The Desert

By only

Tuesday April 22, 2008

The desert is an evil, forbidding place. The plants that thrive there are prickly, and the animals, insects and reptiles that survive there are venomous and deadly. The sun is intense, and there is no solace. It cooks the earth in such a way that it radiates heat, creating an illusion of fumes emanating from its surface, obscuring the distance, turning the horizon into a gassy blur. There is hardly any water. There is hardly any shade. All that exists is an arid fervor, and the scarce forms of life that dare to live amongst it.

Man was never meant to inhabit this land, yet we insist upon it. The lure of never ending access to the radiation of the sun sends us wandering in jumbo jets and convertible cars to the manicured falseness of the cities that have managed to thrive in defiance of God’s will. Pumping in water, conditioning the air, trimming the lawns, filling the streets with the architecture of leisure and pleasure, lulling its inhabitants away from the perversity of desert life. Reno, Las Vegas, etc, etc, etc. They are not cities, they are outdoor shopping malls; playgrounds.

And so we venture into the desert, not as nomads, but as children, reborn into a fiery pit of elderly people and decadence. But while the elderly go there to die, we are going to live, and live like we never have before. Welcome to Palm Springs Week at Only Magazine.