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Desert
Hubris in Art Form
Land artists insist on making their mark on the ancestral grounds of Indigenous people. By Jason Asenap • Photo by Adria Malcolm
High Desert Handbook
The insider’s guide to one of California’s hottest zip codes. (Seriously, it hits triple digits by 9 a.m. here.) By Stacey Grenrock Woods • Illustrations by Emily Underwood
‘This Place Belongs to You’
Joshua Tree National Park is synonymous with the desert. Yet record numbers of guests threaten to overwhelm its beauty, wildlife, and small staff. By Brad Rassler • Photos by Gregg Segal
The Desert Tortoise Defender
In the Mojave, an inventor uses lasers and drones to deter ravens. By Anisse Gross • Photos by Gregg Segal
An Ode to Desert Oracle
The brief history of “a pocket-sized field guide to the fascinating American deserts: strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros!”—and its imminent return. By Ken Layne • Illustrations by Joe Ciardiello
The Joy of a Great Desert Biker Bar
Six spots across Southern California to go hog wild—and get some delicious food, too. By Louise Farr • Photos by Tod Seelie
A Company Town Comes Back to Life
The nonprofit Blue Sky Center returns power to the people of New Cuyama. By Ed Leibowitz • Photos by Matthew Smith
The Cactus with 12 Arms
Dozens of people have been killed searching for the Lost Dutchman Mine in Arizona’s Superstition Mountains. At 93, Clay Worst is the last living connection to those who claimed to know its location. By Clay Worst as told to Geoffrey Gray • Photos by Scott Baxter
Fiction: “Oasis, California”
By Susan Straight • Illustration by Zoe Matthiessen
Living with Death Valley
Climate is making a place of extremes feel a lot more normal. By Chris Colin • Photos by Gordon Wiltsie
Proving Grounds
The desert holds its secrets—which is why it’s been an ideal place to test out what’s next. By Jessica Blough, Elizabeth Casillas, Robert Ito, and Ed Leibowitz
Pottery as Cultural Survival
Tony Soares is reviving a lost Mojave Desert Indigenous art form. By M.T. Hartnell • Photos by Gregg Segal
Soaking Up Some Wisdom
In the middle and feeling a little spent, a writer relates all too well to Desert Hot Springs. By Monica Corcoran Harel • Photos by Christina Gandolfo
THE DESERT’S MOST ICONIC POP CULTURE MOMENTS
By Robert Ito
The Drought
A road trip along the diminished Colorado River reveals the hot, dry, and terribly inevitable future of the western United States. By Rob Schultheis • Photos by Gordon Wiltsie
Books
Why I Write/Draw
By Jaime Hernandez
Why You Should Read This: Maggie the Mechanic
By David L. Ulin
The Glee of Playing with Language
By Andrew Sean Greer
Why You Should Read This: Less
By David L. Ulin
A Conversation with Isabel Allende
By David L. Ulin
Why You Should Read This: The House of the Spirits
By David L. Ulin
Yes, It’s Worth It
Doug Peacock’s writing and love of the wild continue to inspire the radical environmental movement. By Terry McDonell • Photos by Scott Baxter
Culture
Mike Henderson’s Personal Renaissance
Now late in his career, the Bay Area artist is seeing his paintings praised as much for their craft and creativity as for their social critique and cultural representations. By Marcus Crowder • Photos by Christie Hemm Klok
Why This Art
Traveling through time with Monet’s The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light. By Raffi Kalenderian
Take That, Guggenheim!
Architect Thom Mayne’s new home for the Orange County Museum of Art is a head-spinning force of nature. By Joseph Giovannini • Photos by Tom Bonner
Poetry: “Teach Your Children to Remain Small and Invisible”
By James Cagney
Fiction: “Jimmy”
By Peter Orner • Illustrations by Victor Juhas
Trailblazer: Alec Foster
Making gun violence everyone’s problem. By Jessica Klein • Photo by Dustin Snipes
In Every Issue
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: THE CALL OF THE DESERT
By Will Hearst