THOMAS LARSON

(River Teeth May 10, 2024)

1 / One thing we learn from the later-in-life memoir, or the personal essay writ long, is that it allows us to see the many digressive routes we’ve followed only after a good deal of life has resulted in our “ending up” on any one of these routes, a place much different than where we thought we’d be. Soren Kierkegaard spoke of living life forward, understanding it in retrospect, and Carl Jung said, “One finds one’s destiny on the path one takes to avoid it.” Fate never fails us; it’s got our welfare in mind, but bugger that it is, won’t reveal the plot until, well, it’s time. Because of our unexpected “off ramps,” we need to wait a while and then we may recognize a plan—perhaps the plan—that provides us with some sense of meaning. At times, a pattern to our directionlessness emerges, and anyone, even fools, can say it’s been predesigned. Think of Donald Trump assessing his 78 years (I know it’s a stretch) as a kind of Destiny: the TV brand, elected President on a fluke, convinced that he’s America’s Lord and Fricking Savior.

(San Diego Reader May 8, 2024)

1. No California politician gets more blame for the denigration of the migrant than Peter Barton Wilson, now 91, last century’s Mr. San Diego. In this political year, inflamed by another crisis at the border, Wilson’s name — and legacy — is newsworthy again. Was the the man an architect of anti-Latino prejudice or a champion of state sovereignty? His pertinent history begins with three years as a Marine Corps platoon leader, followed by a Yale law degree (it took him four tries to pass the bar). San Diego Union journalist Herb Klein, later President Nixon’s speechwriter, encouraged Wilson to come west, where opportunities for a Goldwater Republican abounded. After a brief stint as a criminal defense attorney, he embraced politics, a career for which he seemed born, his persona nailed by a GOP pal: “coldblooded and cleareyed.” Wilson won every seat he ran for in the Golden State, except for one loss in the Republican primary for Governor in 1978. Even so, from 1966 to 1999, he was always in office: state assemblyman, San Diego mayor, two-term California Senator and two-term Governor. When Wilson retired in 1998, he’d proven himself a perennial winner, sunsetting with a 55 percent approval rating. This despite his great failure — Proposition 187.

(Assay April 1, 2024)

1 / My partner and I have seen many therapists over the years of our longtime commitment. We know such tune-ups are critical for our relational health; she’s a therapist herself, and I’m always willing. During sessions, we are reminded to practice what’s called “looping”—listening to the other and then repeating what was said. “I hear her saying that she’s sick to death of my grumpy moods in the morning and, what’s more, she’d like to have one day a week where we get out of the ‘damn house’ and do something fun.”

(Zero Readers March 31, 2024)

I’ve been on a journey the past five years that some writers who come tantalizingly close to publication know all too well. From 2018-2022, I worked on a novel, paid thousands to a professional editor, another thousand for a lawyer’s opinion of my legal liability, and landed a big-time agent whose name will be familiar to most authors in Southern California. As I went, I cut a seven-hundred-page monster down to four-hundred with solid guidance from the New York editor and the all-star agent. They read long drafts, suggested sizeable changes, pushed me to drop characters and deepen scenes, and commended my rewrites. I treasured the agent’s encouragement and tenacity, in particular.

(Ilford Review March 22, 2024)

1 / It took listening into my seventh decade as a musician and a critic, my life’s crossover passions, to arrive at the purest listening experience of classical music I have ever had; highlights of Sergei Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet (1938) and, in full, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony (1937), performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and led by the Czech conductor, Jakub Hrůša, at the Konzerthaus in Vienna. Surely I am not the first to have been so moved by these twentieth-century Russians in Vienna’s music halls, I thought. That feeling had previously alluded me as an American whose seated anticipation in stateside venues had seldom measured up to what I hoped it would.

(Times of San Diego March 3, 2024)

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how public spaces (trolleys, airports, music venues) no longer feel public, but temporarily accommodate people (us) who isolate and seem wholly removed from even looking at others—a club whose members are linked via their disconnection. Weird, I know. As if bus riders and plane passengers are hiding some secret (drug runners or deadbeat dads) or else feel guilty for a cultural misstep they’ll be canceled for.

(San Diego Reader February 14, 2024)

Many fathers, including myself, know the feeling: a strange and heady mix of joy, wonder, and fear, brought on by the first meeting with our progeny. We went into the hospital as supportive partners for our laboring women. We emerged as parents. We drove mother and baby home and helped get kiddo settled: cuddled, kissed, swaddled, and tucked into the crib. Then we surveyed the scene, marveled at our handiwork, took a deep breath, and said — possibly out loud, but to no one in particular — what the fuck do I do now?

Justin Lantzman is the 39-year-old president of a Sorrento Valley lending company. He knows the feeling; he can still recall the sudden joy and discomfort of the birth-day, six years ago. As we sit in his spacious, windowed office, he recounts that he and his wife — five years younger and an equestrian — were “resigned” never to have kids. (By design, all spouses and children will go unnamed here.) A semi-posh life, no money woes, but then, upon retiring from sport, she — they — suddenly wanted to get pregnant. There was fear involved with a later, riskier pregnancy, but that abated with a doctor’s OK. “We got into the pregnancy,” Lantzman says. “We had a good time.”