Cynicism and Sentiment In The Desert
Ed Abbey wrote that “sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” He had a fair point. Sentiment devoid of the power that passion brings accomplishes little. Sentiment without action, sentiment...
View ArticleThe Desert Is Not Your Blank Canvas
When artist André Saraiva defaced a boulder in Joshua Tree National Park in February, he was acting out a deadly dull conformity wrapped in a mantle of phony creativity. And he’s got a lot of company.
View ArticleThe Central Valley’s Second Coming
If the agricultural one percent in California’s Central Valley are going to keep casting even the smallest concern for wild things as “extreme environmentalism,” we might as well just become extreme...
View ArticleNapping In the Belly Of The King
Chris goes in search of longevity in the desert, and he finds it, but not for him. The story of a visit to the oldest known creosote bush in the Mojave Desert, and some predictable rumination and...
View ArticleTime, Flood, and the Migration of Desert Trees
On a long-ago summer, Chris watches storms cleave the desert, and reflects on the mother of all desert separations — one that carved an entire species into two new nations. An excerpt from his...
View ArticleGot Back to Where I Still Belong
It was a really tough year. But it was joyous. It was sublime. I would leave my little house at sunset and nighthawks would swoop through the violet air, and I would feel removed from my...
View ArticleA Landscape of Shattered Bones
Natural selection is usually described as the "survival of the fittest," but talking about survival misses the point. The biological diversity we treasure is about differences, and those differences...
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