The San Diego Union-Tribune, Arts + Culture, 9/12/2021

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Fall Arts Preview SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

After more than a year of silence, San Diego’s artists are ready to make some noise.

From authors and performers to musicians and visual artists, they’re ready for ...

NEW BEGINNINGS

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Experience Broadway’s Best Under the Stars with the final show of our summer season!

Tickets on sale now! moonlightstage.com

B O O K S San Diegan Ben Johnson completes his Webworld trilogy. E24

FEATURING 1-2-3, Conga, Rhythm Is Gonna Get You, Dr. Beat, Anything for You, Get On Your Feet, Mi Tierra, Don’t Wanna Lose You, Everlasting Love, Turn the Beat Around and More!

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ARI HONARVAR University Heights author channels her past and Persian poetry in new novel ‘A Girl Named Rumi’

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BY SETH COMBS

ri Honarvar owes her life to a poem.

This is not an exaggeration. In the late 1980s, just a few years after the Iranian Revolution and at the closing salvos of the Iran-Iraq war, Honarvar’s mother wrote a poem to the Indian Embassy in hopes of securing a visa to get out of Iran. The Indian ambassador apparently liked the poem so much that he gave a then-teenage Ari and her family visas to come to India from Shiraz, Iran.

Once in India, Honarvar says she “miraculously” received a visa to come to the United States even as her family was about to head back to Iran. She was 14 years old when she arrived in the U.S.

“It’s rare to find people who can say that their lives were literally saved by a poem, but mine probably was,” Honarvar says from her home in University Heights. “It doesn’t surprise me that my mother still believed in the power of poetry and was confident that it was going to save us.”

Considering how the importance of poetry and writing was imprinted on Ari Honarver at such a young age, it’s not surprising to learn that she became a writer herself.

From its initial inception as a screenplay to its publication, Honarvar’s debut novel, “A Girl Named Rumi” (out Sept. 21 on Forest Avenue Press), took 15 years to complete.

Weaving back and forth through time and told from the perspective of various characters, the novel mainly centers on the story of Kimia as she grows up in post-revolutionary Iran and, later, working as a spiritual adviser in 2009 San Diego.

After having something of an existential awakening while going through some of her mother’s old things, Kimia reluctantly returns to Iran, where she must reckon with her past in the midst of the country’s own Green Revolution. Interspersed are chapters told from the perspective of others, including Kimia’s brother Arman, her mother Roy,a and even a hard-line Iranian commander.

And while the plot of “A Girl Named Rumi” is strong enough to where Honarvar could have written a straight-ahead novel, she chose to incorporate fantastical and even magical elements into the story. Posing as a boy named Rumi so she can still play with her male best friend, Kimia visits Baba Morshed, a local mystic who introduces her to “The Conference of the Birds,” a 12th century epic poem by Farid ud-Din Attarthat works as a metaphor for humanity’s, and later Kimia’s, inability to attain

enlightenment.

“Perhaps the more relevant question is, who are you?” Baba Morshed asks Kimia.

“I still wasn’t used to the odd feeling of leaving with more questions than I had arrived with,” Kimia thinks after Baba Morshed poses this question to her.

“But what competed for my attention was the new sensation that had stirred inside my belly. Like all children of war, I was well-versed in anxiety; I knew by heart all its subtle tweaks and jabs. But this was brand-new.”

In many ways, the novel serves as a love letter and tribute to the myths and art of Persian culture, with a young Kimia dutifully absorbing the stories as a means of coping with the war and, as an adult, using the stories to come to a better understanding of her existence.

“The timelessness and the relevance of wisdom that shines through Persian poetry and myths, that’s what I really wanted

to highlight,” Honarvar says. “That’s kind of what has stayed in Iran, but has also been somewhat of savior for me here, too.”

The more one learns about Honarvar and her own life, the more parallels there seem to be between her and Kimia. For example, she recalls writing “anti-regime rhetorics on the walls” when she was a teenager, a protest that is also performed by Kimia in the book. In one part of the book, Kimia’s brother secretly buys a horse and hides it in the family’s basement, something Honarvar’s own brother did when they were young.

Most pressingly, there’s a picture of a young Honarvar in the back of the book, her hair cut short, with the caption “The author at age nine, trying to blend in as a boy in Iran, 1982.”

Still, Honarvar maintains that most of what makes up “A Girl Named Rumi” is fictional.

“Some of it is based on my own experiences, but most is an amalgam of

“A Girl Named Rumi”

by Ari Honarvar (Forest Avenue Press, 2021; 350 pages)

Mysterious Galaxy presents Ari Honarvar When: 7 p.m. Sept. 22 Where: Mysterious Galaxy, 3555 Rosecrans St. No. 107, Midway District.

In-person event. Masks required.

Tickets: Free Online: mystgalaxy.com

experiences that friends and family shared, as well as things I’ve just imagined,” says Honarvar, who will host a book release event at Mysterious Galaxy bookstore on Sept.

22 at 7 p.m.

And yet it’s hard not to look at the novel as something Honarvar was destined to write. From her own experiences in a repressive, war-torn country to her own American journey, “A Girl Named Rumi” serves not only as a fantastical tale of finding hope among the ruins, but as a tribute to the places we have to leave behind in order to find ourselves.

“Joy is such a sustainable fuel, its sustainable energy that we tap into to help us with the challenges,” says Honarvar, who often hosts arts workshops for refugees at the U.S.-Mexico border. “Seeing how people build their own resilience in difficult situations has been a tremendous inspiration.”

Combs is a freelance writer.

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BY SETH COMBS

As the holidays approach, book publishers know the fall season is the prime time to release new books. With that, there are plenty of big names, and a few local names, who will be sharing their stories this season. (Subject to change due to COVID-19. Please check websites for updates.)

Author Kristin Hannah

Nancy Goldstone

The Del Mar-based writer will talk about her latest release, “In the Shadow of the Empress: The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie Antoinette, and Her Daughters,” a nonfiction family saga of the 18th century sovereign of Austria and her famous daughters. 5:30 p.m. Sept.

21. Virtual event from Warwick’s, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. Free.

(858) 454-0347, warwicks.com

Richard Powers

about her five-year journey journey with metastatic breast cancer.

6:30 p.m. Oct. 11. Virtual event from Friends of the Point Loma/Hervey Library, 3701 Voltaire St., Point Loma. Free.

(619) 531-1539, sandiego. librarymarket.com

Powers became a household name after “The Overstory” won the Pulitzer Prize in 2019.

His latest, “Bewilderment,” has already been longlisted for the Booker Prize and is about an astrobiologist doing his best to raise a 9-year-old son on his own.

6 p.m. Sept. 23. Virtual event from Diesel, A Bookstore, 12843 El Camino Real, Suite No. 104, Del Mar. Free.

(858) 925-7078

KEVIN LYNCH ST. MARTIN’S PRESS

Jonathan Franzen

Christina Furnival

Kristin Hannah

The bestselling author will participate in a live, bookclub-style Q&A as part of Macmillan Publishing’s Book + Author series. Hannah will be discussing her latest novel, “The Four Winds,” about a California family struggling through the Great Depression. 7 p.m. Sept. 23. Virtual event from Adventures by the Book. Free. (619) 300-2532, adventuresbythebook.com

Ben Johnson

The local writer and filmmaker hosts this release event for “Children of the Web,” the third and final installment of his “Webworld” trilogy, which takes place in a dystopian San Diego.

4 p.m. Sept. 25. Verbatim Books, 3793 30th St., North Park. Free.

(619) 501-7466, verbatim-books.com

latest collection of short stories, “My Monticello.”

The titular short story centers on a young woman (descended from Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings) who is driven from her neighborhood by a White militia.

4 p.m. Oct. 20. Virtual event from Warwick’s, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla.

Free. (858) 454-0347, warwicks.com

There are some great lessons for kids in Furnival’s new book, “The NotSo-Friendly Friend,” which attempts to teach youngsters about the importance of setting boundaries in friendships even at an early age. 2 p.m. Sept. 26.

Warwick’s, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. Free. (858) 454-0347, warwicks.com

Anthony Doerr

It’s been over seven years since Doerr’s last novel, the Pulitzer-winning “All the Light We Cannot See.” He’ll be in town to discuss his highly anticipated

follow-up, “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” which spans multiple centuries and even planets to tell a story of interconnectedness. 7 p.m.

Oct. 1 Shiley Theatre at University of San Diego, 5998 Alcala Park, Linda Vista. $30 (includes a copy of the book). (858) 454-0347, warwicks.com

Jaymee Wins

The local lifestyle blogger and podcaster will discuss her motivational memoir, “That S--- Called Cancer,”

Fans of Franzen’s bestselling novels (“The Corrections,” “Freedom”) are already buzzing about his latest, “Crossroads,” about a family confronting some hard truths in 1970s Chicago. He’ll discuss it with fellow novelist Mona Simpson, followed by a Q&A. 6 p.m. Oct. 18. Virtual event from Warwick’s, 7812 Girard Ave., La Jolla. $30 ( includes an autographed copy of the book). (858) 454-0347, warwicks.com

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson The author of “Control Negro” will discuss her

Henry Herz

Lovers of illustrated books will definitely want to check out this event where the local writer will discuss his latest, “I Am Smoke,” about the important ways smoke has benefited cultures and with watercolor illustrations from Mercè López.

2 p.m. Nov. 13. Mysterious Galaxy, 3555 Rosecrans St., No. 107, Point Loma. Free. (619) 5397137, mystgalaxy.com Combs is a freelance writer.

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RICHARD THOMPSON

EDUARDO CONTRERAS U-T

Through his compositions, which fuse classical, jazz and Black literature, SDSU associate professor tells untold stories

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BY BETH WOOD

omposer and pianist Richard Thompson lets out a big laugh when asked to confirm if there were very few Black people in Aberdeen, Scotland, when he was growing up there.

“That’s the understatement of the year!” said Thompson, 66, from his Hillcrest apartment.

“There were three of us: my mother, father and me. Growing up, from the first day of school through the end of high school, I was always the only one. But I never thought about it because I didn’t know anything else.”

What he did know, from a very young age, is that he had a passion for music.

An associate professor of music at San Diego State University, “retired” but teaching part time, Thompson is working on new compositions and revisiting his older ones.

The English National Opera featured one of his pieces in an online series honoring Black composers in July 2020. The following month, his short opera “Five Aspects of Othello” was premiered outdoors by Newark’s Trilogy Opera.

Well-known bass soloist Kevin Maynor commissioned it and performed the role of Othello.

Thompson’s opera “The Mask in the Mirror” was released on CD in early 2019. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra performed the world premiere of his “Suite From The Mask in the Mirror” in Edinburgh this January.

Pandemic restrictions prevented Thompson from attending the concert.

Instead of revisiting the country of his birth for the momentous occasion, he watched it online at home.

His early pandemic experience was quite different from most people’s.

Thompson, a diabetic, had a minor cut that became infected and “went crazy.” In February 2020, his left foot was amputated.

“I was out of action for

quite a while,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was OK. I wasn’t depressed or despondent. Obviously, it was inconvenient.

“I’m adjusting well. I get around pretty well with a walker. Better for it to happen before the pandemic than now, as hopefully things will get back to normal.”

Now in his 20th year at SDSU, Thompson teaches — via Zoom — jazz history, orchestration and other music-related subjects.

In July, the long-divorced composer moved from Normal Heights to Hillcrest, coinciding with his youngest daughter Khalaya, 21, leaving for California State University Long Beach. His older daughter, Simone, 29, is a photographer in Los Angeles.

Thompson’s parents, both from Jamaica, met in London. His father, a jazz trumpeter, got a job in Aberdeen — first in a band, later as a trumpet instructor.

The young Thompson heard music all through childhood. His mother took him to classical and jazz concerts frequently. In addition to instilling in him a love of literature, she joined a classical music record club when he was 7.

He avidly listened to each album and soon began

classical piano lessons.

Thompson graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1976 and attended Boston’s Berklee College of Music from 1986 to 1989. He completed his master’s in 1992 at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, where he studied both classical and jazz piano.

“In Scotland, people knew me as a classical player,” Thompson explained. “I came to America to reinvent myself as a jazz musician. At Berklee, I focused on jazz. At Rutgers, I got to study jazz piano with the great Kenny Barron, and I had a very good classical teacher, Ted Lettvin. Ted encouraged me to start playing classical music again. He said: ‘You can do both.’ ” Thompson, who continues to play jazz and classical piano professionally, brings that sentiment to composing. He was upset when his graduate student application for a composition program was rejected.

In retrospect, he considers it beneficial.

“My classical pieces have a lot of jazz in them,” he explained. “I don’t decide to do it, it naturally happens. No one could have taught me what I do.

“I don’t want to write like dead White guys. I’m

not saying they aren’t great; they influenced me. But my own perspective as a Black male has all these different cultural influences and knowledge. To forsake that would be denying everything I experienced growing up.

“In my time, you either wrote jazz or classical music. I used to wonder if I did just one, would I be better at it than doing two?

I grew up with both and discovered I needed both to express myself.”

Thompson’s perspective is also reflected in the themes of his work. His first CD, “Poetry Prelude” (2006), features two song cycles. One is set to the poetry of Langston Hughes; the other, “The Shadow of Dawn,” to poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Dunbar was one of the few successful — and later ignored — Black American writers during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Eventually, Thompson expanded “Shadow” to a full-length opera, “The Mask in the Mirror,” based on the life of Dunbar and his courtship and marriage to fellow poet Alice Ruth Moore.

Various iterations of “Mask” — as concert and opera — have been performed since the first act

was presented at SDSU in 2007. Its first full performance was in 2012 by New Jersey’s Trilogy, the same company that did “Five Aspects of Othello.”

A second performance of “Five Aspects of Othello” is planned at SDSU this December. In the meantime, Thompson’s working on setting the soliloquies of Desdemona to music.

Also coming up is “Songs of Passion,” a song cycle with his lyrics and music. He wrote the cycle’s five songs for soprano Joelle Lamarre, who will record it later this year.

Thompson’s work was

“My classical pieces have a lot of jazz in them. I don’t decide to do it, it naturally happens.

No one could have taught me what I do.”

performed twice this summer. On July 27, tenor Martin Bakari sang “Love’s Apotheosis” from “Mask” on YouTube.

“It’s a really good performance,” Thompson said. “That song has special significance because it’s the first one I wrote.”

On June 6, two of Thompson’s songs set to Langston Hughes’ poems were sung by acclaimed tenor Lawrence Brownlee in Hamburg, Germany.

The concert was dedicated to music by Black composers.

“Since George Floyd’s murder, people have been talking about — let’s put it politely — racial divisions in classical music,” Thompson said. “Brownlee and lots of other people have been outspoken about it. That’s a good thing. Those concerts and events like them will hopefully instigate change.

“There are many Black American composers who have been writing over a hundred years. It’s time for people to have a more inclusive approach.

“That’s partly why I wrote my opera about Paul Dunbar, a significant poet that most people don’t know anything about. This is one story of so many that still need to be told.”

Wood is a freelance writer.

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CAK EWATCH Today: Actor Linda Gray (“Dallas”) is 81. Singer Maria Muldaur is 79. Actor Joe Pantoliano (“The Sopranos”) is 70.

Singer-guitarist Gerry Beckley of America is 69. Original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood is 69. Actor Peter Scolari (“Newhart,” “Bosom Buddies”) is 66.

Actor Rachel Ward is 64. Actor Amy Yasbeck (“Wings,” “Life on a Stick”) is 59. Bassist Norwood Fisher of Fishbone is 56. Actor Darren E. Burrows (“Northern Exposure”) is 55. Singer Ben Folds (Ben Folds Five) is 55.

Comedian Louis C.K. is 54. Guitarist Larry LaLonde of Primus is 53. Actor Will Chase (“Nashville”) is 51. Country singer Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland is 47. Actor Lauren Stamile (“Complications,” “Grey’s Anatomy”) is 45.

Rapper 2 Chainz is 44. Actor Kelly Jenrette (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) is 43. Actor Ben McKenzie (“The O.C.”) is 43. Singer Ruben Studdard (“American Idol”) is 43. Singer-actor Jennifer Hudson is 40. Actor Alfie Allen (“Game of Thrones”) is 35. Actor Emmy Rossum (“Phantom of the Opera”) is 35. Country singer Kelsea Ballerini is 28. Actor Colin Ford (“Under the Dome”) is 25.

Actor Jean Smart will turn 70 on Monday.

Monday: Actor Barbara Bain (TV’s “Mission: Impossible”) is 90. Actor Eileen Fulton (“As The World Turns”) is 88. Actor Joe E. Tata (“Beverly Hills, 90210,” “The Rockford Files”) is 85.

Singer David Clayton-Thomas of Blood, Sweat and Tears is 80. Singer Peter Cetera (Chicago) is 77. Actor Jacqueline Bisset is 77. Actor Christine Estabrook (“Desperate Housewives”) is 71. Actor Jean Smart is 70. Singer Randy Jones of the Village People is 69. Record producer-musician Don Was is 69. Actor Isiah Whitlock Jr. (“The Wire,” “BlacKkKlansman”) is 67.

Actor Geri Jewell (“The Facts of Life,” “Deadwood”) is 65. Country singer Bobbie Cryner is 60. Singer-guitarist Dave Mustaine of Megadeth is 60.

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Radio and TV personality Tavis Smiley is 57. Comedian Jeff Ross (“Sneaky Pete”) is 56. Actor Louis Mandylor (“My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) is 55.

Drummer Steve Perkins of Porno for Pyros and Jane’s Addiction is 54. Actor Roger Howarth (“General Hospital,” “One Life to Live”) is 53. Actor Dominic Fumusa (“Nurse Jackie”) is 52.

Actor Louise Lombard (“CSI”) is 51.

Guitarist Joe Don Rooney of Rascal Flatts is 46. Singer Fiona Apple is 44.

Guitarist Hector Cervantes of Casting Crowns is 41. Actor Ben Savage (“Boy Meets World”) is 41. Singer Niall Horan, who got his start in One Direction, is 28. Actor Mitch Holleman (“Reba”) is 26. Actor Lili Reinhart (“Riverdale”) is 25.

Girls”) is 40. Actor Sabrina Bryan (“The Cheetah Girls”) is 37. Actor Madeline Zima (“The Nanny”) is 36.

Actor Ian Harding (“Pretty Little Liars”) is 35. Actor Kyla Pratt (“Fat Albert,” “Dr. Doolittle”) is 35. Singer Teddy Geiger is 33. Actor Bailey De Young (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) is 32.

Musician-actor Nick Jonas of The Jonas Brothers is 29.

Friday: Singer-turned-photographer LaMonte McLemore of the Fifth Dimension is 86. Singer Fee Waybill of The Tubes is 73.

Actor Elvira is 70.

Comedian Rita Rudner is 68.

Puppeteer Kevin Clash (formerly Elmo on “Sesame Street”) is 61.

Actor-director Paul Feig is 59.

