I inspected a wall next to the entrance that …

Among the body building cognoscenti, Frank Zane — the Mr. Universe of 1971, Mr. Olympia of ’77, ’78, and ’79, and resident of La Mesa since ’97 — is a legend with few peers. His …

Two years ago, my wife fulfilled a dream she’d had since she was old enough to drive: owning a Volkswagen camper van. She hunted for a good long while before eventually finding just what she …

Thanks for noticingLost Abbey finds a new wayAnderson’s apogeesAntique modernHeavenly hall undergroundMounting MadraParent-friendly playgroundThe van man canPeaceful, eaze-y feeling

When I first got in touch with Multiver3e at the end of May, the group was still a sound healing trio. Jamie Shadowlight, Lindsey Roach, and Leah Lipson had by that point been doing events …

While Jude Kodama and I are sitting and drinking kombuchas in the sun on his Mt. Helix back porch, he draws my attention to one of the photos in the brown leather album — the …

My introduction to the writer and artist Edward Gorey came on some cold, dark midwestern evening about 30 years ago, as I sat with my father and first beheld the animated opening sequence of PBS’ …

It’s 10 o’clock on a Thursday morning, and the members of the San Diego Prowlers Hot Rod Club — along with some fellow travelers — have taken over Steele 94. The place is a roadhouse …

Gina Tang has spent a lot of time thinking about what makes a good life, and trying to effect changes accordingly. Much of her career has involved working on projects that she believes in, whether …

The bus you see here being readied for a new paint job is Red Rover, or at least, it will be. That’s Gina Tang, Creative Director of Little Shepherds Nature Lab, applying some tape before …

It was December of 2021, and Harsimran Sandhu was beginning to feel troubled by a sense of urgency. A business major at SDSU with a minor in critical film studies, he was halfway through his …

National Geographic’s Beyond King Tut is the latest immersive experience to be held at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. The exhibit features some typical museum-style sections: displays of text providing historical background, a short film giving …

Jessica Johnson has been on many outings during which she has thought to herself, “We might die today.” Like the time she and some companions were six miles deep into the back country near the …

There was hardly a time in Milan Djokich’s life when he wasn’t building. He was only nine when he started carrying blocks on the construction sites worked by his father, who had himself learned masonry …

Like other sentimental San Diegans I was disappointed when I learned that the Red Fox Room was being booted from its home in the Lafayette Hotel — a space that it had occupied for half …

I. “Everyone around San Diego at that time has a memory of the shooting,” Nicholas Leigh Hunt tells me. Hunt, to whom I spoke remotely at his home in Buckinghamshire, grew up in San Diego …

From Oberlin to the ForestBack in the late 1960s, when Thanissaro Bhikkhu was a college student at Oberlin and was still called Geoffrey DeGraff, he signed up for an inter-term practicum taught by two visiting …

On Thursday September 8, members of the Jewish Motorcyclists Alliance arrived in San Diego from all over the country to take part in their annual Ride 2 Remember, a three-day event focused on Holocaust education …

Scott Emerson has always loved books. He seems to have come into the world that way, without the influence of parents or peers. And his love of collecting began fairly early as well. “What really …

Anyone who has been in downtown El Cajon has probably noticed the large El Cajon Typewriter Co. sign at 130 E. Main that, alas, no longer announces a real live typewriter shop. Though the internet …

When the stage production of The Lion King arrives in San Diego on August 24th, T. Shyvonne Stewart will be arriving along with it. For Stewart, a swing player in the production who also covers …

Warner Recabaren is telling me one of the Australian origin stories of the didgeridoo, as he remembers it. It begins with a group of guys sitting around a campfire. One of them throws a stick …

“I always have many irons in the fire,” Jarrod Ekengren tells me. “I’m not really a single track-minded person.” Some of those irons, in no particular order: Ekengren is a PhD. student in clinical psychology, …

It was about a decade ago, in the jungle city of Iquitos, Peru, that Caitlin Thompson first heard about Kambo, a traditional medicine used by some indigenous groups in the Amazon. Kambo is the poisonous …

“Trying to bring every animal here would be like trying to empty a river with a teaspoon,” says Jordan Russo, founder of Campo’s Farm Animal Refuge. Because of that, she says, their focus is on …

On the two date nights a month that we customarily keep, my wife and I typically go out to eat, drink, and talk. But recently, we decided to take a break from that routine and …

Anderson Lawfer, Artistic Director at Fever Originals USA — a clearly enthusiastic and warm character, and the man who oversaw the implementation of creator Cinereal's vision for the Acey Deucey Club — says that he …

As far as I am concerned, being inside of a submarine for any amount of time would be a form of mental torture. Underwater + enclosure = nightmare. Last Wednesday’s boarding of the Acey Deucey …

Recently, I had dinner at a small gathering in Mission Beach hosted by some new friends, Dimitri and Ali Kalemkeris, in a charming cottage that was built in the time of Ali’s grandparents. Soon after …

If you happened to be on the internet looking for the “oldest restaurant in San Diego,” or wanted to find some information about, say, “Lubach’s Restaurant”, defunct since 1990, those queries would have led you …

The Lamplighter in Mission Hills is, in its own estimation, “San Diego’s Favorite Dive & Karaoke Bar.” This may be true, and I’ve had a good time there myself, but for the purposes of this …

In 1988, my parents were on their way to become sworn American citizens in Hartford Connecticut when they were surprised by an unexpected throng. Long haired and tie-dye clad, they crowded around the Civic Center, …

I just got off the phone with John Edward, the self-described psychic medium who came to prominence around 20 years ago on the television programs Crossing Over and Cross Country, through his appearances with Larry …