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From Tropical Fantasy to Sacred Ground:
Penning the Past Offers Distinct Perspectives
July/August 2026
SOHO’s Penning the Past series continues this fall with two richly illustrated presentations exploring very different, but equally fascinating, aspects of San Diego’s cultural heritage.
From Prohibition-era bars to the elaborate tropical lounges of the postwar years, San Diego played a special role in the development of America’s Tiki and Polynesian pop culture. The style typified the marketing of San Diego as a tourist destination where visitors could recreate in a semi-tropical paradise. San Diego’s surviving Tiki buildings, some memorably embellished with burning torches, are local manifestations of this nationwide trend.
 Join author Martin S. Lindsay on September 12 for a spirited exploration of the restaurants, bars, artists, architects, and designers who gave our region its unmistakable island-inspired style. Drawing from his book, Ninety Years of Classic San Diego Tiki, 1928–2018, Lindsay will highlight the people and places behind local Tiki culture, cuisine, and design.
Lindsay, AIGA, is an art director, food historian, and board chair of the Culinary Historians of San Diego. He is also the founder of ClassicSanDiego.com, a widely recognized resource on San Diego’s culinary and cultural history. He provided research expertise and reviewed content for SOHO’s Paradise Point/Vacation Village: Mid-Century Island Escape on Mission Bay tour booklet. In 2022, he received a People In Preservation Culture Keeper Award.
 Then, on October 10, just in time for the Halloween and Día de los Muertos seasons, join Dr. Seth Mallios as he unburies how San Diego’s cemeteries reveal changing attitudes toward death and remembrance, the customs of different communities, and the effects of urban development on places once set aside for the dead.
Based on research conducted through the San Diego Gravestone Project, this illustrated lecture explores how San Diego’s historic cemeteries, resting places, and long-standing memorials tell the story of our growing city. Mallios will explain how archaeological investigation and historical research help preserve these vital records of the past, and show how our local burial grounds continue to inform our understanding of the living.
Mallios is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the South Coastal Information Center at San Diego State University. He also serves as director of the San Diego Gravestone Project and is the author, with David M. Caterino, of Cemeteries of San Diego.
Virtual presentations via Zoom are held every second Saturday of the month (except December) from 11am to noon, and advance registration is required. SOHO members attend free; admission for non-members is $10 per presentation. Register online today.
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