Director Baz Luhrmann (“Moulin Rouge”) is 59. Singer BeBe Winans is 59. Businessman Robert Herjavec (“Shark Tank”) is 58. Actor Kyle Chandler (“Friday Night Lights,”“Early Edition”) is 56. Rapper Doug E. Fresh is 55. Actor Malik Yoba (“New York Undercover”) is 54. Singer Anastacia is 53. Actor Matthew Settle (“Gossip Girl”) is 52. Rapper VinRock of Naughty by Nature is 51. Actor Bobby Lee (“MADtv,” “Harold and Kumar” films) is 50. Singer Marcus Sanders of Hi-Five is 48. Singer-actor Nona Gaye (“The Matrix” films) is 47. Drummer Chuck Comeau of Simple Plan is 42.

Actor Billy Miller (“General Hospital,” “The Young and the Restless”) is 42.

Actor Danielle Brooks (“Orange Is the New Black”) is 32. Gospel singer Jonathan McReynolds is 32. Actor Denyse Tontz (“All My Children,” “Big Time Rush”) is 27.

Tuesday: Actor Walter Koenig (“Star Trek”) is 85. Singer-actor Joey Heatherton is 77. Actor Sam Neill is 74.

Singer John “Bowzer” Baumann of Sha Na Na is 74. Actor Robert Wisdom (“Nashville,” “The Wire”) is 68.

Saxophonist Steve Berlin of Los Lobos is 66. Country singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman is 65. Country singer John Berry is 62. Actor Mary Crosby is 62. Singer Morten Harket of A-ha is 62. Actor Melissa Leo is 61.

Actor Faith Ford (“Faith and Hope,” “Murphy Brown”) is 57. Actor Michelle Stafford (“The Young and the Restless”) is 56.

Actor Dan Cortese is 54. Singer Mark Hall of Casting Crowns is 52.

Actor Tyler Perry is 52. Actor Ben Garant (“Reno 911!”) is 51. Actor Kimberly WilliamsPaisley (“According to Jim”) is 50.

Actor Andrew Lincoln (“The Walking Dead”) is 48. Rapper Nas is 48. Actor Austin Basis (“Life Unexpected”) is 45.

TV chef Katie Lee (“The Kitchen”) is 40. Actor Adam Lamberg (“Lizzie McGuire”) is 37. Singer Alex Clare is 36. Actor Jessica Brown Findlay (“Downton Abbey”) is 34. Actor-singer Logan Henderson (“Big Time Rush”) is 32. Actor Emma Kenney (“The Connors,” “Shameless”) is 22.

Wednesday: Actor Tommy Lee Jones is 75. Movie director Oliver Stone is 75.

Drummer Kelly Keagy of Night Ranger is 69. Actor Barry Shabaka Henley (“Bob Hearts Abishola”) is 67. Drummer Mitch Dorge of Crash Test Dummies is 61. Actor Danny Nucci (“The Fosters”) is 53. DJ Kay Gee (Naughty

By Nature) is 52. Actor Josh Charles (“The Good Wife,” “Sports Night”) is 50. Actor Tom Hardy (“The Dark Knight Rises”) is 44. Actor Marisa Ramirez (“Blue Bloods”) is 44.

Guitarist Zach Filkins of OneRepublic is 43. Actor Dave Annable (“Brothers and Sisters”) is 42. Actor Amy Davidson (“8 Simple Rules”) is 42. TV personality Heidi Montag (“The Hills”) is 35. Actor Kate Mansi (“Days of Our Lives”) is 34.

Thursday: Actor-singer Janis Paige (“Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”) is 99.

Actor George Chakiris (“West Side Story”) is 89. Singer Betty Kelley of Martha and the Vandellas is 77.

Drummer Kenney Jones (Small Faces,

GETTY IMAGES

Actor-singer Jennifer Hudson, star of the recent film “Respect,” turns 40 today.

Actor Jason Sudeikis, who stars in the Emmy-nominated comedy “Ted Lasso,” turns 46 on Saturday.

Faces, The Who) is 73. Actor Susan Ruttan (“L.A. Law”) is 73. Actor Ed Begley Jr. is 72. Singer David Bellamy of the Bellamy Brothers is 71.

Actor Mickey Rourke is 69. Comedian Lenny Clarke (“Sirens,” “Rescue Me”) is 68. Jazz guitarist Earl Klugh is 68.

Actor Christopher Rich (“Reba,” “Murphy Brown”) is 68. TV weatherman Mark McEwen is 67. Illusionist David Copperfield is 65. Country singer Terry McBride is 63. Actor Jennifer Tilly is 63. Actor Jayne Brook (“Chicago Hope”) is 61. Singer Richard Marx is 58. Comedian Molly Shannon (“Saturday Night Live”) is 57. Singer Marc Anthony is 53. Talk show host Tamron Hall is 51. Comedian Amy Poehler (“Parks and Recreation,” “Saturday Night Live”) is 50. Actor Toks Olagundoye (“Castle”) is 46.

Singer Musiq is 44. Rapper Flo Rida is 42. Actor Alexis Bledel (“Gilmore

Saturday: Actor Robert Blake is 88.

Gospel singer Bobby Jones is 83.

Singer-actor Frankie Avalon is 81.

Actor Beth Grant (“The Mindy Project,” “No Country for Old Men”) is 72.

Guitarist Kerry Livgren (Kansas) is 72.

Actor Anna Deavere Smith (“The West Wing”) is 71. Director Mark Romanek is 62. Guitarist Mark Olson (The Jayhawks) is 60. Singer Joanne Catherall of Human League is 59.

Actor Holly Robinson Peete (“Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper”) is 57. Singer Ricky Bell (Bell Biv Devoe, New Edition) is 54. Actor and talk show host Aisha Tyler is 51. Actor Jada Pinkett Smith is 50. Actor James Marsden (“The Notebook,” “Ally McBeal”) is 48. Actor Emily Rutherfurd (“The New Adventures of Old Christine”) is 47. Actor Travis Schuldt (“Scrubs”) is 47.

Rapper Xzibit is 47. Comedian Jason Sudeikis (“Ted Lasso”) is 46. Actor Sophina Brown (“Numb3rs”) is 45. Actor Barrett Foa (“NCIS: Los Angeles”) is 44. TV personality Sara Haines (“GMA3: Strahan, Sara and Keke,” “The View”) is 44. Actor-comedian Billy Eichner (“American Horror Story”) is 43.

Actors Taylor and Brandon Porter (“Party of Five”) are 28. Actor Patrick Schwarzenegger (“Midnight Sun”) is 28. Country singer Tae Dye of Maddie and Tae is 26.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

2021-2022 SEASON

EXPERIENCE THE EXPRESSIVE POWER OF THE HUMAN VOICE

FALL CONCERTS ON SALE NOW! THE CONRAD PREBYS FOUNDATION – FALL SEASON SPONSOR

Stephanie Blythe In Concert

Vocal Powerhouse Welcomes Us Back Saturday, October 23, 2021 7:30 PM Balboa Theatre

Michelle Bradley In Concert

Arturo Chacón-Cruz In Concert

Arias, Art Songs, and Spirituals

An Evening of Opera Favorites, Zarzuela and Mariachi

Saturday, November 20, 2021 7:30 PM Sunday, November 21, 2021 4:00 PM The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center, Baker Baum Recital Hall

Friday, December 3, 2021 7:30PM California Center for the Arts, Escondido

SPRING SUBSCRIPTION PACKAGES NOW AVAILABLE.

MOZART’S

February 12-20, 2022 San Diego Civic Theatre

March 26 - April 3, 2022 San Diego Civic Theatre

May 13 and 14, 2022 Balboa Theatre

A new production with an international, awardwinning cast of young stars.

Grand and sweeping – the most familiar love story of all time.

West Coast premiere featuring The Brooklyn Youth Chorus and the Attacca Quartet.

Così fan tutte

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Roméo et Juliette Aging Magician Darlene Marcos Shiley, Lead Production Sponsor

FOR TICKETS, VISIT SDOPERA.ORG OR CALL (619) 533-7000

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After the long shutdown of indoor concerts, musicians and audiences alike are enthusiastically anticipating live sonic experiences this fall. These classical music concerts — indoors and outdoors — promise to please our senses. (Subject to change due to COVID-19. Please check websites for updates.)

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Bodhi Tree Concerts: 10th anniversary concert

To celebrate a decade of producing concerts that benefit local organizations and feature local performers, this nonprofit is throwing a concert/party/fundraiser. More than 25 accomplished artists — including Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Davis — will entertain, representing the best of San Diego’s jazz, classical, gospel and opera. 7 p.m. Sept. 25. St. James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, 743 Prospect St., La Jolla. $25. (619) 546-7660, bodhitreeconcerts.org

“Le Salon de Musiques” grand opening

French American pianist François Chouchan has moved his monthly “Le Salon” series from Los Angeles, where it flourished for 11 years, to La Jolla. Its first season here will present chamber music in an intimate, stagefree setting, followed by a conversation between artists and audience. 4 p.m. Sept. 26. La Jolla Woman’s Club, 7791 Draper Ave., La Jolla. $45-$95. lesalondemusiques.com

Musician Nathalie Joachim ERIN PATRICE O’BRIEN ART OF ÉLAN

French American pianist François Chouchan

Art of Élan: “Crossfire @ Luce on Kettner” featuring Nathalie Joachim

Flutist, composer and vocalist Nathalie Joachim will perform “Fanm d’Ayiti” (“Women of Haiti”), her Grammy-nominated album honoring some of Haiti’s iconic female musicians. In this West Coast premiere, Art of Élan musicians join Joachim in a new venue. 7 p.m. Oct. 13.

2310 Kettner Blvd., Little Italy. $15. (619) 678-1709, artofelan.org

San Diego Symphony: “Song and Symphony”

It’s hard to outshine conductor Rafael Payare and his orchestra, but the Rady Shell is a star of its own.

The program features triple-Grammy-Awardwinning mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung on Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer.” 7:30 p.m.

Oct. 16; 5 p.m, Oct. 17.

Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, 222 Marina Park Way, downtown. $40-$108. (619) 235-0804, theshell.org

Mezzosoprano Michelle DeYoung KRISTIN HOEBERMANN

Bach Collegium: “1707: A Sonic Youth”

San Diego Opera: Stephanie Blythe

The season begins with a musical exploration of the lyrics, music and times of Johnny Mercer, showcasing powerhouse mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe.

Mercer collaborated with dozens of noted musicians, writing hits spanning four decades. For her third appearance with San Diego Opera, Blythe will be accompanied by pianist Ryan McCullough.

7:30 p.m. Oct. 23. Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., downtown. $45-$160. (619) 533-7000, sdopera.org

Bach Collegium Artistic Director Ruben Valenzuela, below, is launching the season with early works by Handel and Bach. Expect a finely honed performance from the ensemble, which will have just recorded a studio album of this concert’s music. 7 p.m. Oct. 30.

All Souls Episcopal Church, 1475 Catalina Blvd., Point Loma. $15-$55.

(619) 341-1726, bachcollegiumsd.org

HOJOON KIM

San Diego Symphony: Edo de Waart

Sacra Profana: “Looking Up”

While the title might indicate this choral group’s positive attitude, the theme is the night sky. The concert will feature works by living, mostly American, composers, including Morten Lauridsen, the most frequently performed American choral composer in modern history. 4 p.m. Nov. 7. St James by-the-Sea Episcopal Church, 743 Prospect St., La Jolla. $10-$25. (619) 432-2920, sacraprofana.org

U-T

DANIEL MIHAILESCU

La Jolla Music Society: Leonidas Kavakos and Yuja Wang It’s no understatement to say there’s been high praise for the collaborations between Leonidas Kavakos and Yuja Wang, above. Rave reviews, including one in the UnionTribune in 2017, are common for the acclaimed Greek violinist and Beijing-born pianist, one of the few superstars in classical music. 8 p.m. Nov. 10.

Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., downtown. $41-$88. (858) 459-3728, ljms.org

The symphony’s principal guest conductor, Edo de Waart, below, leads his first concerts at the Rady Shell. De Waart’s vast experience brings out the best in the orchestra.

The program includes pieces by Rachmaninoff and contemporary composer Anna Clyne.

5 p.m. Nov. 13-14.

Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, 222 Marina Park Way, downtown. $40-$108.

(619) 235-0804, theshell.org

Poway Symphony Orchestra: “The Music Is Back”

In its first concert since 2019, the symphony, with Music Director John LoPiccolo conducting, will welcome back touring pianist Frederic Moyer. He will play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. 4 p.m. Nov. 21.

Poway Center for the Performing Arts, 15498 Espola Road, Poway. $15-$35.

(858) 748-0505, powaycenter.com or powaysymphonyorchestra.org Wood is a freelance writer.

JESSE WILLEMS

THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

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Festival frenzy

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SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

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M OV I E S

Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York have full slates of films, with many holdovers from 2020

A

BY GLENN WHIPP

fter a 2020 fall film festival season that saw events diminished, canceled or going completely virtual, I’d like to say that we’re finally returning to a sense of normalcy now that Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York are upon us. And, yes, all four of the fall’s big festivals will be up and running, sporting robust slates of movies (some of them holdovers from last year), parties, tributes and stars walking the red carpet.

There also will be vaccination requirements, masks and, in Telluride, a mobile antigen and PCR testing unit, which I’ll be sure to visit right after working up the courage via repeated stops at the festival brunch’s Bloody Mary bar.

But let’s not think about that. Let’s focus on the movies!

Yes, the last Oscars were just four months ago. But there’s no shortage of intriguing awards season hopefuls premiering at these festivals, even if some of the year’s higher-profile titles — Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Soggy Bottom,” Steven Spielberg’s take on “West Side Story,” Adam McKay’s dark comedy “Don’t Look Up,” Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley” and Ridley Scott’s eye-candy family drama “House of Gucci” — won’t arrive in theaters until the holidays.

A handful of other fine films — Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket,” Asghar Farhadi’s “A Hero,” Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” and Julia Ducournau’s twisted Palme d’Or winner “Titane” — emerged at Cannes.

But here are the prime newcomers we’ll be seeing at festivals — fully vaccinated and masked — in the coming weeks.

And while some release dates have not yet locked in, all are expected in theaters (and many also on streaming or on demand) by the end of the year.

“Belfast”: Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed this personal story of growing up in Northern Ireland in the late ’60s amid the Troubles. The cast of this blackand-white film includes Caitriona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciaran Hinds and newcomer Jude Hill.

“Benediction”: Biographical drama on the life of British poet Siegfried Sassoon, known for capturing the horrors of World War I combat, from director Terence Davies (“The House of Mirth”). Jack Lowden (“Small Axe”) stars.

“The Card Counter”: Filmmaker Paul Schrader (“First Reformed”) doesn’t want to get into specifics about his latest, calling it “a mix of the World Series of Poker and Abu Ghraib.” If that doesn’t pique your interest, perhaps the cast will: Oscar Isaac, Tiffany Haddish, Tye Sheridan and Willem Dafoe.

“C’mon C’mon”: Filmmaker Mike Mills’ follow-up to the openhearted “20th Century Women” tells the story of a radio journalist (Joaquin Phoenix) embarking on a road trip with his precocious nephew (Woody Norman). Expect connections to be forged, droll humor offered and, yeah, probably a tear or two. Also: It’s in black and white.

“Cyrano”: Yes, Cyrano, as in De Bergerac, but without the nose and starring Peter Dinklage, reprising his star turn in the off-Broadway musical that The New York Times called “somber and monotonous.”

Maybe director Joe Wright will liven things up?

“Dear Evan Hansen”: Another musical, one you probably know and possibly love. This one has Ben Platt reprising his turn in the starring role, even though he’s 27 years old and the title character is a teenager. Does that matter? We’ll soon find out.

(I mean, Olivia Newton-John turned 29 when she made “Grease.”) But the songs are good, and its examination of mental illness remains relevant.

“Dune”: Filmmaker Denis Villeneuve rides the sandworm, attempting to bring a satisfying version of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi/fantasy opus to the big screen (and HBO Max). David Lynch, understandably, may have no interest in seeing it, but he’s pretty much alone in that regard. Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac and Josh Brolin are part of the sprawling ensemble.

“The Electrical Life of Louis Wain”: The hysteria surrounding Benedict Cumberbatch has abated since the height of “Sherlock,” but perhaps this biographical drama, in which he

plays an English artist known for his surreal paintings of cats with huge eyes, could change that. If nothing else, it sounds like the most Cumberbatchian casting imaginable. Claire Foy co-stars as the Wife, but hopefully the role offers more for her to do.

“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”: Jessica Chastain will get the Toronto tribute treatment pegged to her starring role playing the teary televangelist wife of convicted fraudster Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield).

“The Guilty”: It may not be an awards play beyond acting, but who doesn’t want to see a nerve-jangling Antoine Fuqua thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ethan Hawke?

“The Hand of God”: Paolo Sorrentino (“The Great Beauty”) draws on threads of his life growing up in Sicily for this family drama, which (not to jinx it or anything) probably will win the Golden Lion at Venice.

“King Richard”: Will Smith plays the demanding father and coach of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams in what looks to be the kind of crowd-pleasing showcase for Smith that he hasn’t enjoyed in decades. Aunjanue Ellis also has a plum role playing the girls’ mother — and coach — Oracene Price.

“Last Night in Soho”: Edgar Wright’s psychological horror film probably won’t show up at the Oscars, though Anya TaylorJoy singing Petula Clark’s “Downtown” sounds like an awards-worthy moment in and of itself.

“The Lost Daughter”: Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut is a passion project adaptation (she wrote it, too) of Elena Ferrante’s 2006 novel, an unsettling and unflinching thriller about a middle-aged divorced woman who turns inward after meeting a young mother and her daughter while on vacation. Gyllenhaal homed in on “exploring these secret truths about motherhood, sexuality, femininity, desire.” Olivia Colman and Dakota Johnson star.

“Parallel Mothers”: Pedro Almodovar’s latest reteams him with Penelope Cruz in a melodrama following two women, a generation apart, who find themselves forever linked by their brief time together in a Madrid maternity ward. Newcomer Milena Smit stars opposite Cruz.

“The Power of the Dog”: More Cumberbatch! But, more significantly, it’s Jane Campion’s first film in 12 years (though I’m sure you enjoyed her two seasons of the BBC crime drama “Top of the Lake”). Here Cumberbatch plays a sadistic ranch owner who doesn’t take kindly to his brother (Jesse Plemons) marrying a young widow (Kirsten Dunst). The film will premiere at Venice and play at Telluride, Toronto and New York (the only fall title playing all four), indicating distributor Netflix’s belief that it’ll dazzle the festival crowd.

“Spencer”: After examining Jacqueline Kennedy in “Jackie,” filmmaker Pablo Larrain takes on another iconic woman, with Kristen Stewart playing Princess Diana at the moment she decides to ditch Prince Charles.

“The Tragedy of Macbeth”: Something wicked this way comes as Joel Coen updates the Shakespeare classic with Denzel Washington starring as the title character and reigning Oscar winner Frances McDormand playing his cunning wife. Another black-and-white entry.

(That’s three. Get ready for the trend pieces!)

Whipp writes for the Los Angeles Times.

Benedict Cumberbatch (left) and Jesse Plemons in “The Power of the Dog.”

