Features & Columns

House of Mouse

The secret history of San Jose's animatronic empire Read More

Features

Cho Time

Margaret Cho comes to the Improv amid a flurry of recent activity, and stands up against AAPI hate. » Read More

Weird Science

More than two years after the start of a global pandemic, we've learned that few things spread faster than a new coronavirus variant. » Read More

Matchless Experience

One man's first online dating experience reveals what happens when it 's too late to swipe left » Read More

Directors Chair

This month, following periods of quick turnover and tectonic shift, both Opera San Jose and the Institute of Contemporary Art announced new directors, Crucially, both come at a time when the futures of their respective arts are under great debate. » Read More

Second Life

Daniel Martinez hops out of his black Cadillac SRX and nods towards me, chatting enthusiastically on his cellphone. Around San Jose, he's known to many as the gregarious, insult-slinging battle-rapper and shit-talking podcast host Dirtbag Dan. » Read More

Silicon Alleys: At a Crossroads

As I scoped out the parking lot behind the abandoned Greyhound Station in downtown San Jose, global dimensions of history washed over me, ranging from the French Connection to the Istanbul Hilton. » Read More

Verse Chorus

That's proven true once again in the pandemic. Virtual poetry workshops sprang up in response to the physical and emotional confinement of Covid-19. The Hope Storytelling Project was one successful movement, founded during the early quarantine by two Harvard students who said they were inspired by the need "to share the therapeutic power of poetry" and "create a sense of solace and community." Vermont-based poet James Crews, co-host of an online webinar I've been attending, says that one reason poetry has provided solace this year is because it's a powerful medium for working through change. » Read More

Silicon Alleys: The Best Goal

Next week will see the 40th anniversary of a legendary goal George Best scored at Spartan Stadium when playing for the original San Jose Earthquakes in the old North American Soccer League. For decades now, journalists, biographers, commentators, coaches and fans around the world have discussed that goal, in which Best angrily went past half the Fort Lauderdale team all by himself on July 22, 1981. Millions have watched it on YouTube. I attended that game as a kid, and even I feel like I've watched it a million times. » Read More

Back to the Chateau

It's the same highway traversed by hippie mystics and dharma bums, the one Hunter S. Thompson cruised up and down on his beastly Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle during late nights of insomnia. The asphalt Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters traveled in their notorious psychedelic bus, dispensing alternate realities to unsuspecting normies with beatnik wisdom and LSD-laced Kool Aid. » Read More

Silicon Alleys: Lucky 13

In San Jose's Northside Neighborhood, I traveled from Italy to Cambodia via Mexico, Vietnam and the Caribbean, all without leaving 13th Street. The stretch of road between Backesto Park and 101, exquisite in its timeworn charm, exudes more local pride and character than anything currently getting built downtown. There is no shiny glass, no cocktail hipsters and no real estate reporters anywhere. » Read More