DEATH VALLEY, CA
ZABRISKIE POINT, FURNACE CREEK, STOVEPIPE WELLS

My first memory of Death Valley involves a flat tire east of Stovepipe Wells at 2:00 AM in the summer of 1956. It was the first time a gun was ever pointed at me (by a sleepy service station attendant we'd awakened--just his idea of caution). This time F and I had lunch in Furnace Creek's only restaurant (380 feet below sea level) after a short hike up the hill at Zabriskie Point--my homage to Antonioni, whose flawed film of the same name proved that Italian directors work better when they speak the language of the film. Though Angela Davis added Marxist gravity to the work, and though the orgy sequence in the sandy desert and super-slo-mo conflagration and explosions to Pink Floyd music at the end are unforgettable, the film never touched me as strongly as this landscape does.

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Copyright© 2002 - Darrell Taylor