KIRSTY GRIFFIN NETFLIX

TOBIN YELLAND A24

Joaquin Phoenix (left) and Woody Norman in “C’mon C’mon,” written and directed by Mike Mills.

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Will Smith stars as Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena Williams, in “King Richard.”

IGLESIAS MA S SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Milena Smit (left) as Ana and Penelope Cruz as Janis in “Parallel Mothers.”

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THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

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SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

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DA N C E

NATALIA HILL

EDUARDO CONTRERAS U-T

New discovery forces San Diego dancer to look inward and let her bright light shine

N

BY MARCIA MANNA

atalia Hill always knew she was adopted.

Her parents explained, as soon as she was able to understand, that they brought her home to Pennsylvania from an orphanage in Bogota, Colombia.

Her mom and dad had two more children, a younger sister and an older brother — all raised in a loving and supportive family unit.

But Hill also knew she was different. She stood out.

She was the brown-skinned girl in her White family, the curvy girl in ballet class, the short, 5-foot-2-inch girl on the basketball court, and always the effusive, can-do girl in the classroom.

Dancing gave Hill a sense of herself that felt natural, and her parents cultivated her interest.

“They knew I was going to be a dancer when I was 2,” Hill says after teaching a ballet intensive class at Malashock Dance School, where she also works as a member of the performance company.

“My mother tells the story that they could not keep me still in my car seat.

I would always jump up and down. They enrolled me in dance lessons as soon as I was old enough.”

Throughout childhood, Hill took ballet, tap and jazz instruction, and when she was 10 she was cast as one of the orphans in the musical “Annie,” staged at the local dinner theater.

“I remember getting so into it, and I would always look into the eyes of the people at the table in front of me,” Hill recalls.

“They would smile like they were really feeling it.

That was the moment when I had that connection with the audience, and I wanted more of it.”

Hill decided to pursue a career in dance and at-

tended the Cricket’s Performing Arts school, perfecting her skills in Pennsylvania’s town square events, fairs and competitions.

At age 13, her mother enrolled her in the preprofessional conservatory Movement Laboratory, where she met director Judy Williams Henry, the first woman of color who encouraged her.

“She pulled me aside and had a deep conversation with me about my possibilities,” Hill says. “I was given an opportunity to dance with older girls because of my level of ability.”

Hill was invited to join the “Goodwill Thru Dance” tour, and as a teenager she traveled to Europe.

She then attended college at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, majored in modern dance education and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

After college, she returned home to find that her family was experiencing “hard times.”

“Both my siblings suffer with the disease of addiction, so my parents were taking care of my sister’s

daughter,” Hill confides.

“I felt like I wanted to give everybody hope, and if they saw I was doing good, they might do better themselves.”

Hill moved to New York and auditioned again and again while supporting herself by bartending. She soon realized that a lucrative dance career based solely on talent was unrealistic.

“New York was hard,” Hill says.

“I would make it through an audition, but I didn’t get the job. I was starting to identify with the fact that I’m a (person of color). There was an African American woman who was in ‘The Wiz’ and never got anything after that — she couldn’t get hired. I auditioned for “The Lion King’ and felt maybe I wasn’t dark enough. But I was in a White community and everyone accepted me.

I wished I knew more about my ethnicity.”

When Kim Kardashian became popular, Hill decided to head for Los Angeles.

“She was a short, curvy, tan woman,” Hill enthuses.

“I thought, I’m going to L.A. That’s where I’m supposed to be.”

In Los Angeles, Hill accepted many short-term acting and dance jobs but felt like a “small fish in a really big pond.”

“I didn’t have that confidence,” she admits. “I was away from everything, but I had time to breathe and focus on my own issues and what I had been through.”

Hill began to visit a friend in San Diego and felt that her “soul was meant to be here.”

She started performing with contemporary dance organizations including PGK Dance Project and Continuum Dance Project.

Three years ago, at age 32, she received a DNA kit as a gift and sent her saliva to a laboratory. She discovered she had two biological siblings, a younger sister in Florida and an older sister in Minnesota, both adopted from the same orphanage in Colombia. The youngest sister sent a picture and the name of their mother, Doris Ammorocho.

After the initial shock of learning about her origins, Hill embraced a new begin-

Malashock Dance presents “Everyday Dances” When: 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 5-6; 2:30 p.m.

Nov. 7 Where: Mingei International Museum theater, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park When: 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 19-20; 2:30 p.m.

Nov. 21 Where: Malashock Dance Studio Theater, Arts District, Liberty Station Tickets: $15-$45 Phone: (619) 260-1622 Online: malashock dance.org

ning in her life. Her perspective changed from being driven by how she was perceived by others to trusting who she is right now. And right now, she has work to do.

“My whole life has kind of been a conversation with myself,” Hill says. “I feel that now, I can’t waste time in that space. I have to be present with where I am, and with the life I get to live.”

In November, Hill will perform with Malashock Dance at two locations. And she’ll continue teaching at Expressions Dance & Movement Center in Santee and at Liberty Station in Point Loma.

At the conclusion of her Intensive Ballet class last month, Hill left her teenage students with performance advice gained from experience: “Find your own musicality,” she stressed.

“Once you find the movement and the breath, you can still have that intensity and control. Tell yourself, ‘You are awesome.’ Tell yourself, ‘I love you.’ Let that shine.”

Manna is a freelance writer.

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SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

P R EV I E W

6 new true-crime docs you should not miss

BY LORRAINE ALI

N

SAEED ADYANI NETFLIX

Lauren Graham and Scott Patterson in “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life.”

SCOTT PATTERSON’S ‘GILMORE’ PODCAST San Diego Union-Tribune editors and writers share what they’re currently obsessing over.

What I’m obsessed with: “I Am All In With Scott Patterson,” a podcast that recaps episodes of the TV show “Gilmore Girls.”

Why? “Gilmore Girls” is my comfort show — I watch it when I can’t sleep, when I’m sad, when I’m sick, and even when I’m happy. I’ve watched every episode at least five times, but probably more.

Because I’m already a fan of recap podcasts (hello, “Office Ladies”), “I Am All In” seems like it was created specifically for me.

Tell me more: The premise is that Scott Patterson, the actor who played universally beloved “Gilmore Girls” diner owner Luke Danes, never actually watched the show when it originally aired on TV from 2000 to 2007. So now he’s watching the series for the first time and recapping from his perspective.

A love/hate situation: Patterson is great as Luke, but he’s not the most polished podcaster. He talks about scenes without context.

He obsesses over strange things, like how much his romantic rival, Max Medina (Scott Cohen), touches Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham). He frets about his acting choices. Patterson’s interviews with former cast and crew members sometimes go so long that he doesn’t even do the show recap. “I Am All In” is actually so frustrating that I’ve developed an intense love-hate relationship with it.

Wait, so is this a recommendation? If you like “Gilmore Girls,” you actually learn a lot of behind-the-scenes information. Some actors, for example, relied heavily on the set’s dialect coach to help break down creator Amy Sherman-Palladino’s dense and fast-paced dialogue. And because the podcast is so casual, you get interviews and points of view that are revealing and genuine.

Team Jess: “Gilmore Girls” fans hotly debate which one of Rory Gilmore’s boyfriends was the best: Dean, Jess or Logan. Because Patterson played Jess’ (Milo Ventimiglia) uncle, the podcast skews Team Jess, and that’s just fine by me.

“I Am All In With Scott Patterson” is an iHeartMedia podcast and is available on various podcast platforms.

NINA GARIN • U-T

othing marks the change of the seasons like coming in from the summer sun and curling up inside all autumn watching documentaries about humans’ dastardly deeds.

Here’s a sampling of the films and series to keep an eye on this fall if you can’t get enough true crime.

“Cold Justice,” Oxygen, now airing: Now in its sixth season, Oxygen’s highest-rated series continues to travel to small towns across the country tackling unsolved homicide cases that have languished for years without answers or justice for the victims and their families. Veteran prosecutor Kelly Siegler and her rotating crew of seasoned detectives — Steve Spingola, Tonya Rider and Abbey Abbondandolo — partner with local authorities to uncover and compile enough compelling evidence for an arrest and conviction. To date, the team has successfully helped bring about 49 arrests and 21 convictions.

“Reasonable Doubt,” ID Channel, now airing: She’s a criminal defense attorney. He’s a retired homicide detective. Together, Fatima Silva and Chris Anderson make up the team behind “Reasonable Doubt,” ID’s weekly half-hour forensic investigative series that seeks to uncover the truth behind contested convictions. They use their collective expertise, and plenty of outside resources, to re-examine murder cases at the request of families and advocates who believe the wrong person is behind bars. The series, which wraps up its fourth season Sept. 20 and will be available to stream on Discovery+ Sept. 21, often focuses on the cases of convicts who don’t have the resources to employ their own private detectives or noncourt-appointed defense attorneys to clear their names.

“Monsters Inside: The 24 Faces of Billy Milligan,” Netflix, Sept. 22: In 1978, Billy Milligan became the first person in U.S. history to cite multiple personality disorder in an insanity defense. But were his multiple personalities really controlling his actions, or were they simply the pretext of a dangerous, narcissistic sociopath?

Netflix’s four-part investigative series

NETFLIX

“Monsters Inside” examines Billy Milligan, the first person in U.S. history to cite multiple personality disorder in an insanity defense. revisits those questions and the crimes of the rapist who terrorized Ohio State University before his arrest and made subsequent claims that he had no memory of the assaults.

French film director Olivier Megaton (“Taken 2” and “Taken 3”) applies a cinematic lens to the docu-series format as he follows the Milligan family, friends, doctors and law enforcement who are still trying to understand Milligan’s state of mind at the time of his alleged crimes and at trial.

“Buried,” Showtime, Oct. 10: How reliable is the human memory?

Dependable enough to convict someone of murder decades after a crime? “Buried” follows the gripping story of Eileen Franklin, who, while playing with her young daughter, suddenly had a memory of witnessing the 1969 rape and murder of her childhood best friend, 8-year-old Susan Nason, in their hometown of Foster City. It led to the reopening of the 20-year-old cold case, and in a shocking twist, Franklin remembered that the culprit was her own father, George Franklin. Armed with Eileen’s story, San Mateo County prosecutors won a conviction in 1990, sentencing George to life in prison. It was a first. Never before had recovered memory been used in a criminal prosecution. The docu-series follows the consequences of that fateful decision via the first-person testimonials of family, neighbors, memory experts and law enforcement and

mental health professionals.

“Frontline: American Reckoning,” PBS, November: The 1967 murder of NAACP leader Wharlest Jackson Sr. in Natchez, Miss., and a family’s search for answers are at the heart of this documentary from “Frontline’s” Un(re)solved initiative, a project that investigates cold-case killings from the civil rights era.

From acclaimed directors Brad Lichtenstein and Yoruba Richen, the film chronicles the journey of Jackson’s family members as they search for the truth about what happened to Jackson, combining verite footage, interviews, extensive reporting and never-before-seen archival material. His death from a car bomb is one of more than 150 homicides investigated under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, signed into law in 2008 in an effort to solve the killings of those who were never given justice.

“The Slow Hustle,” HBO, TBA: Veteran Baltimore police detective Sean Suiter is found shot dead while on duty. Was it murder, suicide, or a hit ordered from within his own department? Directed by “The Wire” star Sonja Sohn, who also delivered the gripping 2017 doc “Baltimore Rising,” “The Slow Hustle” explores the shady circumstances around Suiter’s death and uncovers a scandal replete with corrupt cops, multiple cover-ups and a failed political system.

Ali writes for the Los Angeles Times.

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SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

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BY MARCIA MANNA

There is promise in the turning of the seasons, and this fall offers a bountiful selection of dance events. After a long absence and a summer of intense rehearsals, San Diego’s dance artists are excited to finally return to live performance. (Subject to change due to COVID-19. Please check websites for updates.)

City Ballet will present Elizabeth Wistrich’s staging of Marius Petipa’s “Paquita” this fall.

CHELSEA PENYAK CITY BALLET OF SAN DIEGO

City Ballet: “Classics in Concert”

City Ballet of San Diego opens its “On the Town” season with works by resident choreographer Elizabeth Wistrich. The show features “Paquita,” the story of a gypsy girl who discovers she is of noble birth, the plaintive “Elegies,” and the vibrant “Gottschalk Festival.”

8 p.m. Oct. 1-2, 2:30 p.m.

Oct. 3. Joan B. Kroc Theatre, 6611 University Ave., San Diego. $32-$99. (858) 272-8663, cityballet.org

Visionary Dance Theatre: “Breathe”

James LaRose solos and an ensemble of dancers perform choreography by Spencer John Powell in a production that reflects surviving life’s challenges.

7 p.m. Oct. 22-23. Ballet Institute of San Diego, 7868 Raytheon Road, San Diego. $16-$21. visionary dancetheatre.org

Dancers Natalia Hill, Justin Viernes, Caroline Dahm and Tristian Griffin

San Diego Ballet: “Ritmos Latinos: Afuera/Outside”

JIM CARMODY MALASHOCK DANCE

San Diego Ballet will perform two audience favorites in one program, the romantic “Que Bonita Amor,” set to mariachi music, and the sizzling “Mambomania,” a signature work by artistic director Javier Velasco.

2:30 p.m. Oct. 30-31 and Nov 6-7. The promenade at Arts District Liberty Station. $25-$45. (619) 2947378, sandiegoballet.org

Ashley Akhavan in her work “Bridge to There”

Disco Riot: S P A C E Showcase

Disco Riot provides the space and platform to share new works. Three creative dance artists — Trixi Anne Agiao, Sarah Clark and Alyssa Rose — perform their works after their 10-week residence.

6:30 p.m. Oct. 28-29. Art Produce, 3139 University Ave., San Diego. $15-$50. discoriot.org

Mojalet Dance Collective: “Kooky Spooky Mash”

An evening of quirky Halloween works by Mojalet Dance Collective is geared for family fun and includes a trick-or-treat component. 6 p.m. Oct. 31. The Vine Arts Village, 12540 Oaks North Drive, San Diego. $25. mojalet.com

LITVAKdance: “Revisiting Repertoire”

A dance concert by LITVAKdance includes choreography by founder Sadie Weinberg, Chuck Wilt’s “Radiant” and Pat Sandback’s clever “Girls With Balls.” 7 p.m. Nov. 4.

David and Dorthea Garfield Theatre at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, 4126

San Diego Ballet principal dancer Tonatiuh Gomez CANELA SAN DIEGO BALLET

Executive Drive, La Jolla. $12-$18. lfjcc.org

Malashock Dance: “Everyday Dance”

Malashock Dance performs at two locations with works by choreographer John Malashock and special guests.

7:30 p.m. Nov. 5-6, 2:30 p.m. Nov. 7, Mingei International Museum theater space, Plaza de Panama, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park; 7:30 p.m.

Nov. 19-20, 2:30 p.m.

Nov. 21, Arts District Liberty Station. $15-$45.

(619) 260-1622, malashockdance.org

San Diego Dance Theater: “Capturing Balance: Dances of Life, Love and Loss”

San Diego Dance Theater’s evening of performances includes new choreography by guest artist Khamla Somphanh and repertory by artistic director Terry Wilson and

DOUG MCMINIMY

SDDT founder Jean Isaacs.

7:30 p.m. Nov. 12-13; 2:30 p.m. Nov. 14. Light Box Live Arts, Arts District Liberty Station. $15-$30, sandiegodancetheater.org

Ballet Hispánico

The renowned, New Yorkbased Latino organization founded by National Medal

of Arts recipient Tina Ramirez brings its colorful and cultural dances to North County.

7:30 p.m. Nov. 12. California Center for the Arts Escondido, 340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido. $25-$60. artcenter.org Manna is a freelance writer.

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DAVID BORGO

EDUARDO CONTRERAS U-T

Saxophonist, composer and UC San Diego music professor’s newest album explores a raft of emotions

‘S

BY GEORGE VARGA

uite of Uncommon Sorrows,” the title of saxophonist and University of California San Diego music professor David Borgo’s contemplative new album, suggests an elegy for a future dystopian world rife with disease, civil unrest and soul-sapping polarization.

Guess again.

In the here and now that is life during COVID-19, the 11-part suite is a finely crafted artistic reflection of the past 18 months.

“The first piece on the album, ‘Kuebiko,’ is about moral exhaustion inspired by acts of horror in the news, which forces you to revise your image of what can happen in this world,” Borgo said.

“When the first stay-athome order came out in March 2020, I was driving home from UCSD past University Towne Center, and it was abandoned. The mall was like a ghost town, and I had a strange, eerie feeling. I literally did a Google search on ‘a feeling of an abandoned place’ to describe how I was feeling.

Because I thought there must be a name for this emotion.”

What Borgo found was John Koenig’s “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.” It is a website and YouTube channel on which neologisms are created and defined for emotions that do not have a descriptive term.

Most of the 11 compositions on Borgo’s deeply felt new album are named after words in that dictionary.

They include zenosyne (“the sense that time keeps going faster”), pâro (“the feeling that no matter what you do it will always be inadequate”) and occhiolism (“the awareness of the smallness of your perspective, by which you couldn’t possibly draw any

meaningful conclusions at all about the world ...”)

“I’m a big believer that our emotional lives are very rich, but — often — our vocabulary to describe them is relatively poor,” said Borgo, 51, who was 24 when he won the International John Coltrane Competition for saxophonists.

His new album’s concluding piece, “Gugulethu,” is named for a township near Cape Town, where the pioneering South African jazz musician and activist Winston Monwabisi Ngozi lived. Borgo came up with the titles for two other selections, “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back” and “The Village Covidiots.”

“Suite of Uncommon Sorrows” is Borgo’s 12th album. It is also one of his most inviting, even though its inspirations — the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, our politically fractured nation — might evince numbness, exasperation and tumult.

But the finely wrought work on “Suite of Uncommon Sorrows” is deeper and more nuanced. What

results is thoughtful, melodically inviting music that is rich in atmosphere, texture and expressiveness.

“Music gets directly to our emotions,” Borgo said.

“I’m proud that the emotions explored on this album are not the most obvious ones people experience, such as anger, frustration and sadness.”

He composed “Suite of Uncommon Sorrows” between March 2020 and March of this year, when it was recorded at top San Diego guitarist Peter Sprague’s SpragueLand studio in Encinitas. It is available from pfMENTUM Records.

In addition to Borgo and Sprague, the album features pianist Tobin Chodos, bassist Mackenzie Leighton and drummer Mark Ferber, a friend since the two were graduate students at UCLA in the 1990s.

All five will be featured at the Oct. 6 opening concert of UC San Diego’s free Wednesdays@7 series.

Because of the pandemic, their performance will be livestreamed from an audi-

ence-free theater on campus. The recording sessions for the album were filmed and can be viewed on YouTube.

“I like to say music always touches us, metaphorically and literally,” said Borgo, a Maryland native who has a doctorate in ethnomusicology.

“This is where I think jazz and improvised instrumental music have something special to offer. There are no lyrics, so you aren’t being led toward a certain interpretation. It becomes about the sounds of the instruments and the interactions and energies being mobilized.”

The pandemic saw Borgo pivot to online teaching for his classes at UC San Diego, where he has been a music faculty member since 2002.

