Out In This Desert
When I’ve talked about the desert in various settings over the years—with family and friends, in academic contexts, with strangers outside of the desert—I’ve heard the same remarks time and again about the unviability of the landscape, the loneliness, the emptiness, the desolation. But there is a lot more to the desert that lies just east of LA than one might gather by simply listening to these kinds of conversations what construct the desert as empty space. The desert isn’t a costume. It isn’t a getaway.