It's not a good sign when you're watching a play and it reminds you of another play, or playwright, more adept at similar material. John Cariani's Almost, Maine recalls Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon, the TV show Northern Exposure, and the …

Spotted on Country Club Drive in La Jolla (that's the golf course in the background): http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/mar/29/21836/

Next week, Intrepid Shakespeare Company will stage an adaptation of Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw, hailed by many as one of the, if not the, greatest ghost stories of all time. Seemed so to me the first …

If you’re not familiar with San Diego’s B-boy (breakdancing) scene, you may not know that the reigning world champion B-boy lives here. Last November, Omar Delgado, aka Roxrite, went to Moscow, Russia to compete in Red Bull BC One, the …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/mar/28/21736/ Brian Lewis didn’t hire the entertainment while serving as venue manager for Humphrey’s bar and concert showcase on Shelter Island. However, he feels the experience he gained there prepared him for booking and marketing jobs at several pivotal San …

Tired of bipeding everywhere like a chump? Score this sweet steed at Eleven’s multiple sclerosis bingo benefit tonight. Cards are a buck each and drafts go for $3 all night. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/mar/26/21611/ Maximum style. “The rubber is great, the paint is …

“We feel that every artist not only dreams, but his/her reality is projected in a very unique manner where thoughts become physical energy,” says artist Brittany Dumas, who is curating the eclectic Dreamscapes art show (which may become a monthly …

In his recent, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010, Charles Murray argues that a new upper class - well-educated and affluent - has a "we're better than the rabble mentality." The group now resembles a gated community, and …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/mar/24/21520/ For decades, the battle has raged: Beatles or Stones? Through their heyday, fans accused London’s Rolling Stones of stealing ideas -- even entire albums – from their Liverpool counterparts. At the same time, the Beatles secretly envied the Stones’ …

“The gallery is like a timeline for San Diego’s hip-hop culture,” says DJ KidRiz, who will help host tonight’s closing ceremony of the Contents Under Pressure art show. The show has been up at the Jacobs Center for Community and …

Any cyclist in San Diego can tell you that, between our many mesas and valleys, this isn’t the best city for flatland riding routes. One of my favorite level-ground circuits is the San Diego Bay loop, which entails a ferry …

Every 69 seconds a woman dies of breast cancer. It kills more women in the U.S. than any other type of cancer besides lung cancer, and, statistically, 1 in 8 of the women you know will contract some form of …

Enrique Limon is always doing odd shit. I’ve been romping with the guy intermittently for a bit over a year now and have yet to meet somebody who is more consistently getting into outlandish situations, either by invention or by …

(One of my brother's many creative hats: he does freelance development for a TV production company in Minneapolis. He's proposing a non-fiction series that will follow a touring Broadway show around the country. He asked for my input). Michael: I …

It’s the last day of the citywide South by Southwest music extravaganza in Austin, Texas, but it feels like the big moments are already behind us as everyone mills around in the languorous refractory aftermath. I’m on the hep, boutique …

The robot that ripped itself to shreds back in the 80s? May have been a sign. Conspiracy theorists swear it became "self-aware" - like the machines in The Terminator - and began to experience doubt. Drove it plum cuckoo. And …

So where were we? After Thursday’s San Diego at Sahara showcase I headed downtown with the Scribe dudes for their set at Stack Burger. Here are a few more shots from the Sahara gig, which organizer Ryan Blue named something …

Let’s say it’s a Tuesday afternoon. Sunny and warm. And let’s say you’re in Balboa Park and have decided to take advantage of the day by dining al fresco at the Prado. The problem is that everyone else has decided …

South by Southwest has already proven itself to be the strange bacchanal that most of us have come to expect. Negotiating one’s way around the blissful mess is a whirlwind of fate, tentative scheduling, and a generous amount of whimsy. …

"What kind of fuzz-pedal would the Pope use to explain Medieval apologia? What synthesizer will bring Satori during Zazen? How can we understand desire and sin with nothing but a square-wave and a frequency modulation?" These are some of the …

Car Plays closed last Sunday at the La Jolla Playhouse. I saw five (of the 15) earlier and went back to check if my original fascination held true. I invited Linda Libby, a Craig Noel Award winner, to join me …

Well, here we go. The (ostensibly) 19-hour drive from Minnesota to Austin somehow lasted nearly twice that and the 13 riders on the tour bus belonging to Minneapolis-based blues-rockers 4onthefloor made the perfect capacity to ensure that nobody could stretch …

In 2007, painter Monique Lindsay (nee Jenkins) held her first solo art show at Claire de Lune. Today, her art is up on those walls for the third time. The special relationship Lindsay has with the North Park coffee shop …

To be and not to be. In Tom Stoppard's philosophical farce, "dead" is a relative term. The title says Hamlet's boyhood chums have passed away. But whenever the play begins anew, they come back alive, groggy with amnesia, and wonder …

Whenever my sister Shirley recommends a book, I read it at once. The first time, long ago, she handed me a white-covered paperback and said, "opening paragraph." I perused it and kept going. When I turned the page, she said, …

The Las Vegas Sun just reported that Motley Crue’s Vince Neil will open his first Vegas strip club, Vince Neil's Girls, Girls, Girls (named for a crude Crue tune), in two weeks. "It's something I always wanted to do," Neil …

The Tin Can Ale House in Bankers Hill recently completed a renovation including new sea foam green flooring, a shorted bar to make room by the stage, a kitchen, and a revamping of the venue’s namesake canned beer menu. “We …

In his excellent book about Vietnam, Dispatches (1977), Michael Herr weaves stark reality with brain-blasting absurdity. Since he was a journalist who didn't "have to be there," soldiers found him strange: "A GI would walk clear across a fire-base for …

News on the local theater front is a Dickensian best and worst of possibilities, since two fine productions must close. MORE LIFE: Guys and Dolls and Mixtape - Lamb's Players has extended the runs of its current shows: Guys and …

Scientific evidence indicates that black holes reside in the center of perhaps every galaxy, including our own! The IMAX Dome Theater of the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is currently showing a film entitled Black Holes: The Other Side of …