Because his performances here and concert tours abroad were canceled, he had extra time to update his award-winning 2006 book “Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age.” The revised edition will be published by

Wednesdays@7 presents David Borgo When: 7 p.m. Oct. 6 Where: Livestreamed at music.ucsd.edu/live Tickets: Free

“I’m proud that the emotions explored on this album are not the most obvious ones people experience, such as anger, frustration and sadness.”

Bloomsbury Academic Publishers in early 2022.

The upcoming fall semester will see Borgo launch a new class on the history of blues. His next project will focus on nontempered, non-Western musical tunings — which go beyond a 12-tone scale — and examine their intersection with new breakthroughs in electronic music technology.

Utilizing such technology in exciting new ways has long been a creative impetus for Borgo. That makes the fact that he does not have a cellphone all the more intriguing.

“Well,” Borgo said, laughing, “I like to work with technology on my terms, rather than be beholden to it. I feel like we’re at the beck and call of social media. So, not having a cellphone is one way I can have more control over my time and energy. My two teenage sons don’t have cellphones either. I’m teaching them by example!” george.varga@sduniontribune.com

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One step forward, one step back. Repeat. Repeat again. The fact that both the Belly Up and Humphreys Concerts by the Bay have had a record number of sold-out concerts since reopening this summer underscores our desire to experience live music, in real time, in person. Alas, the same pandemic fueling that desire has led to a growing list of canceled or postponed tours, prompting some last-minute changes in our annual fall concert preview roundup. Sold-out shows are not included (take a bow, Camilo, Emmylou Harris, Harry Styles and nearly two dozen more). (Subject to change due to COVID-19. Please check websites for updates.)

Durand Jones & The Indications

What’s a young Indiana retro-soul quintet going to do at SOMA, the all-ages club that once helped nurture young San Diego bands like blink-182? Create a nonstop dance party, in all likelihood. 8 p.m. Sept. 20.

SOMA, 3050 Sports Arena Blvd., Midway District. $30-$80. ticketweb.com

Pat Metheny & Side Eye

A 20-time Grammy Award winner, shape-shifting guitarist Pat Metheny counts David Bowie, Joni Mitchell and Herbie Hancock among his past collaborators. He’s now touring with his sizzling new trio, Side Eye. 7:30 p.m.

Sept 30. Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, 200 Marina Park Way, downtown. $38-$90. (619) 235-0804, theshell.org

Mon Laferte

Chilean music superstar Mon Laferte is equal parts vocal dynamo and social activist. Her arresting new album “Seis” honors pioneering Mexican ranchera singer Chavela Vargas and injects fresh verve into mariachi and banda music.

8 p.m. Sept. 30.

The Magnolia, 201 E. Main St., El Cajon. $35-$99.50. magnoliasandiego.com

COURTESY OF MAYRA ORTIZ

Above: Mon Laferte (center) performs at a private showcase in Los Angeles.

Mdou Moctar

Hailed as “the Jimi Hendrix of the Sahara,” Niger’s Mdou Moctar is a left-handed guitarist and singer who portrayed Prince in a remake of “Purple Rain,” set in a Muslim community.

He’s a vibrant champion of the Tuareg style of music called desert blues. 9 p.m.

Oct 1. Music Box, 1337 India St., downtown. $22; must be 21 or older to attend. musicboxsd.com

Far left: Tuareg guitarist Mdou Moctar performs at Place D’Youville in Quebec City.

OLLIE MILLINGTON

Left: Durand Jones and The Indications

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After more than a year, Night&Day returns every Friday.

The Union-Tribune’s weekly entertainment guide is restarting better than ever.

As the world reopens, Night&Day is the source for all things San Diego — from dining and theater to music, events and art. The region’s most comprehensive guide for weekly entertainment, now includes movie, TV and streaming coverage, merging Night+Day and our popular Weekend section.

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Musician Gilbert Castellanos

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From left: John Mayer, Bill Kreutzmann and Bob Weir of Dead and Company

EDUARDO CONTRERAS U-T

Gilbert Castellanos, Gerald Clayton, Anthony Wilson, John Clayton and Roy McCurdy

The Athenaeum Jazz at Scripps Research Auditorium’s 25th anniversary concert season will open with a talent-rich band formed specially for the occasion. It features top San Diego trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos with Los Angeles-based luminaries Gerald Clayton on piano, Anthony Wilson on guitar, John Clayton on bass and Roy McCurdy on drums. 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4.

Scripps Research Institute Auditorium, 10620 John Jay Hopkins Drive, La Jolla. $40 members; $45 general. (858) 454-5872, ljathenaeum.org/jazz/ #scripps

treat any year. Hearing both at one concert is too good to pass up. 8 p.m. Oct 11 and 12. Belly Up, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach. $65 general admission; $114 reserved loft seating. (858) 481-8140, bellyup.com

Outlaw Music Festival, featuring Willie Nelson, The Avett Brothers and Ida Mae

tainment Circle, Chula Vista. $142-$177. livenation.com

Laura Marling

Rocket From The Crypt

The galvanizing annual Halloween shows by San Diego’s hard-rocking Rocket From The Crypt back in the 1990s have become the stuff of legend.

With any luck, this year’s two-day early edition will as well. 7 p.m. Oct. 29.

Observatory North Park, 2891 University Ave., North Park. $30. (619) 239-8836, livenation.com

Willie Nelson is on the road again at 88. Having released five new albums in the past four years, this American cultural institution is clearly eager to keep forging ahead.

7 p.m. Oct. 17. Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre at SDSU, 5500 Campanile Drive. $39.50$129.50. livenation.com

Dead & Company

John Hiatt, The Jerry Douglas Band

Hearing either the superb singer-songwriter John Hiatt or master dobro player Jerry Douglas is a

C FLANIGAN FILMMAGIC

RICHARD DREW AP

Singer- songwriter John Hiatt

Laura Marling

Touring has changed for jam-band favorites Dead & Company, which features John Mayer, 43, and three Grateful Dead alumni in their 70s. Not only are their 2021 concert attendees required to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test result, but fans with general admission tickets for the “pit” area in front of the stage need to show proof of completed vaccinations to access the pit. 7 p.m. Oct. 27.

North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre, 2050 Enter-

English troubadour Laura Marling has seven increasingly assured albums to her credit, including last year’s captivating “Song for Our Daughter.” Her slyly subversive songs pack a punch, often in their softest moments. 8 p.m. Nov. 30.

Belly Up, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach. $18; must be 21 or older to attend. (858) 481-8140, bellyup.com IAN GAVAN GETTY IMAGES

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

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DEA HURSTON

Long known as an avid supporter of theater and the arts, she now finds herself in new territory — as a playwright

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BY PAM KRAGEN

or more than 30 years, Dea Hurston has been a powerful force in San Diego’s theater community as an underwriter, arts commissioner, community engagement leader, gala planner and outspoken voice for creating opportunities for actors, directors, designers and playwrights of color.

Now, at the age of 70, Hurston is adding a new feather to her theatrical cap. Over the past 18 months, she has become a paid playwright, with commissions from two local theaters for new plays. The Old Globe is developing “I Want to Marry Little Stevie Wonder” for an as-yet unscheduled premiere, and in late November, New Village Arts in Carlsbad will reopen with the premiere of “1222 Ocean Front: A Black Family Christmas.”

The biggest challenge Hurston is facing now in the lengthy play-development process is time. For 12 years, she has lived with a terminal cancer diagnosis. The disease has recently returned in an aggressive manner, and she’s undergoing radiation treatment. She feels it’s her mission to bring her plays to life onstage before she dies because they offer an honest slice of Black life that’s rarely seen on American theater stages.

“The people I’m writing for, it’s been wrong for them for so long. I can’t get it wrong. I have to get it right,” she said. “I fear not being a successful playwright more than I fear dying of cancer. I want my work to deliver. I don’t think I’m going to be out of here before I do what I need to do.”

Hurston grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio, where her father worked in the steel mills and her mother was a domestic worker. Because she was light-skinned, she was never dark enough for her Black friends and too dark to fit in with White kids.

And after she was refused lessons at a local dance studio because of her ethnicity, it fueled her desire to fight for access to the arts for all.

She discovered her love for writing in seventh grade, when her creative writing teacher encouraged her unique voice, and in high school, she headed up an underground student newspaper.

“I thought I’d be a novelist and I’d go on Johnny

Carson and he’d interview me someday,” she said.

She had given up on writing by the time she attended Concordia College in Minneapolis, where she found a new love — theater — after attending a performance of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf.” Also in Minnesota she met her husband, Osborn Hurston.

They’ve been married for 46 years. In the 1980s, they moved to San Diego, and when their two children went away to college, the Hurstons got involved in the arts.

Osborn, a senior vice president for U.S. Bank, served as president of the San Diego Performing Arts League and on the board of La Jolla Playhouse. She served for eight years on the city of San Diego’s Commission for Arts and Culture.

Over the years, the Hurstons have sponsored productions and artists at many local theaters, and they’ve been major theater donors and underwriters for decades.

Then in 2007, Hurston’s life took a tragic turn. While chairing an arts awards ceremony in San Diego, she fell from the stage and got a serious concussion and severely injured her leg. She underwent 14 surgeries, couldn’t drive for five years and had trouble retaining memories. As a double-whammy, while undergoing an MRI for her leg injury, doctors discovered a tumor in her kidney. She has been battling cancer off and on ever since.

“The accident and cancer had sucked all the joy out of my life,” she said.

“That’s when I realized joy doesn’t come knocking at your door. You have to go out and seek joy. I knew I couldn’t chair major events anymore, so I didn’t know what I would do. I needed to find my next self.”

She found it, unexpectedly, in 2013 when she saw an ad for Playwrights Project’s Reflections class for older writers, and she signed up. Her first play was a five-minute piece on the circumstances of her birth.

Her second play was “In Sickness and in Health,” a comic drama about an aging couple dealing with health issues and late-in-life sex. It has had several readings over the years, including one last spring in the Old Globe’s 2021 Powers New Voices Festival. Her third play was the first version of “I Want to Marry Little Stevie Wonder,” which she based on her own childhood fantasy about growing up to be the music superstar’s bride “and having three little blind boys with him.”

“That was the first time I heard from actors that I have a way with dialogue,” she said of the Stevie Wonder play. “I didn’t ever want to be a playwright, but the actors of color told me, ‘If you can write words for us to say, then you have a responsibility to do that.’ ” Now a member of the Around the Block Playwrights writing group,

Hurston said she’s developing a few other plays, including “Family,” about a Black Southern Baptist woman who has “adopted” three queer Black men whom she loves, as long as they don’t talk about their lives, and “The Facebook Fiancée,” about an older Black couple troubled by their son’s new mixed-race fiancee.

One criticism she sometimes hears about her plays is that they’re too sweet or lacking in drama, which she takes to heart. But she says she knows the audience she’s writing for, especially as America emerges from both a racial reckoning and a pandemic.

“I don’t want to write about Black trauma,” she said. “I don’t think all drama has to be trauma. We’ve been through so much in the past 18 months. People have been knocked out of their comfort zone and routine.”

Lamar Perry, associate producer at the Old Globe, directed last winter’s reading of “In Sickness and in Health,” and he’s helping Hurston develop “Stevie Wonder” for possible future production.

“One of the things I enjoy about Dea’s voice is it’s unapologetic and honest from a place of being earnest, but it doesn’t shy away from issues or what is considered taboo. How often do we see elderly people discussing their sex life onstage?” Perry said.

“There’s a stunning honesty to her work, and there’s this

really bright and shining humor that’s always evident in how we move through tragedy. We look at each other and laugh about it and figure it out.”

Freelance director and Old Globe resident artist Delicia Turner Sonnenberg is directing “1222 Ocean Front: A Black Family Christmas” for New Village Arts. It’s the story of a longwidowed Black mother whose adult sons come home for Christmas one year and discover, quite unhappily, that she has a new man in her life. It will feature original songs composed by John-Mark McGaha with lyrics by Milena (Sellers) Phillips.

“Dea’s work is super funny but also has a lot of heart,” Turner Sonnenberg said. “A lot of the humor comes from her insight into our shared humanity. She has a talent for writing real

“The people I’m writing for, it’s been wrong for them for so long. I can’t get it wrong.

I have to get it right.”

people. Actors love playing her characters. When actors love the play and their character, that’s great for me as a director, but more importantly it makes the whole process joyous.”

Kristianne Kurner, executive director of New Village Arts, said she’s proud to reopen her theater this fall with a play by a woman who has had such a broad influence on local theater.

“I can’t imagine a person in San Diego who has had a bigger impact on our theater and arts community than Dea Hurston,” Kurner said. “She has consistently blazed a trail for engagement in the arts, creating pathways for so many of us in San Diego. How fortunate that she turned her considerable talents towards playwriting.”

Hurston describes her new life as a paid playwright as “an absolutely fabulous feeling but also very scary” because she feels responsible for all of the people employed to help bring her plays to life.

“It’s a different ballgame.

Anyone would be crazy not to have butterflies,” she said. “At times I feel like I’m writing at that level; at times I feel like I’m missing the mark. It’s not that I lack confidence. It’s a healthy fear of breaking ground at this age. When I have doubts, I see the signs and tell myself you’re in the right lane, just keep driving.” pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com

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Many San Diego theaters are planning to reopen in the next few months with a diverse mix of world premieres, solo plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.

(Subject to change due to COVID-19. Please check websites for updates.)

Moonlight Stage Productions: “On Your Feet!”

dra, who meet at a garden gate after three years of estrangement in an attempt to heal old wounds.

Delicia Turner Sonnenberg and Patricia McGregor will co-direct this play, which is being co-produced by Baltimore Center Stage.

Sept. 21-Oct. 17.

Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla.

(858) 550-1010, lajollaplayhouse.org

This musical based on the life and music of Cuban American entertainers Emilio and Gloria Estefan will close the 2021 summer season at Vista’s Moonlight Amphitheatre. The musical traces the duo’s humble beginnings to the bus crash that nearly killed Gloria Estefan at the height of her fame.

James Vásquez directs with choreography by Carlos Mendoza.

Sept. 15-Oct. 2.

1250 Vale Terrace Drive, Vista. (760) 724-2110, moonlightstage.com

Diversionary Theatre: “One in Two”

Diversionary will reopen its newly remodeled theater with the West Coast premiere of Donja R. Love’s play about three men sharing the harrowing and often hidden experience of what it means to be Black, queer and HIV positive.

Old Globe artist-in-residence Delicia Turner Sonnenberg will direct.

Sept. 23-Oct. 24.

4545 Park Blvd., San Diego. (619) 220-0097, diversionary.org

La Jolla Playhouse: “The Garden”

This world premiere coproduction of Tony Award nominee Charlayne Woodard’s play is about two “Alpha” Black women, elderly mother Claire Rose (played by Stephanie Berry) and her middleaged daughter, Cassan-

SARA KRULWICH THE NEW YORK TIMES

Moxie Theatre: “The Minneola Twins”

Above: The New York production of “On Your Feet!”

Moxie’s first live onstage production since February 2020 is Paula Vogel’s 1999 satire, billed as “a comedy in six scenes, three dreams and five wigs.” It chronicles 40 years in the relationship between twins Myra and Myrna, who are on opposite ends of the political, social, religious and cultural spectrum. San Diego actor Samantha Ginn will play both twins. Sept. 26-Oct. 24. 6663 El Cajon Blvd., Suite N, San Diego.

(858) 598-7620, moxietheatre.com

Lamb’s Players Theatre: “The Belle of Amherst”

Lamb’s company member Cynthia Gerber will star in this season-opening solo play that takes a humorous and moving look at American poet Emily Dickinson.

Playwright William Luce based the play on the Massachusetts author’s diaries and letters about the en-

Left: Playwright Charlayne Woodard, whose “The Garden” will have its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse.

FRAZER HARRISON GETTY IMAGES

“A GLITTERING, FAST STEPPING EXTRAVAGANZA” – NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

THE BROOKS IS BACK! “Welcome Back”

Friday and Saturday • October 22 & 23 • 7:30pm

A spectacular evening of music and entertainment as performers from past OTC main stage productions, Youth productions, and our Music Series will all be on the Brooks Main Stage to WELCOME YOU BACK to live theater! Selections from: • Sweet Charity • Luke Monday

• OTC Youth Academy • Shane Hall Band

• And More...

Youth Theatre Arts “Music Series” September - May

Bringing the Oceanside and San Diego Music scene together with community on the Historic Brooks stage.

• Meticulously curated shows • Variety of genres and artistic styles • Promoting unity through diversity, love thru understanding.

November 5 - 7 & November 12 - 14

Boys & Girls Clubs of Oceanside and OTC present: “SHREK THE MUSICAL” • Meticulously curated shows • Variety of genres and artistic styles • Promoting unity through diversity, love thru understanding.

Shane Hall,

Music Series Director, OTC Music Series

We can’t wait to see you at the Brooks! #seeyouatthebrooks

Tickets at oceansidetheatre.org 217 N. Coast Hwy Oceanside, CA In the Heart of the Oceanside Cultural District

ing Best M d lu c in s rd a w A y n To ix s Winner of

usical

LA CAGE

AUX FOLLES

Book Bookby byHarvey HarveyFierstein Fierstein••Lyrics Lyricsand andMusic Musicby byJerry JerryHerman Herman Directed Directedby bySean SeanMurray Murray Music MusicDirection Directionby byTerry TerryO’Donnell O’Donnell••Choreography Choreographyby byLuke LukeHarvey HarveyJacobs Jacobs

Sep. Sep. 10 10 –– Nov. Nov. 7, 7, 2021 2021

Tickets: 619.337.1525 • www.cygnettheatre.org

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NEW VILLAGE ARTS

An artist’s rendering of the renovated interior at New Village Arts in Carlsbad.

THEATER NOTEBOOK New Village Arts unveils $2.5 million campaign for revamp of Carlsbad theater KEN JACQUES

Cygnet Theatre’s “A Christmas Carol” returns Nov. 23 and runs through Dec 26.

NATHAN PEIRSON

Cynthia Gerber will star in Lamb’s Players Theatre’s “The Belle of Amherst” Oct. 2 through Nov. 14, 2021. counters she had with significant people in her life.

Oct. 2-Nov. 14. 1142 Orange Ave., Coronado. (619) 437-6000, lambsplayers.org

Old Globe: “Shutter Sisters”

First workshopped in the Old Globe’s 2020 Powers New Voices Festival, this world premiere commissioned play by Mansa Ra is the story of two mothers living parallel lives on the hardest days of their lives. A White woman named Michael attends her adopted mother’s funeral, while a Black woman named Mykal kicks her adult daughter out of her home. Donya K. Washington directs this play in the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre. Oct. 7-Nov. 7. 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park. (619) 234-5623, theoldglobe.org

directs this 2019 play by Octavio Solis about the last surviving descendants of the Tom Joad family from John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel “The Grapes of Wrath.” An 80-year-old White descendant and his mixed-race Chicano farmworker relative take a road trip from California back to the Joads’ family farm in Oklahoma. Oct. 7-31. Lyceum Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego. (619) 544-1000, sdrep.org

North Coast Repertory Theatre: “Ben Butler”

Richard Strand’s 2012 race-relations comedydrama is inspired by the real-life Civil War-era story of Union Gen. Benjamin Butler, who was faced with the decision of whether to return runaway slaves to their Southern masters.

