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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

Jonathan Saville

Jonathan Saville wrote theater, classical music, and art reviews for the Reader from 1972 to 2003.

Saville was a professor in the literature and then the theater department at UCSD.

Articles by Jonathan Saville

Baja men re-enact Christ's passion at Old Town

Ritual on a Saturday afternoon (best thing I ever wrote!) When Jesus, tied to a tree in Old Town Plaza, was being mercilessly scourged by a centurion, the announcer cautioned us not to believe in …

October 16, 2022
San Diego – city of shame, University Avenue, roommates from hell, writers write about moms

Roommates from Hell I walked outside to the storage door. I pushed on the door and opened it. I saw the rope around John’s neck and John’s face looking at me. I screamed and ran …

December 5, 2021
Mira Mesa man captured first giant panda in 1936

I Need Time to Recuperate A snowstorm trapped the porter on the other side of a pass, and he couldn’t get back for three days. Quentin had matches and lit a fire. He had a …

August 2, 2021
Herbert Marcuse ends up in lotus land, Ishmael Reed visits Quincy Troupe at UCSD

Angel of the Apocalypse During that long, violent spring of 1968, leftist student leaders around the world began to quote Marcuse and claim his ideas as inspiration to their movements. By June worldwide media had …

July 26, 2021
20th Century music in San Diego, annoying audience members, passion play in Old Town

Neglected, rejected, and misunderstood When — I don’t speak only of San Diego — do we ever get a chance to hear live performances of Ernst Toch, Vittorio Rieti, Vaclav Nelhybel, Peter Mennin, Roger Sessions, …

January 16, 2021
La Jolla – a shoreline and a mountain

What Windansea surfers said about Tom Wolfe Eight summers have drifted by since Tom Wolfe (author of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) traveled to California to write a series on “The New Life Out There” …

Mayor O'Connor goes slumming in Balboa Park, Mayor Faulconer reads Dr. Seuss racist book

Caught between a hug and a hard place 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 …

April 25, 2020
Jonathan Saville and the Reader

How Saville came to work at the Reader: In 1972, I was an associate professor in the Literature Department at UCSD. I had an office on the Muir Campus, with my door usually left open …

February 23, 2019
Neighborhood: small towns of San Diego

I see Asian gang cars some nights, in a long caravan down the Mira Mesa Boulevard. They meet at In-N-Out Burger before heading off for illegal street races on Kearny Villa Road or in Sorrento Valley.

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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
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