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DEATH
VALLEY, CA 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.
Copyright© 2002 - Darrell Taylor |