The law required him to turn the slaves over to the Confederates, but offering sanctuary could change the course of history. It’s part comedy, part historical drama and part biography.

Oct. 20-Nov. 14. 987D Lomas Santa Fe Ave., Solana Beach. (858) 481-1055, northcoastrep.org

Broadway San Diego: “Alton Brown Live: Beyond the Eats”

Broadway San Diego opens its season with author and “Iron Chef” host Alton Brown in this road show, an all-ages culinary variety show that’s a mix of comedy, music, scienceinfused cooking demonstrations and audience interaction. Nov. 14. Balboa Theatre, 868 Fourth Ave., San Diego. (800) 982-2787. broadwaysd.com

Cygnet Theatre: “A Christmas Carol”

After presenting its annual Christmas play last year as a filmed solo play, the full musical spectacular returns live for its 10th year. Adapted for the stage from Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella by Cygnet artistic director Sean Murray, the musical features caroling, humor, puppetry, a miniature village and special effects.

Nov. 23-Dec. 26. 4040 Twiggs St., Old Town San Diego. (619) 337-1525, cygnettheatre.com pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com

San Diego Repertory Theatre: “Mother Road”

San Diego Rep artistic director Sam Woodhouse

5O

“Iron Chef ” host Alton Brown.

LAMB’S

PLAYERS THEATRE

1971-2021

CHC/BROADWAY SAN DIEGO

THE BE!E OF AMHERST

A TOUR DE FORCE! A fascinating, humorous and moving look at one of America’s most distinctive writers, Emily Dickinson.

K C A B E M OUR CO OCT 202N1-SSAELPET 20" SEASON! NOW O

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVI!ES This classic Sherlock Holmes mystery becomes a wild, suspenseful and hilarious theatrical adventure!

R•E•S•P•E•C•T

Carlsbad’s 20-year-old New Village Arts has announced a $2.5 million fundraising campaign to renovate the theater and arts building it has occupied for the past 14 years in Carlsbad Village.

The Next Stage campaign will include exterior improvements, an expanded lobby, a new box office, new lighting and sound equipment, new software, and increased capacity for audiences and education programming. As part of the renovation campaign, New Village has signed a new 10-year lease, with two five-year extensions, with the city of Carlsbad, which owns the former Bauer Lumber property at 2787 State St. Thanks to major support from the Conrad Prebys Foundation and the Sahm Family Foundation, New Village Arts has already raised $2 million of its goal. Now it’s launching a campaign for the final $500,000. The goal is to complete the building renovations by next summer.

Erin Decker, director of grantmaking for the Conrad Prebys Foundation, praised New Village Arts and its importance to the city.

“New Village Arts has been the cultural heart of Carlsbad for two decades, demonstrating a standard of excellence and engagement that makes it a top artistic draw in North County,” Decker said in a statement. “The Conrad Prebys Foundation is proud to support this much-needed renovation and expansion of the theater, which will further enhance Carlsbad Village’s vibrant downtown and put NVA on the map as a destination for theater lovers from throughout San Diego and beyond.”

To see artist renderings of the renovation project and learn more about the campaign, visit newvillagearts.org/nextstage.

Moonlight to finish its summer season with ‘On Your Feet!’

Vista’s Moonlight Stage Production will finish out its 2021 summer season at the Moonlight Amphitheatre with “On Your Feet!,” a stage musical about the life and

LAMPLIGHTERS

JaVon Clarie and Januari Simpson in Lamplighters Community Theatre’s “The Front Porch.” music of Latin pop superstars Gloria and Emilio Estefan.

The production will feature a cast of 19 performers, including Ariella Kvashny and Eduardo Enrikez, who are making their Moonlight debuts as the married Miami Beach music artists.

The show is directed by James Vásquez, with choreography by Carlos Mendoza. Lyndon Pugeda is musical director and conductor, and Laurie Marie Muniz is associate choreographer.

The production will open Sept. 15, with performances at 7:30 p.m.

Wednesdays-Sundays, through Oct. 2. Tickets are $17-$59. Unvaccinated guests are required to wear a face mask when not eating or drinking.

Visit moonlightstage.com.

Theaters respond to Delta variant On Sept. 1, the Old Globe became the second theater to announce a canceled performance related to COVID-19. The Globe canceled that evening’s performance of its outdoor production of the musical “Hair” because someone working on the production tested positive. Performances resumed the following night.

A few weeks back, Moonlight canceled two performances after some cast members were exposed to the virus.

In recent weeks, every San Diego County theater returning to indoor production has announced COVID-19 policies to protect artists, staff and audience members. Most local theaters are following the protocols announced in August by the Broadway League of 41 New York theaters. This requires ticket buyers to present proof of full vaccination or a negative

The amazing female singers of the 60s.

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A scene from the filmed production of the musical “Come From Away,” now available on Apple TV+.

COVID-19 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test taken within 72 hours of the show they’re attending. Most theaters are also requiring face masks indoors.

The most recent such COVID policy announcement comes from Broadway San Diego, which hosts national touring shows at the San Diego Civic Theatre and Balboa Theatre. It launches its season Nov. 14 with “Alton Brown Live! Beyond the Eats” at the Balboa. For now, Broadway San Diego says its policy is in place for all performances through Dec. 31, which includes the tours of “Hairspray,” Nov. 16-21; “My Fair Lady,” Nov. 30Dec. 5; “A Magical Cirque Christmas,” Dec. 27; and Mannheim Steamroller Christmas, Dec. 30. Policy details are available at broadwaysd.com.

Lamplighters opens “Front Porch” Lamplighters Community Theatre in La Mesa presents “The Front Porch,” an original play by writer/director George Bailey about neighbors in Baltimore — an elderly White widow and a Black family that moved in next door — navigating racial tension, mistrust, prejudice and grief in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 26 at 5915 Severin Drive, La Mesa. Tickets are $18 to $23. Call (619) 303-5092. lamplighterslamesa.com

“Come From Away,” “Diana” debut dates Two La Jolla Playhouse-born musicals will arrive soon on streaming services.

Tony-nominated “Come From Away” debuted Friday on Apple TV+, and “Diana” premieres Oct. 1 on Netflix.

Both musicals were directed for the stage and for the live-capture streaming films by Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley, who won a Tony Award for his work on “Come From Away.” “Come From Away” will reopen on Broadway Sept. 21, and “Diana,” which was in previews when the pandemic began, will reopen for previews on Nov. 2. Its official opening night is Nov. 17. pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com

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KAORI FUKUYAMA Installation artist continues to evolve with a new collaboration at the San Diego airport

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BY SETH COMBS

t this point, a lot of San Diegans are familiar with the work of Kaori Fukuyama even if they don’t know that they are.

Take a stroll down University Avenue in the heart of North Park, preferably in midafternoon, and you will witness panoramic strands of colors draped over the side of the building that houses a Target. As the sun keeps rotating, the colorful shadows — a result of the sun’s beams being filtered through polycarbonate panels installed on the side of the building — will retract and protract depending on the time of day.

Yes, “Wave of Change” is a refreshing piece of public art compared with the Instagram-friendly murals that are peppered throughout the neighborhood. And given the accomplished nature of the piece, it’s surprising to learn that, at the time she installed it in 2019, it was Fukuyama’s first large-scale project.

“At the time, I had no experience in doing public art,” Fukuyama recalls, adding that she would often sit at the corner of University Avenue and Ray Street mapping exactly how the sun would hit the side of the building.

“I thought that I didn’t want to do something like a traditional mural,” Fukuyama continues. “I wanted to do something more dynamic, much like how North Park is very dynamic — always changing and adapting and evolving.”

Adapting and evolving; the same could be said for Fukuyama herself, who only began working in three-dimensional art practices a little over three years ago. Since then, she’s had several solo exhibitions, was awarded the San Diego Art Prize and, most recently, was selected for an Under the Wing Mentorship Program, where she will work under

the tutelage of L.A.-based artist Nova Jiang to install a large-scale piece of public art inside the planned T1 ticketing lobby of the San Diego International Airport.

“Ms. Fukuyama was selected to participate based on her commitment to making the transition to public art as well as her desire to help mentor other artists if selected for the opportunity,” says Chris Chalupsky, who oversees the Arts Program at San Diego International Airport.

“I really love Nova’s work.

It’s different from my work, but in a very great way,” Fukuyama says. “Her work is more interactive and puts the audience in the center.

She does a lot of research on the site of where her work is going to be, which is really what I’d like to do more of in the future. Plus, it really ties into my background.”

The background Fukuyama is referring to is

that of landscape architecture, which she had originally planned to be her profession up until recently.

She grew up in Kumamoto, Japan, before coming to the U.S. to study landscape architecture at the University of Oregon.

“I always liked art, looking at art and making art, but I never thought of myself as an artist,” says Fukuyama, who began taking extracurricular art classes while at college.

She got an architectural job offer right out of college and moved to San Diego in 2004, but also began painting as a creative outlet. She began taking additional art classes at places like UC San Diego Extension and the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library.

“I felt the need to do something very creative just for myself,” says Fukuyama. “The landscape architecture felt very limiting and has a lot of constraints. It’s about what the

clients need and not necessarily my own personal expression.”

Fukuyama says she had the “immediate feeling of being home” while painting, and while many of her early pieces were abstract in nature, she began to notice that she was naturally attracted to light and shape.

“I think when I was painting, I realized I was really trying to capture the different qualities of light,” Fukuyama says. “Then, slowly, I began to want to explore them in more than one way. So I began to explore three-dimensional objects and how light hits that object.”

A 2019 artist residency at the Logan Heights art space Bread & Salt afforded Fukuyama the opportunity to pursue this new direction. While there, she began to experiment more with sculptural works that, while wholly original, would have fit right in with

the Southern California Light & Space movement of the 1960s. Most recently, she further explored North Park with “Shape of Memory,” an installation piece showcased in the Art Produce space on University Avenue. Using vintage photographs of the neighborhood, Fukuyama assembled them to hang like

“I think when I was painting, I realized I was really trying to capture the different qualities of light.”

a chandelier, with light beamed through it to create an illusory effect.

Still, Fukuyama is humble and feels as if she’s still a relative newcomer when it comes to her installation work despite it becoming what she’s likely most recognized for. She says she spent a “solid 10 years” working solely in abstract paintings, so public and installation works still feel relatively new to her. She’s accomplished so much in a short of amount of time but, in many ways, she still feels as if she’s just beginning her artistic journey.

“It was a slow burn,” says Fukuyama, who will also have a piece in an Art Produce fundraiser show on Sept. 25. “It was always there, though, and I feel like I didn’t have the confidence back then to commit to it.

It’s nice to finally embrace that.”

Combs is a freelance writer.

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Museums and galleries are opening and reopening to the public, and whether art lovers want to get back out to Balboa Park or want to see an intimate gallery exhibition, there’s plenty to see throughout the county. (Subject to change due to COVID-19. Please check websites for updates.)

Above: “Autoradiogram 002Medium” by Melissa Walter will be at the Oceanside Museum of Art. Left: “Runner: On My Own!” by Chicana artist Yolanda López, who died this month.

Above: Panca’s “La Sentimental” Right: Hugo Crosthwaite’s “Ensueno No. 5” COURTESY PHOTOS

Quint Gallery: “Color Field”

Oceanside Museum of Art: “Smallest of Places” and “Charlotte Bird: Migration”

“Smallest of Places” showcases work from local artist Melissa Walter, above, a San Diego Art Prize winner whose latest work centers on the formation of DNA. The exhibition has been up since July, but the official reception will take place Saturday from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Also opening that evening is “Migration,” an exhibition of water-bird-themed textile works from fellow local Charlotte Bird.

“Smallest of Places” runs through Nov. 7; “Migration” is on view Sept. 18 to Jan. 9, 2022. Oceanside Museum of Art, 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside.

Free-$10. (760) 435-3720, oma-online.org

Local painter Gail Roberts’ latest collection includes 128 mesmerizing, hyper-realistic renderings of flowers and native plants. She’ll discuss the exhibition at an Artist Talk event on Oct. 9 at 11 a.m. On view through Nov. 6. Quint Gallery, 7655 Girard Ave., La Jolla. Free.

(858) 454-3409, quintgallery.com

Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego: “Unity in Variety”

This exhibition marks the official opening of the ICA (a merger of the Lux Art Institute and the San Diego Art Institute) and will feature work from Jalisco,

Mexico-based artist Gabriel Rico, who is known for his entrancing sculptural installations. On view Sept. 24 to Jan. 23.

Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego (Central), 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park. Pay what you wish. (760) 436-6611, icasandiego.org

Mingei International Museum: “Humble Spirit / Priceless Art” and “Global Spirit”

Museum of Photographic Arts: “Aaron Siskind: Mid Century Modern”

A showcase of the late photographer, which focuses on his work from the late 1940s and ’50s when he was taking highly detailed, abstractstyle pictures inspired by artists of the time. On view Oct. 2 to Feb. 13. Museum of Photographic Arts, 1649 El Prado, Balboa Park. Pay what you wish. (619) 2387559, mopa.org

Bread & Salt: San Diego Art Prize

The four winners of the annual prize will collectively show off their latest works, which range from streetstyle pop-surrealism (Panca) and Turkish-style ceramics (Beliz Iristay) to black-and-white drawings (Hugo Crosthwaite) and subversive paintings (Perry Vásquez). There will be an artist reception on Oct. 9 from 5 to 8 p.m. On view Oct. 9 to Dec. 31. Bread & Salt, 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights. Free. (619) 851-4083, sdvisualarts.net

The Mingei has officially reopened after a major renovation. Its two new exhibitions feature vintage everyday items made from natural materials (“Humble Spirit / Priceless Art”) and a vast collection of international folk art from the museum’s prestigious Ted Cohen collection (“Global Spirit”). On view through Jan. 1. Mingei International Museum, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park.

Free-$10. (619) 239-0003, mingei.org

GRAND OPENING SUNDAY SEPT. 26, 2021

Artist Perry Vásquez will showcase new paintings at his solo show “Oasis” at Sparks Gallery.

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and collage-style work she produced in the 1970s and ’80s and explores representations of Chicana culture.

On view Oct. 16 to April 24.

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, 1100 and 1001 Kettner Blvd., downtown. Free-$10. (858) 4543541, mcasd.org

Sparks Gallery: “Oasis”

Fresh off his San Diego Art Prize win and exhibition, Perry Vásquez will showcase new paintings at this solo show. The intimate exhibition will mainly feature pieces from Vásquez’s “Under the Perfect Sun” series of burning and rendered palm trees. An opening reception will take place Oct. 17 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. On view Oct. 17 to Jan. 9. Sparks Gallery, 530 Sixth Ave., downtown.

Free. (619) 696-1416, sparksgallery.com

Athenaeum Music & Arts Library: “40 Years of the Stuart Collection”

The Athenaeum teams up with UC San Diego to celebrate the impressive public art installations throughout the campus. There will be an opening reception on Nov. 5 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

On view Nov. 6 to Dec. 31.

Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla. Free. (858) 4545872, ljathenaeum.org

Swish Projects: “BFGF”

The contemporary art space will showcase new Museum of works from L.A. artist LilContemporary Art San ian Martinez, whose paintand functional art Diego: “Yolanda López: ings objects has been described Portrait of the Artist” as “Matisse of the InstaThe San Diego-born and UC gram Era.” There will be an San Diego-educated Chicana opening reception for the artist, known for the popular artist on Nov. 13 from 6 to Virgin de Guadalupe series, 9 p.m. On view Nov. 13 to gets her first solo museum Dec. 5. Swish Projects, exhibition this fall. Lopez 2903 El Cajon Blvd., North passed away Sept. 3 in her Park. Free. instagram. longtime San Francisco com/swishprojects apartment. This exhibit will feature paintings, drawings Combs is a freelance writer.

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Artist Beliz Iristay HOWARD LIPIN U-T

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Sci-fi rules the season

Networks and streamers double down on science fiction and fantasy this fall, but there’s a whole lot more than that

F

BY LYNN ELBER

ickleness is paying off for the young.

Because Generation Z and a slice of millennials are more likely to drop and add streaming services in pursuit of tempting new shows, media companies are striving to give those restless customers what they want this fall.

The apparent answer: sci-fi and fantasy. With broadcast and cable outlets eager to keep pace, get ready for a galaxy of shows including a saga based on the venerated work of Isaac Asimov (“Foundation”), one with a “Lost” echo (“La Brea”), and additions to the Disney+ “Star Wars” family.

Not that older viewers don’t count. Last December’s Season 2 finale of “The Mandalorian” became the first non-Netflix offering to top Nielsen’s weekly list of streaming shows as measured by overall minutes watched, demographics aside.

As the fall TV season arrives in all its head-spinning, gazillionoutlets glory, there’s even a “Star Trek” spinoff for the really young set — kids — that demonstrates how strategically the industry is thinking.

“When you are able to capture a particular group, what you’re hoping for is as they move through life stages, that they continue to subscribe,” said Jennifer Chan, global insight director for Kantar Entertainment on Demand, a research service of consulting firm Kantar.

For those who prefer more grounded TV, whether dramas, comedies or docu-series, there’s plenty of choices to be had — but not all at once. While broadcast has its fall ducks in a row, some in the streaming world arrive fashionably late, as with “Just Like That” from HBO Max. The “Sex and the City” sequel has yet to set a debut date.

Here’s an overview of the new shows by genre, with premiere dates unless otherwise noted:

ERIKA DOSS ABC

From left: Dule Hill, Saycon Sengbloh, Elisha Williams and Laura Kariuki in ABC’s new take on “The Wonder Years.”

PAUL SARKIS SHOWTIME

Christina Ricci as Misty in the horror/coming-of-age series “Yellowjackets,” which will premiere Nov. 14 on Showtime.

Sci-fi and fantasy

“La Brea,” NBC, Sept. 28: Mid-city Los Angeles has a sinking feeling, as a massive sinkhole pulls hundreds of people and buildings into a dangerous primeval land.

With Natalie Zea and Jon Seda.

“Star Wars: Visions,” Disney+, Sept. 22: The space saga is reimagined again, through Japanese anime. The anthology series can be seen with the original Japanese voice actors or dubbed in English by a cast including Lucy Liu and Neil Patrick Harris.

“Foundation,” Apple TV+, Sept. 24: Isaac Asimov’s novels about a prolonged quest to save civilization have eluded adaptation no longer. Jared Harris stars as Hari Seldon, Lou Llobell as Gaal Dornick and Lee Pace as the galactic empire’s leader.

“Y: The Last Man,” Hulu, Sept. 13: In this adaptation of the comic book series, the apocalypse has wiped out all mammals with a Y chromosome — except for one man and his pet monkey. Ben Schnetzer and Diane Lane star.

“Invasion,” Apple TV+, Oct. 22: An alien invasion is tracked across the world and from different perspectives. The sprawling cast includes Shamier Anderson, Golshifteh Farahani, Sam Neill, Firas Nassar and Shioli Kutsuna.

“4400,” CW, Oct. 25: In a followup to “The 4400,” thousands of disappeared people return en masse to Detroit — all without memories of what occurred and all, like a Black World War II Army surgeon, from among society’s marginalized.

“The Book of Boba Fett,” Disney+, December (date to be announced): Set within the timeline of “The Mandalorian,” the spinoff follows bounty hunter Fett (Temuera Morrison) and his partner, mercenary Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen).

“Star Trek: Prodigy,” Paramount+ (date to be announced): They don’t check driver’s licenses in space, as young alien outcasts gain control of a ship and gradually learn of Starfleet and its ideals in this kid-oriented animated series.

Drama

“Impeachment: American Crime Story,” FX, Sept. 7: President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial is viewed from the viewpoint of Monica Lewinsky (Beanie Feldstein), Linda Tripp (Sarah Paulson) and Paula Jones (Annaleigh Ashford).

“Kin,” AMC+, Sept. 9: It’s the tight-knit Kinsella family vs. a drug kingpin in this Dublin-set gang drama from the makers of “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

Charlie Cox and Ciaran Hinds are in the cast.

“American Rust,” Showtime, Sept. 12: Jeff Daniels and Maura

CLIFF LIPSON CBS

Utkarsh Ambudkar (foreground left) and Rose McIver (foreground right) in the upcoming CBS comedy series “Ghosts.”

APPLE TV+

PETER STRANKS NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Lou Llobell in “Foundation,” premiering Sept. 24 on Apple TV+.

The sci-fi series is based on novels by Isaac Asimov.

Daniel Dae Kim and Dawn Olivieri in the series “The Hot Zone: Anthrax,” premiering Nov. 28 on National Geographic.

Tierney star in an adaptation of the Philipp Meyer novel about a last-legs Rust Belt town and its residents, with a police chief ’s family the focus.

“Scenes From a Marriage,” HBO, Sept. 12: Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 Swedish series about marriage and divorce and what comes between is adapted as a modern American couple’s story. Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain star.

“Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol,” Peacock, Sept. 16: Young Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon’s mentor has been kidnapped and a global conspiracy is afoot in this adaptation of Brown’s novel. Ashley Zukerman stars.

“The Big Leap,” Fox, Sept. 20: Dogged by misfortune, people try to turn their lives around by competing in a reality dance show that could make or break them. Scott Foley, Teri Polo, Piper Perabo and Ser’Darius Blain star.

“NCIS: Hawai’i,” CBS, Sept. 20: Vanessa Lachey stars as a trailblazer in this franchise addition. Lachey’s Jane Tennant is the first female special agent in charge of the NCIS Pearl Harbor bureau and protecting national security.

“Ordinary Joe,” NBC, Sept. 20: How the course of a man’s life and those around him can be affected by a single decision is explored in three parallel timelines. James Wolk stars in the title role.

“Our Kind of People,” Fox, Sept. 21: A family revelation throws an upper-class Black community on Martha’s Vineyard into turmoil in what’s described as a “soapy” look at race and class in

Shakir and Daniella Pineda star.

“The Hot Zone: Anthrax,” National Geographic, Nov. 28: A deadly, post-9/11 series of diseaselaced letters has America on edge, and an FBI agent (Daniel Dae Kim) and scientist (Tony Goldwyn) are on the killer’s trail.

America. With Yaya DaCosta and Morris Chestnut.

“FBI: International,” CBS, Sept. 21: Meet the FBI’s “international fly team,” based in Europe and ready to protect American citizens from threat wherever that may be. The cast includes Luke Kleintank and Heida Reed.

“Dopesick,” Hulu, Oct. 13: America’s opioid addiction crisis is examined from the vantage points of Big Pharma drug companies, a Virginia mining community and the federal government. With Michael Keaton, Peter Sarsgaard, and Rosario Dawson.

“Queens,” ABC, Oct. 19: Four women who were hip-hop legends in the 1990s decide age is just a number, uniting to regain their former fame and glory. Eve, Naturi Naughton, Nadine Velazquez and Brandy star.

“Dexter: New Blood,” Showtime, Nov. 7: The Miami bloodspatter analyst and serial killer (Michael C. Hall) is hiding in a small New York town in what’s been deemed a second chance to give the original “Dexter” a proper ending.

“Yellowjackets,” Showtime, Nov. 14: A high school girls soccer team survives a plane crash in a remote area, setting the table for a combo survival, horror and coming-of-age saga. Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci star.

“Cowboy Bebop,” Netflix, Nov. 19: Three bounty hunters are after the galaxy’s most wanted and running from their pasts in a liveaction adaptation of the popular anime series. John Cho, Mustafa

Comedy

“Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.,” Disney+, Sept. 8: There’s a teenage doctor in the house once more, with a dramedy based on “Doogie Howser, M.D.” This time, the prodigy is Lahela aka Doogie (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) of Hawaii.

“The Premise,” FX on Hulu, Sept. 16: Created by B.J. Novak (“The Office”), the anthology series promises a provocative and comedic take on issues including sex, capitalism and social justice.

Ben Platt and Tracee Ellis Ross are among the stars.

“The Wonder Years,” ABC, Sept. 22: Like the original narrated by Daniel Stern, this is about a boy and his middle-class family during the 1960s. But this time the family is Black, the setting is Alabama, and Don Cheadle does the voice-over.

“Ghosts,” CBS, Oct. 7: Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar star as couple who ambitiously decide to convert a rundown old mansion into a B&B. Then the ragtag group of ghosts who live there weigh in.

Reality shows and contests

“Frogger,” Peacock, Sept. 9: The video game franchise born circa 1980 comes to TV, promising to drop viewers and contestants

into the “wild, whimsical” and challenging Frogger world.

Damon Wayans Jr. and Kyle Brandt are the hosts.

“Alter Ego,” Fox, Sept. 22: Motion-capture technology helps singing contestants create their ideal avatars, with their performances to be judged by Alanis Morissette, Nick Lachey, Grimes and will.i.am.

“Home Sweet Home,” NBC, Oct. 15: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay is the creator-producer of this life-swap series that puts two families per episode in each other’s shoes, or houses, to gain a new perspective.

“The Activist,” CBS, Oct. 22: A competition series with a social conscience: Teams vie to bring change to the arenas of health, education or the environment, seeking funding from world leaders at an international summit.

Docu-series

“LulaRich,” Amazon, Sept. 10: Multilevel marketing business LuLaRoe, which denied allegations of operating as a pyramid scheme in a recent settlement with the Washington state attorney general’s office, is scrutinized in this four-part series.

“Muhammad Ali,” PBS, Sept. 19: The legendary boxer and activist gets the Ken Burns treatment in a four-part film described as a portrait of a man who was “unconditionally himself.”

Directed by Burns with Sarah Burns and David McMahon.

Elber covers television for The Associated Press.

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One last summer read

Labor Day didn’t end the warm weather, so here are some beach books to consider

BY NORA KRUG & STEPHANIE MERRY

T

his wild, strange summer is not quite over yet. There’s still time for the beach — and there’s still time to read, even if you’re not at the beach. While you enjoy the waning days of socially distanced sun and fun, here are 12 books for your almostempty beach bag.

“Billy Summers”

by Stephen King

King’s latest stars a killer for hire whose final assignment involves moving to a small Southern town and taking cover as a writer, a job that turns out to be as rewarding as killing bad guys. As for the hit, it doesn’t go so well, but that’s part of the allure of this twisty, multilayered thriller.

“The Startup Wife”

by Tahmima Anam

Newlyweds Asha and Cyrus build an app that becomes a wildly popular social media platform. But success comes at a price, as Anam shows in this witty novel that explores ambition and love in the very modern world.

“In the Country of Others”

by Leila Slimani

The author of “The Perfect Nanny” delivers another portrait of the power dynamics that stratify society. In post-World War II Morocco, a French woman and her Moroccan husband are bombarded with reminders that their union has divorced them from their countrymen.

“The Guncle”

by Steven Rowley

“The Paper Palace”

by Miranda Cowley Heller

In this atmospheric novel set in Cape Cod, 50-year-old Elle Bishop returns to her family’s summer home, a place full of memories (good and bad) and, as it turns out, possibilities for an unexpected future.

“The Forest of Vanishing Stars” by Kristin Harmel

The author of the historical novel “The Book of Lost Names” returns to the fertile ground of World War II Europe with the tale of a young woman, raised in forested isolation, who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jews escape the Nazis.

“Seven Days in June”

by Tia Williams

It’s been 15 years since Shane and Eva spent one starryeyed week in teenage lust.

When they unexpectedly reunite as two well-known authors at a literary event, the spark is still blazing. But is that enough?

“The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans”

by Cynthia Barnett

Gay Uncle Patrick, or GUP to his niece and nephew, is a languishing former TV star bent on isolating himself — at least until a family tragedy strikes and he finds himself becoming a primary guardian with no clue how to parent.

Those shells are more than pretty decoration, you’ll learn in environmentalist Barnett’s exploration of their scientific and cultural history: “Appreciating seashells apart from the life that evolved to build them is like appreciating Leonardo for his notebooks, while overlooking his living, breathing paintings,” she writes.

“Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey” by James Rebanks

“We Were Never Here”

by Andrea Bartz

“The Heart Principle”

by Helen Hoang

“Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could Be”

by Nichole Perkins

Rebanks, who runs a familyowned farm in England’s Lake District and wrote the 2015 bestseller “The Shepherd’s Life,” waxes lyrically about his bucolic surroundings while also delivering an eloquent treatise on the problems of modern agriculture.

Hoang’s third novel in the Kiss Quotient series follows a struggling musician whose boyfriend’s desire for an open relationship drives her to attempt a one-night stand. If only her anxiety over her tattooed, motorcycle-riding potential paramour didn’t get in the way.

Kristen and Emily’s annual backpacking trip ends in horror when Kristen kills a man she claims attacked her.

Odd, Emily thinks, considering almost the same thing happened the year before.

Maybe it’s time to find a new best friend.

This memoir-in-essays by the poet and podcast host explores the ways pop culture shaped Perkins’ coming of age, for better and worse, while growing up Black in the South.

Krug and Merry write for The Washington Post.

POEMS

BIRDSONG

By Judith Dupree

from his perch, unwrapping

ELEPHANTS AND TEAPOTS

his spider-toes from the branch.

By Siri Richar

I will waken you tomorrow and invite you into dawn.

Perhaps you will see a bird rise

He will shake off the night, preen briefly, and call your name.

You will hear it as it truly is, at last — God speaking you.

On his cocked legs, bird reaches for a pinnacle of sound, his ululation rippling like a tiny waterfall between the swaying branches — a trickle, a tickle of the inexplicit joy that only he rehearses perfectly . . . and now you may interpret everything; now you have been spoken.

Judith Dupree has published two volumes of poems and resides in Pine Valley (where she can hear the birds clearly!)

GETTY IMAGES

Teapots and elephants

you know they do exist!

and everything in between.

They charm one another

He has a long gray trunk,

almost every day

she an avenue for steam.

with cups of tea and peanuts

He is large and cumbersome

but rarely a cheese soufflé.

with wrinkles all about.

He wears his points of ivory

She is short and squatty

like an elegant tiddly wink.

with a perky little spout.

She in turn is quite a catch

Can’t you just imagine

with her shades of meadow pink.

giggles between these two?

Please don’t be pachydermatous,

Intellectuals, maybe not,

nor let a cozy blind your eye.

but a love that’s oh — so true.

Perhaps it is diversity

They both can roar or whistle,

that one needs to beautify.

Siri Richar, Ph.D., a member of Magee Park Poets and a resident of Olivenhain, is a Tibetan numerologist.

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AL BELLO GETTY IMAGES

Billie Jean King speaks during the opening night ceremony at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, N.Y., on the first day of the 2019 US Open.

‘I’m not finished’

In her new autobiography, athlete-activist Billie Jean King focuses on how to make tennis a more equal and inclusive sport

BY CAITLIN THOMPSON

B

illie Jean King isn’t interested in being a legend — she’s interested in succession. Her latest memoir follows two previous efforts to sum up her extraordinary career — one spent as a former No. 1-ranked tennis player, a 12-time Grand Slam champion, a founder of the Women’s Tennis Association and, of course, winner of the Battle of the Sexes versus Bobby Riggs in 1973. She’s up to something more overtly political now with “All In,” and the urgency with which she writes — here with Johnette Howard and Maryanne Vollers — about her life’s work as an activist gives one the sense that it’s essential to her that the mantle is passed to the next generations (and that they’re fired up about it!).

The book is concerned with King’s work to make tennis a more equal and inclusive sport — work she knows to be perennial and prone to setbacks — and it reads as a playbook of sorts, a life narrative peppered throughout with instructions for how to win the game. Yes, there are ready-made aphorisms everywhere: “Champions adjust,” “Pressure is a privilege” and the widely applicable “Every decision should be for a tactical advantage, period.”

Like many professional tennis players, King is in constant motion, not given to dwelling on highs and lows, as there’s always another battle that awaits. But she’s also an ardent student of history and a compelling narrator. She walks us through her remarkable life, which includes some of recent history’s most remarkable events.

There’s a clear through-line from King conferring with Gloria Steinem in the offices of Ms. magazine, to embracing the fight for racial equity in South Africa as Arthur Ashe also grappled with apartheid, to playing on a high school court in Honolulu while a young Barack Obama looked on.

King’s instincts to shape seismic events in culture have set the table for (and in some cases, created) conversations about race, gender identity, sexuality and equity that are especially resonant now, and it’s hard not to read this book as a call to arms.

But it’s also plenty personal: “All In” traces King’s working-

class beginnings as a Long Beach public courts kid, with a firmly traditional family and a Southern California cultural context more ’50s Bob’s Big Boy than ’60s Laurel Canyon. While she exhibited precocious talent as a junior player and translated her skills into collegiate and international success, no structure existed to provide women with a viable professional tennis career until she made one in the early ’70s.

She and her fellow amateur female athletes asked again and again for “prize money commensurate with that of men, equal exposure in center court matches and better treatment by the news media, which subordinates women’s tennis to the men’s game,” and were continually denied. It was only after lengthy battles with the tennis establishment — led by the promoter Jack Kramer, who worked diligently with male superstars of the era, including Ashe and Stan Smith, to ensure that women remained diminished — that she decided to act, spearheading the organization of a group now known as the Original 9 to create the Virginia Slims tour.

From there King went on a tear on the court — racking up her career Grand Slam and completing a triple crown at Wimbledon (the singles, doubles and mixeddoubles championships). Upon winning the Battle of the Sexes against Riggs, the self-proclaimed male chauvinist pig, she developed a growing understanding that

she’d have to be the first female athlete-activist. “ ‘This is the culmination of 19 years of work,’ I told the press that night. ‘Since the time they wouldn’t let me be in the picture because I didn’t have on a tennis skirt, I’ve wanted to change the game around. Now it’s here.’ ” In 1972, her testimony in front of Congress all but guaranteed the passage of Title IX, which ended discrimination based on sex and is hailed as the single most important moment in women’s sports history. That 94 percent of women in American C-suites say they played sports as girls, and that collegiate athletes like me had their education paid for because of Title IX, is evidence of its generational impact.

In the ’80s, King’s career slowed down, featuring fewer titles and some business calamities, and her life was upturned by a palimony suit filed by a former female lover.

King’s outing, along with costing her millions in sponsorships, set in motion a period of deep introspection and allowed her to finally deal with lifelong struggles with eating disorders and internalized homophobia, and it also seems to have clarified for her the need to battle the sport’s elitism in a more tactical and intentional way.

When she was a young girl, her dust-ups with the tennis establishment at the stuffy and exclusionary Los Angeles Tennis Club — over everything from sexist dress codes to racist door policies — had irritated the working-class kid, and while she might not have had a road map, exactly, for what shape her future activism would take, she definitely saw the road.

“There was this gap between what I thought I was capable of and the world as it was,” King writes. “I saw that gulf clearly. I was less sure how to breach it.”

Her continuous fight to be included — and her instinct to include others in the fight — made her a force in real time. But it’s from these years in the wilderness when she took stock — particularly following the deaths of ultimately close friends like Ashe and Riggs — that King began to put a

“All In: An Autobiography”

by Billie Jean King with Johnette Howard and Maryanne Vollers (Alfred A. Knopf, 2021; 482 pages)

Her continuous fight to be included — and her instinct to include others in the fight — made her a force in real time.

contemporary activist framework around her trailblazing.

Her efforts in the decades since, from advising the ’99ers — the U.S. women’s national soccer team, which turned its victory in the 1999 World Cup into a viable professional league — to defending LGBTQ rights, work that was recognized by Obama with a Presidential Medal of Freedom, have been defined so much by her activism that it’s easy to take her for granted, and easy to assume that someone is ready to take her place.

“I’ve told people if I die right now I’d be really ticked off because I’m not finished,” she writes, scanning the horizon. “Time is running out for real, and I’ve always had a sense of urgency.”

Despite a resurgence in recreational popularity and huge money at the top of the ecosystem, tennis is at a crossroads: Equity, parity and inclusion are still not always the priority. The absence of a clear new leader means that King must view her work as imperiled. With the sport currently in turmoil over player unions, the lack of a viable domestic violence policy, a vociferous battle over press obligations and rumors of venture capital at the gates, ready (for better or worse) to buy it all up, King’s book arrives with the same exquisite timing that has defined her style of play as well as her life.

It’s easy work to be a former champion, easier still to be a legend — after all, the job requirements are nothing beyond showing up. But it’s not easy to be an activist, and it’s certainly not easy to commit your life to pushing the world closer to how you want it to be. “All In” reads as a manifesto, like “Letters to a Young Poet” with a heavy dash of bell hooks. Billie Jean King is not done yet, but as she says here, “If you’re in the business of change, you have to be prepared to play the long game.”

Her book is a powerful rallying cry, in a life full of them, for how she hopes we play the game after she’s gone.

Thompson wrote this for The New York Times.

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THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

WHAT’S NEW

“Poet Warrior: A Memoir” by Joy Harjo (W.W. Norton & Co.): A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, Harjo is the first Native American poet laureate of the United States.

Her second memoir (after “Crazy Brave”) blends personal journey with cultural meaning, weaving in stories from her ancestors that shaped her growth as an artist and teacher. The result is as strong and lyric as her poetry.

“On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint” by Maggie Nelson (Graywolf Press): The author of “The Argonauts” explores the idea of freedom as it relates to the worlds of art, sex, drugs and climate. If that sounds heady, it is, yet Nelson’s care and rigor in fully exploring a concept we all think we know make her essays mind-altering.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERS Fiction 1. “The Madness of Crowds”

by Louise Penny (Minotaur) 2. “Billy Summers” by Stephen King (Scribner) 3. “The Last Thing He Told Me”

by Laura Dave (Simon & Schuster) 4. “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois”

by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper) 5. “Lightning Strike”

by William Kent Krueger (Atria) 6. “The Midnight Library” by Matt Haig (Viking) 7. “The Noise” by James Patterson and J.D. Barker (Little, Brown)

CHRIS WOJDAK COURTESY OF BEN JOHNSON

Author Ben Johnson wraps up the Webworld trilogy with his latest novel, “Children of the Web.”

8. “Complications” by Danielle Steel (Delacorte)

Local club owner and musician Ben Johnson completes his Webworld trilogy, a fantasy thriller series set in familiar locations around San Diego

9. “The Paper Palace”

by Miranda Cowley Heller (Riverhead)

Weaving a web

10. “Bloodless” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Grand Central)

Nonfiction 1. “American Marxism”

by Mark R. Levin (Threshold Editions) 2. “The Long Slide”

by Tucker Carlson (Threshold Editions) 3. “Hero of Two Worlds”

by Mike Duncan (PublicAffairs) 4. “The Reckoning” by Mary L. Trump (St. Martin’s) 5. “What Happened to You?”

by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey (Flatiron) 6. “Dopamine Nation” by Anna Lembke (Dutton) 7. “Woke, Inc.” by Vivek Ramaswamy (Center Street) 8. “The Master” by Christopher Clarey (Twelve) 9. “Greenlights” by Matthew McConaughey (Crown) 10. “Caste” by Isabel Wilkerson (Random House)

WARWICK’S TOP SELLERS 1. “People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry 2. “The Bookseller’s Secret” by Michelle Gable 3. “The Guide” by Peter Heller 4. “Vesper Flights” by Helen Macdonald 5. “The Paper Palace” by Miranda Cowley Heller 6. “The Madness of Crowds” by Louise Penny 7. “Talking to Strangers” by Malcolm Gladwell 8. “Sleeping Bear” by Connor Sullivan 9. “The Last Thing He Told Me” by Laura Dave 10. “Crying in H Mart” by Michelle Zauner

CALENDAR ADVENTURES BY THE BOOK, (619) 300-2532 Online: adventuresbythebook.com Ticketed event: Cuban Dinner Adventure, with Oliva Espín (“My Native Land is Memory”), 2 p.m. Monday.

Havana Grill, 5450 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego (in person).

Ticketed event: Inside the Author’s Studio: a Champagne and French Crepes Adventure, with Michelle Gable (“The Bookseller’s Secret”), 11 a.m. next Sunday. At author’s home (in person).

MYSTERIOUS GALAXY, (619) 539-7137 Online: mystgalaxy.com Virtual event with C.B. Lee (“A Clash of Steel”) in conversation with Tasha Suri, 5 p.m. Monday.

Virtual event with Brom (“Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery”) in conversation with T. Kingfisher, 7 p.m. Monday .

Virtual event with Amanda Jayatissa (“My Sweet Girl”) in conversation with Alyssa Cole, 6 p.m.

Tuesday In-person event with Tori Eldridge (“The Ninja Betrayed”) in conversation with Jonathan Maberry (virtual), 7 p.m. Wednesday.

Virtual event with Matthew Hart (“Ice Angel”) in conversation with Jessica Case, 7 p.m. Thursday.

WARWICK’S, (858) 454-0347 Online: warwicks.com Weekends with Locals: Lilita Zvejnieks Hardes (“A Memoir of Home, War, and Finding Refuge — Biruta’s Story”), 2 p.m. today.

Virtual event with Jeeyoon Kim (“Whenever You’re Ready: How to Compose the Life of Your Dreams”) in conversation with Susan J. Farese, 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Ticketed event: An Evening with Antoni, with Antoni Porowski (“Antoni: Let’s Do Dinner”), featuring cooking and conversation with Antoni and friends, 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Verbatim Books presents Ben Johnson

BY SETH COMBS

B

en Johnson is many things. For one, he’s the co-owner of The Casbah, the iconic rock club in Middletown where he also tends bar.

Some may know him as a local musician, performing in metal bands and satirical rap projects. Last year, he also added filmmaker to his résumé, releasing an indie thriller called “Fanboy.”

But over the last 10 years, Johnson has also found time to pen the Webworld trilogy, a series of dystopian fantasy books that take place in San Diego. Given the multiple hats he wears, plus the fact that he became a father a few years ago, it raises the question: Where does he find the time?

“You know, I just try to squeeze it in whenever I can,” Johnson says from his North Park home. “You just have to get it in, and go hard where you can.”

Even for its author, precisely describing the Webworld trilogy and the recently released third novel (“Children of the Web”) can be difficult. Such is the case with a lot of fantasy novels, but Johnson brings elements of the thriller and mystery genres into the equation. So while some readers may be intimidated by a series of books that includes talking dogs and something called the “Council of the Sacred Web,” Johnson makes it so that the reader is figuring out how his Webworld works along with its characters.

“It’s Harry Potter meets Carlos Castañeda,” says Johnson, referring to the famous

RECOMMENDED READS

When: Sept. 25: 4 p.m. book signing, 6 p.m. reading Where: Verbatim Books, 3793 30th St., North Park Admission: Free Online: verbatim-books.com

“Children of the Web”

by Ben Johnson (2021; 386 pages) series of wizard books and the late Peruvian American writer who specialized in shamanism.

“They’re magical thrillers that are also filtered through crime dramas. You have a detective who is actively figuring things out with the reader.”

So while the books follow multiple characters, it’s through that detective (Clementine Figgins) that the reader begins to understand that Webworld is still a recognizable setting where real-world rules and laws apply.

“I love crime dramas, and people interface with a cop trying to solve a case,” Johnson says. “So when you have a person, the reader, who falls into this magical world, they can identify with a character like that.”

What’s more, most San Diego readers will likely recognize many of the locations in

the Webworld series. From the canyons and golf courses around Switzer Canyon in North Park, to encountering “berserker freaks” in the shrubs around Golden Hill Park, locals will be able to easily recognize San Diego, albeit a San Diego that’s filled with roving children and talking animals. In many ways, the Webworld trilogy is Johnson’s love letter to San Diego.

“I’m hugely influenced by the city, the places and the people of San Diego, but really, the canyons really wrote a lot of the story,” Johnson says.

He first got the idea for the series after exploring the canyons around South Park and Golden Hill with his dog. He eventually decided to combine his love of these walks with his ongoing fascination with shamanism into something resembling his “own little world.”

“I’ve always loved comic books and stuff like that,” says Johnson, who cites Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman” comic series as a game-changer for him. “But I also read a lot of Philip K. Dick, and when it comes to the shamanic stuff, I really got into Carlos Castañeda. I wanted to take that idea of shamanic principles

and incorporate it into the everyday world.”

Johnson grew up in Seattle with a librarian mother and would often have to spend his after-school days among the books. Even when he grew up and began to get into music, he always wanted to try his hand at writing what he calls “gripping, action-packed, weird stuff” in the form of a novel.

Still, as is the case with most writers, the story he had in his head changed and evolved as his own life changed.

For example, he started the first book (2014’s “A Shadow Cast in Dust”) as a means to cope with a doctor telling him that he wouldn’t be able to have children.

“I had decided that writing was going to be my thing if I couldn’t have kids,” Johnson recalls. “This is what I was going to do. Then I was about halfway through the second book (2015’s “Blood Silver”) and we got pregnant. I finished just before my daughter was born.”

Even with the trilogy finished and The Casbah reopened after closing for a year, Johnson is already hard at work on other projects. He ultimately wants to make the Webworld trilogy into a television series and has started a stand-alone sci-fi thriller novel called “Second Story.” Still, when asked if he’s happy that he stuck with the trilogy, he doesn’t miss a beat.

“It’s extremely rewarding, and I’m super proud of it,” Johnson says. “I had doubts up until three months ago, but I just nailed the end of it.”

Combs is a freelance writer.

Welcome to our literary circle, in which San Diegans pass the (printed) word on books

Teri Den Herder

Jeremy Davies

Job: Buyer-bookseller, UC San Diego Bookstore

Job: Librarian I, Central Library, San Diego Public Library

She recommends: “Mrs. March” by Virginia Feito (Liveright, 2021; 304 pages) Why? Mrs. March, a proper, quiet and dutiful proud wife of a famous author, is about to unravel. While picking up desserts for a special book release party for her husband, she learns from the shopkeeper that she herself, Mrs. March, is the inspiration for the protagonist in her husband’s latest novel. This character is detestable, ugly, ignorant and awful. She begins to watch her husband closely to learn why he would base such a terrible character after her.

She snoops in his office and finds a newspaper clipping about a missing woman in the small town in Maine where her husband often visits to hunt with his editor. Does he have anything to do with her disappearance? Is he acting differently? Does she even know who he is, this man she married? As she questions everything, her perfect life crumbles around her as self-induced paranoia and insecurity take her over. She does things she knows she shouldn’t — things that go against the protocols of her proper, perfect life. Or is it just that she’s remembering who she is? And becoming this again? It’s darkly humorous, reminiscent of Hitchcock in its psychological terror and suspense, with wickedly elegant writing.

He recommends: “Little Miss Little Compton,” by Arden Myrin (Running Press, 2020; 246 pages) Why? Have you ever visited Rhode Island? Lived there? Would you guess the state helped raise one of comedy’s brightest stars? After reading “Little Miss Little Compton” by Arden Myrin, I am ready to uproot and move to Little Compton. Myrin’s parents, who married as a joke, figured this quaint farm town was where their kids could “make (their) own fun.” Quaint! As in an illiterate police chief driving around town giving the thumbs up when re-elected year after year. Fun! As in highly flammable, unsanctioned Fourth of July celebrations coming perilously close to incinerating treasured historic buildings. Myrin’s book constitutes an exquisitely haphazard collage of her coming of age with lots of humor and heartfelt honesty about life. I invite you to dive into this off-kilter gem and scream-laugh out loud, as I did. Friends may gawk, but they just don’t know they’re missing out on all of the Rhode Island fun.

THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

(Peta Sergeant) from vanquishing a familiar face from Supergirl’s past — Mr. Mxyzptlk (guest star Thomas Lennon). Mxy returns and explains Nyxly’s dark history to the super team in the best way he knows how — in song form. Meanwhile, Lena (Katie McGrath) visits her mother’s birthplace in Ireland, eager to dig into her past, but is shocked by the small town’s icy reception toward her.

B EST BE TS Sunday “Love in Translation”: Uptv, 7 p.m. Original film. Linguistics Ph.D. student Julie (Michelle Argyris) can speak almost every language, and she is a big believer that languages are best learned when doing fun activities like taking a painting class, hiking or visiting a museum. Things turn upside down for Julie, however, when handsome Dan (Corey Sevier), the curator at the museum she dreams of working at, contacts her to get some French classes, and is all about doing it the fun way. As Julie and Dan get into all the fun activities that Julie usually plans for her students, sparks soon fly.

“Celebrity Family Feud”: ABC, 8 p.m. In this hilarious new episode, actors Fran Drescher and Charles Shaughnessy from the beloved “Nanny” series reunite and battle it out for their chosen charities. In the next game, country music star Jessie James Decker, her husband, Eric Decker, and their family take on NBA basketball star Chris Bosh and his family and friends.

“The Masked Singer & Alter Ego Sneak Peek”: Fox, 8 p.m.

This special reveals the final costume for the upcoming sixth season of “The Masked Singer.” Plus, “Alter Ego’s” Nick Lachey shows viewers how motion-capture technology transforms singers into their dream characters for the new competition series.

“Fantasy Island”: Fox, 8:30 p.m. Airing on a special night, the new episode “The Big Five Oh” features a “Melrose Place” reunion as Laura Leighton, Josie Bissett and Daphne Zuniga guest-star as friends who come to the island to celebrate their 50th birthdays, but their fantasies expose cracks in their relationship.

“The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City”: Bravo, 9 p.m.

SU

ABC CBS NBC FOX CW MYTV KPBS KUSI UCSD AZTC TELE UNIV A&E AMC ANIM BET BRAVO CMT COM CTN

7:00

7:30

“American Rust”: Showtime, 10 p.m. Sunday New series. Jeff Daniels plays a complicated chief of police in a Pennsylvania Rust Belt town, where he lets his love for a local woman (Maura Tierney) compromise his line of duty.

Based on Philipp Meyer’s celebrated novel, it’s this season’s most compelling new thinker.

Season premiere. Returning for Season 2 are housewives Lisa Barlow, Mary Cosby, Heather Gay, Meredith Marks, Whitney Rose and Jen Shah.

The ladies are joined by new housewife Jennie Nguyen.

Monday “Hell’s Kitchen: Young Guns”: Fox, 8 p.m. Season finale. In tonight’s two-episode Season 20 finale, the two remaining chefs compete in their final dinner service, after which the last chef standing will win the grand prize title of head chef at Gordon Ramsay Steak at Paris Las Vegas.

off with host John Henson welcoming the competitors to Camp Devil’s Food Lake, where only their baking skills will help them survive. Each week, the bakers must create killer cakes, creepy cupcakes and more to showcase their skills in challenges that pay homage to quintessential horror films. Judges Stephanie Boswell, Carla Hall and Zac Young determine whose devilishly delicious desserts earn $25,000 and the title of Halloween Baking Champion.

“American Ninja Warrior”: NBC, 8 p.m. The National Finals conclude in Las Vegas as the remaining competitors move on to Stage 2 and beyond for their chance to win $1 million and become the next American Ninja Warrior.

“American Experience”: KPBS, 9 p.m. Discover the story of the Supreme Court’s first female justice, Sandra Day O’Connor. A pioneer who both reflected and shaped an era, she was the deciding vote in cases on some of the 20th century’s most controversial issues — including race, gender and reproductive rights.

“Halloween Baking Championship”: Food Network, 9 p.m. Season premiere. This season pays tribute to 1980s classic slasher movies, kicking

“Super Heists”: CNBC, 10 p.m. Season finale. Season 1 of this series that cracks open the case files of master thieves and the investigators

8:00

8:30

9:00

9:30

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who doggedly pursue them concludes.

Tuesday “Lego Masters”: Fox, 8 p.m.

Season finale. In the Season 2 finale episode “Master Build — Day & Night,” the three remaining teams are given the freedom to build anything their minds can envision. The twist is that the build needs to have different looks for day and night. The winning duo gets $100,000, the Lego trophy and the title of Lego Masters.

“America’s Got Talent”: NBC, 8 p.m. As Season 16 of the talent competition nears its end, finalists compete for the judges, with results determined Wednesday night.

“The Oval”: BET, 9 p.m.

Season finale. Season 2 of Tyler Perry’s drama about a first family comes to an end tonight.

“Supergirl”: The CW, 9 p.m.

Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) and team must stop Nyxly

10:30

11:00

11:30

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DISC

E25

SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

“Karen”: BET, 10 p.m. Original film. In this thriller, an entitled and racist white woman (Taryn Manning) pulls out all the stops to rid her neighborhood of a peaceful Black couple (Cory Hardrict and Jasmine Burke) who just moved in next door. Gregory Alan Williams, Lorenzo Cromwell and V. Bozeman also star.

Wednesday “Press Your Luck”: ABC, 8 p.m. Season finale. In “May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor,” host Elizabeth Banks is joined by contestants Tracy Brown (hometown: Oakland), Lee Paschen (Edwards Air Force Base) and Debbie Weiser (Los Angeles).

“MasterChef: Legends”: Fox, 8 p.m. Season finale. The “MasterChef: Legends” season concludes with a two-episode finale tonight. Chef Curtis Stone returns as a guest judge for the semifinals as three chefs battle in the appetizer round. Chef Michael Cimarusti is the guest judge as the two finalists compete for the title with entrée and dessert dishes.

“The $100,000 Pyramid”: ABC, 9 p.m. Season finale.

This week, it’s Mario Cantone vs. Laura Benanti and Joe Tessitore vs. Bridget Everett.

“Counting Cars”: History, 9 p.m. Season premiere. Danny “The Count” Koker and the crew at his car shop are back for Season 10. In the season premiere episode, “Alice Cooper Returns,” the rock icon — who left his prized 1963 Studebaker Avanti in the hands of the Count’s Kustoms crew to receive their special treatment — comes back for the reveal. Will he like the epic upgrade?

“Money Court”: CNBC, 10 p.m. Season Finale. Court will be dismissed after tonight’s episode of the series that finds experts ruling on a wide range of financial disputes concludes its first season. “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary, veteran trial attorney Katie Phang and former judge Ada Pozo preside over the cases.

Thursday “Coroner”: The CW, 8 p.m.

After a gruesome discovery at a body farm, Jenny (Serinda Swan) and Donovan (Roger Cross) unearth a small town’s tragic secrets. Meanwhile, Gordon (Nicholas Campbell) continues to court a mysterious woman, and River (Kiley May) finds an admirer.

“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”: NBC, 8 p.m. Series finale. After eight seasons across two networks, the acclaimed Andy Sambergled cop comedy comes to an end with the hourlong episode “The Last Day.” “Flipping 101 With Tarek El Moussa”: HGTV, 9 p.m. Tarek El Moussa will help a couple of Las Vegas flippers tackle the high-end L.A. housing market.

Accustomed to less complicated makeovers, the team learns their flip needs major work to bring it up to snuff for L.A. homebuyers. Meanwhile, Tarek and Heather find a great house with a beach view, but it will require significant changes to turn it into their ultimate dream home.

“Little Women: Atlanta”: Lifetime, 9:30 p.m. Season finale. Monie struggles with a big proposal from Morlin; Abira puts her relationship with Bumpman to the test; Amanda shifts her focus onto starting a family; and Tamera offers Andrea an exciting career opportunity.

“The Hustler”: ABC, 10 p.m.

Five new competitors join host Craig Ferguson in this mindbending and enigmatic game show where the MTV Movie Awards, super glue and actor John Hamm are all clues to discovering the identity of the Hustler.

“What We Do in the Shadows”: FX, 10 p.m. In the new

episode “The Casino,” the vampires take a road trip to Atlantic City, a voyage from which they may never return.

Friday “Burden of Truth”: The CW, 8 p.m. Season finale. With her legal career seemingly over, Joanna (Kristin Kreuk) begins to chart a new path for the future. Billy (Peter Mooney) gets some unexpected help in his pursuit of a new client.

With Dee’s (Victoria Turko) legal case at a dead end, Luna (Star Slade) is unsure where to turn.

“My Husband’s Secret Brother”: LMN, 8 p.m. Original film. Jackie, the heiress to her husband’s fortune after his death, finally finds love again with a plastic surgeon, Kevin.

As tragedy continues to strike around her, secrets about Kevin and her late husband’s family nefariously come to light, placing Jackie and her daughter in fear for their lives, and casting doubt on who Kevin claims to be. Stars Samantha Cope, Matthew Lawrence, Charleston Lawrence, Andrew Lawrence, Adrienne Thomas, Jolene Kim, Jennifer Taylor, Robert Davi and Joey Lawrence.

“Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making the Team”: CMT, 9 p.m. Season premiere. With more auditions and contestants than ever before, the competition is stiff and the pressure remains at an alltime high as the candidates work to perfect new technically challenging routines to impress longtime coaches Kelli Finglass (director of cheerleading) and Judy Trammell (DCC head choreographer) to earn an esteemed spot on the field.

“Cash in the Attic”: HGTV, 9 p.m. In the first of two backto-back episodes, a husband and wife with dreams of decluttering and renovating the family home they’ve acquired are overwhelmed with the collectibles that fill each room.

Courtney Tezeno and an expert appraiser will need to sort through and sell some of the items so the couple can start restoring the house and bringing it back to life.

“Tha God’s Honest Truth With Lenard ‘Charlamagne’ McKelvey”: Comedy Central, 10 p.m. New series. This weekly late-night series features Lenard “Charlamagne Tha God” McKelvey’s culturally fluent take on social issues in a variety of deep dives, sketches and social experiments that deftly unpack the most pressing topics permeating politics and culture. Redemptively comedic, refreshingly unfiltered and unapologetically Black, nothing is off limits.

“SurrealEstate”: Syfy, 10 p.m. Season finale. In the Season 1 finale, “The House Always Wins,” the Donovan House confronts Luke (Tim Rozon) and the team with their deepest losses and greatest regrets.

Saturday “America’s Top Dog”: A&E, noon. Season premiere. Season 3 of the canine competition series in which dogs, alongside their handlers, face off on a massive obstacle course to test their speed, agility, teamwork and trust returns with four back-toback, hourlong episodes.

“Outgrown”: HGTV, 8 p.m.

New series. Business partners Luke Caldwell and Clint Robertson will renovate homes for growing families in Boise, Idaho, who need more space.

“Imperfect High”: Lifetime, 8 p.m. Original film. Hanna Brooks (Nia Sioux) is the new girl in town who is looking to find her place and fit in at Lakewood High School, which was rocked a couple of years earlier by the shocking drug overdose of a popular student.

Hanna suffers from an anxiety disorder, and the move to a new school is especially stressful for her. While trying to fit in with the “it” crowd, she finds herself pulled between two boys — a bad boy with a heart of gold, and an alluring, popular rich kid who is not as straight of an arrow as he seems. Her relationship with them sweeps her into a dangerous situation that her mother, Deborah (Sherri Shepherd), must fight to save her from.

E26

SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

TRAVEL

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Noted for its rolling vineyards and the wines they produce, the Santa Ynez Valley is now also transforming into a region of high-end resorts and destination dining.

A valley elevates its profile High-end lodging and dining bring new horizons to the farmlands and vineyards of the Santa Ynez region

A

Solvang has added luxury hotels and new fine-dining options to its Danish-inspired village atmosphere. Chic destinations are also popping up in Los Olivos, Buellton and Los Alamos.

BY SAMANTHA BROOKS

bout 250 miles northwest of San Diego, the Santa Ynez Valley is home to quaint wine-tasting rooms, pastoral rolling hills and charming ranch towns — some seemingly pulled straight from spaghetti western sets. Yet most people driving north stop 30 miles short of it, in the posh coastal getaway of Santa Barbara.

Their oversight can be forgiven: Santa Barbara has always eclipsed the greater Santa Ynez area in terms of five-star resorts. And even though Alexander Payne’s film “Sideways” gave mainstream cred to the valley’s pinot noirs over 15 years ago, Napa and Sonoma remain an obvious lure for high-end oenophiles.

That’s changing. A handful of upscale resorts and destination restaurants are raising Santa Ynez’s profile enough to match the high standards of its characteristically savory-yet-aromatic pinots and strong, citrusy chardonnays, which have long drawn those in the know.

“Santa Ynez Valley is a hidden gem,” says Samuel Eisenman, vice president of Highway West Vacations, a company that has opened four hotels in the area since 2013.

Its latest, the year-old Winston, has 14 rooms with wood-beamed ceilings, brightly colored walls, velvet-upholstered headboards and Moroccan chests in the heart of Solvang. “The culinary scene has elevated over the past several years to reach L.A. caliber,” he says.

Except here, you can also do things like go horseback riding or soar over the vineyards in a glider, in between mingling with winemakers at local tasting rooms. The region has begun drawing inspectors from Michelin, who recognized multiple Santa Ynez spots in the latest edition of their guide.

Auberge Resorts is also on the verge of opening the Inn at Mattei’s Tavern. It’s housed in a 135year-old, whitewashed Craftsman SEE SANTA YNEZ • E27

DELTA SURGE CALLS FOR CONTINUED COVID-19 VIGILANCE Health experts offer tips on fall trip ideas that minimize risk

BY NATALIE B. COMPTON As summer comes to an end, but the Delta variant’s surge does not, it’s difficult for travelers to know what options they have for safe trip-planning. Travel advisories and local pandemic mandates are returning, and even Hawaii is asking visitors to stay away amid its rising coronavirus hospitalization rates. Does all of that mean we should stop traveling?

“The short answer is: It depends,” said Jessica

Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist with the COVID Tracking Project.

Although much has changed since 2020, Rivera is erring on the side of caution with travel, much like she did last year. For her, that means risk-reduction efforts such as choosing to drive instead of fly when possible, avoiding crowded settings, and researching the vaccination and hospitalization rates of potential destinations. (Rivera recommends that travelers look at the coronavirus websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or a state’s public health website.)

Travelers should ask themselves questions such as “Am I going to a place that has a decent healthcare infrastructure [so] that if something goes wrong, I’m going to be taken care of?”

Rivera said. “Are there enough people vaccinated in that area that’ll make me feel comfortable? Is it a hot spot for COVID transmission?”

To help guide your latesummer and fall travel planning further, we spoke with Rivera and five other health experts to compile safe trip ideas for the Delta variant era. Their primary message was clear: Don’t travel until you’re fully vaccinated.

Here’s their other top advice.

Unwind at a bed-and-breakfast

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Travel experts recommend driving instead of flying, where possible, to minimize contact with the coronavirus. Masks and vaccinations are also key.

As long as the highly transmissible Delta variant remains an active threat, it’s best to avoid crowds as much as possible. That makes smaller accommodation options preferable to sprawling hotels and resorts, experts say.

“With a bed-and-breakfast, they tend to be smaller capacity,” said Jaime C. Slaughter-Acey, a social epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota.

“With fewer guests, or traffic going in and out of a bed-and-breakfast, that’s fewer opportunities for you to come into contact with someone who maybe is SEE COVID • E27

THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

E27

SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

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Horses graze on grass on a ranch in Santa Ynez Valley. Horse ranches and horse riding are part of the patchwork of farmland and vineyards of the region.

SANTA YNEZ FROM E26 building that served as a stagecoach stop during the Gold Rush and a speakeasy during Prohibition. More recently, it’s functioned as a wedding backdrop for fancy Californians.

Its 6.5 acres will also include a handful of mostly new, ranch-style buildings — including several cottages and a two-story “guest house,” all designed by Santa Barbara’s DMHA architects and San Francisco’s AvroKo — that offer a combined 67 rooms. Assuming it’s anything like the company’s flagship in Auberge du Soleil, which gave Napa its first fine-dining restaurant and five-star hotel in the 1980s, the Inn stands to transform the Santa Ynez Valley into a gastrotourism mecca.

If Santa Ynez Valley has been quietly simmering for years, its growth has only been catalyzed by COVIDdriven road trippers seeking outdoorsy yet sumptuous locales. Here’s a primer of the region’s sweetest towns, coolest boutique hotels, and most ambitious farm-totable restaurants.

Getting the lay of the land

Driving from Los Angeles to the Santa Ynez Valley is easy, even by the city’s notorious traffic standards.

Once you pull off the iconic 101, it’s a scenic 45-minute drive along the mountainhugging Highway 154.

Nomenclature here can be confusing. Santa Ynez is both the valley and a town within it, and the entire winemaking region is referred to as Santa Barbara Wine Country, even though Santa Barbara is more of a gateway to the area than an actual part of it. Just as Napa is the catchall name for a series of small towns — Calistoga, Yountville, St. Helena — so too is Santa Ynez, which also contains agriculturally chic Los Olivos, quirky Buellton, Old West-style Los Alamos, and the traditional Danish village of Solvang.

And it’s not just filled with grape growers, either.

You’ll also find lavender

COVID FROM E26 COVID-positive and doesn’t know it.”

Book a rental at the beach or in the mountains

To get even more space from strangers, travelers can look for private accommodations, such as a beach house, cabin in the woods or a vacation rental in a rural setting.

“I enjoy going to a nice, private, rented beach house, somewhere you can walk to the beach or barbecue in the backyard,” said Michael Urban, a professor in the school of health sciences at the University of New Haven. “Something more quiet and isolated.”

Brian Castrucci, the president and chief execu-

DREAMSTIME

Epiphany Cellars in Los Olivos is one of dozens of wine-tasting destinations in the Santa Ynez Valley.

DREAMSTIME

Bottles of cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc await wine fans inside Vincent Vineyards and Winery in Santa Ynez. Area tasting rooms require reservations. fields, horse ranches and an abundance of crops that typically get bought up by L.A. chefs and patrons of the Santa Monica farmers market.

L.A. chefs used to come up to Santa Ynez just to visit their esteemed growers. Now they come to eat, too.

Last September, Nella Kitchen & Bar opened in a modern farmhouse on Los Olivos’ main drag. Its staples, which include fivehour tagliatelle Bolognese and Roman pinsas (flatbreads), are Italian facsimiles made almost exclusively with local ingredients — served either in an airy indoor dining room or on the spacious patio. Its creative team has clout: Chef Luca Crestanelli and partners Kathie and Mike Gordon also own Toscana in L.A.’s Brentwood neighborhood and the Santa Ynez favorite S.Y. Kitchen, where locals go for live music and rustic, wood-fired pizzas.

Solvang has perhaps the greatest concentration of new destination spots.

There’s the meat-centric Sear Steakhouse, where more than 100 varieties of vegetables, fruits and herbs

from the owner’s farm steal the show; Peasants Feast, a craft-sandwich shop whose patrons sometimes wait two hours for smash burgers and fish tacos made with hand-pressed tortillas; and the recently opened Coast Range & Vaquero Bar, which prominently features proteins from its sibling and namesake, the Coast Range ranch.

Things get edgier in Buellton, where the graffitied warehouse exterior of Industrial Eats gives way to a carnivore’s paradise. Inside, a restaurant and craft butcher shop peddles delicacies like thick cuts of bacon (by the pound or on gorgonzola-topped pizzas) and beef tongue (to make at home or eat in sandwiches). The year-old Tavern at Zaca Creek also prioritizes the nose-to-tail ethos, with dishes such as grilled bone marrow and barbecued pork collar with squash blossoms and nectarines. (There’s also a stellar cast-iron pizza topped with caviar.)

In recent years, the hardest reservation in the area has been the French bistro Bell’s, in Los Alamos. It’s soon opening an offshoot in Los Olivos called Bar Le Cote, set to offer a casual, seafood-centric menu.

tive of the de Beaumont Foundation, a public health charity, reminds travelers that they should still exercise caution when going to outdoor destinations like beaches if they’re crowded.

Be sure to keep a healthy distance from strangers.

gist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“We’ve seen a lot of people find really safe options who have rented or borrowed cars and had a vacation within a 60-mile radius” of where they live, she said.

Opt for a drivable destination

Explore New York City (yes, really)

Where to eat

While many of us tend to think of dreamy faraway places when we start vacation planning, SlaughterAcey encouraged travelers to remember that great travel opportunities often lurk closer to home — saving your family from having to fly.

“I would really think about places that are within a two- to five-hour drive,” she said.

Such shorter trips have become a trend, observed Keri Althoff, an epidemiolo-

While most health experts interviewed encouraged trips that offered plenty of distance from strangers, there was one big exception.

“I feel confident going to places like New York City, because New York City is really on top of it when it comes to vaccines, mask mandates and vaccine mandates,” Rivera said.

Rivera, who visited New York in June, said she was comforted by precautions

Where to shop

The best shops tend to be clustered on the main streets of each town, oftentimes alongside quaint general stores that look retro but generally aren’t.

In Los Olivos, Global Eye is the collaboration between wabi sabi-style ceramist Kristen Cramer and blackand-white photographer Michael Robertson, who put together a polished selection of home goods from around the world.

The plush blankets by RO Smit Studio — made by artisans with mental or physical impairments — are so chic, you could wrap one around you and wear it out of the house. Look for them at the 1,000-square-foot Santa Ynez General, which also sells minimal ceramic dinnerware and leather bocce ball sets.

It’s all about food shopping in Solvang, a town defined by its Scandinavian heritage. Founded by Danes in 1911, it even has a copy of Copenhagen’s famed Little Mermaid statue.

Pop into any of the pastry shops on and around Mission Drive for flodeboller cream puffs or aebleskivers, which are tennis-ball-shape fritters. Then hit up Cailloux Cheese Shop for an oversuch as well-enforced mask mandates at businesses, proof-of-vaccination requirements at restaurants and reduced capacity at museums.

Travelers should assess every situation as they go. If you get to a place that’s supposed to have strict coronavirus precautions but isn’t enforcing them, “I would just leave,” Rivera said. “See it for yourself and be like, ‘Do I feel safe here? Do I feel comfortable here?’ And then you make that decision.”

Hit up the great outdoors

Naturally, the experts endorse trips into nature.

“I think people have gotten pretty interested in the national parks, camping, being outside, and that’s wonderful to see, because those are important places where you’re

whelming array of locally made cheeses, olive oils, jams and chocolates — the perfect gifts to bring back home.

designed by Howard Backen, serves excellent chardonnays and pinot noirs with what may be the most idyllic view of all.

Where to drink

Where to stay

Wineries here have intimate tasting rooms and require reservations, best made over email with a few weeks’ notice. Demetria is one of the most progressive: While most of the region’s higher-end producers lean toward traditional methods, this 46-acre outfit has focused on biodynamic Rhone wines like the citrusy sparkling “Papou” (a proprietary grenache blanc blend) since its founding in 2005. It also serves award-winning pinot noirs in a whole-cluster fermentation style that tamps down sweetness.

Tucked into a canyon surrounded by rolling hills in Buellton is Alma Rosa, whose winemaker, Samra Morris, earned her pedigree at St. Supery and the Michael Mondavi Family Estate. It showcases what this region does best: minerally chardonnays, fruitforward rosés, and spiceladen pinot noirs.

The easiest one-two punch starts at Santa Ynez’s Crown Point, esteemed for its warm cabernet sauvignon, and wraps up at the award-winning Bordeaux-centric Happy Canyon Vineyard next door.

Not far away, on the north side of town, is The Hilt, whose new tasting room,

The aforementioned Winston may be the latest and most luxurious of Highway West’s hotels in the area, but it has good company in its sibling, the Vinland, which is appropriately Scandinavian given its central Solvang setting.

Ditto the Landsby, an independently owned boutique hotel, also in the Dutch town, whose style is all clean lines and soothing monochrome.

Also new and noteworthy is Hotel Ynez, which opened in March with 18 cozy rooms —they have fireplaces, mini Smeg fridges and Mascioni linens — midway between Solvang and Santa Ynez. Its highlight is a central courtyard with hammocks and roaring fire pits.

“Things haven’t even peaked yet,” says Kimberly Walker, who owns both Hotel Ynez and the nearby Skyview motel in Los Alamos.

“There’s a genuine sense of hospitality, and people who would normally visit Sonoma or Napa are realizing that and coming here instead.”

reducing your risk, but you’re also getting a break and a moment to recharge,” Althoff said.

Slaughter-Acey is contemplating packing her bike and driving to Sioux Falls with her husband for a last-minute getaway before school resumes. She also recommends considering trip ideas “that you wouldn’t necessarily make time for in everyday, normal, non-pandemic life,” such as going on a kayaking or canoeing trip.

“Use this as an opportunity to explore different vacation experiences,” Slaughter-Acey said.

home instead of sleeping elsewhere, experts noted.

“I can get up and go for a quick trip to Vermont for the day or something like that,” said Urban, who lives in the Northeast. Consider “maybe not taking those long trips or a weeklong trip. Maybe just look in your area.”

Ultimately, what you do while you’re traveling will matter at least as much as how you get there or where you stay.

“If I’m going to be traveling to go to a 200-person wedding, the problem isn’t traveling; it’s the 200-person wedding,” said Carlos del Rio, a professor of infectious diseases and global health at Emory University, in Atlanta.

“People need to be thoughtful.”

Try a day trip

Of course, traveling doesn’t have to involve a hotel or an Airbnb. Travelers can reduce their coronavirus risks further by returning

Brooks is a freelance writer.

This article appeared in Bloomberg and was provided by Tribune News Service.

Compton writes about travel for The Washington Post.

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THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE

SUNDAY • SEPTEMBER 12, 2021

THE RADY Y SHELL AT JACOBS PARK™ Tickets On Sale Now | TheShell.org Sergio Mendes with The San Diego Symphony TUES. SEPT 14 | 7:30PM

Viva Brasil! Latin music legend Sergio Mendes returns for a night of bossa nova & samba together with popular music themes and timeless hits like “Mas Que Nada!”

© & TM LUCASFILM LTD. ALL RIGHT RESERVED © DISNEY

The San Diego Symphony joins Sergio Mendes on the second half of this program.

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi – In Concert SUN. SEPT 19 | 7:30PM SAT. SEPT 18 PERFORMANCE–SOLD OUT

In the spectacular climactic sixth episode of the Star Wars saga, Return of the Jedi (1983) join Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia, as Darth Vader prepares to unleash the final blow to the Rebel Alliance. Watch the complete film on screen as the San Diego Symphony performs John Williams’ legendary score live.

Frank Sinatra and the Great Ladies of Song FRI. SEPT 24 | 7:30PM

Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra were two masters of “The Great American Songbook.” Join Capathia Jenkins, Tony DeSare and conductor Steven Reineke as they recreate the magic of Frank, Ella and other great Ladies of American Song. Hear “Come Fly with Me,” “The Lady is a Tramp,” and more. This concert features fireworks at the conclusion.

Pat Metheny Side-Eye with James Francies & Joe Dyson THURS. SEPT 30 | 7:30PM

NEA Jazz Master and 20-time Grammy® Award-winning guitar icon, Pat Metheny, presents his latest band project: Side-Eye, featuring pianist and keyboardist James Francies and drummer Joe Dyson. This concert will be performed without an intermission. The San Diego Symphony does not appear on this program.

Payare, Barnatan and Mahler FRI. OCT 8 | 7:30PM

Renowned pianist and La Jolla Music Society SummerFest Music Director Inon Barnatan performs Maurice Ravel’s sublime Concerto in G. San Diego Symphony music director Rafael Payare then leads the Orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s world-shaking “Titan” Symphony No. 1.

Program: Reinaldo Moya: Siempre lunes, siempre marzo (Always Monday, Always March) | Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major | Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Titan

Indigo Girls SUN. OCT 10 | 7:30PM

One of the most successful indie-rock duos of the 1990’s, Indigo Girls, light up the night with their passionate songwriting and unforgettable harmonies, all backed by the warm textures of the San Diego Symphony conducted by Sean O’Loughlin.

Brahms v. Radiohead FRI. OCT 15 | 7:30PM

After his huge success of “Beethoven v. Coldplay” composer/conductor Steve Hackman leads the Orchestra in his epic synthesis of Radiohead’s smash hit album OK Computer and Johannes Brahms’s soaring and melodic First Symphony. Three vocalists join the Orchestra in this unique and captivating program.

Upcoming: Song and Symphony, Chicago The Musical – In Concert, Music of John Coltrane and Lee Morgan and more!