Desert Oracle (review)

For many of us APCG folks, the desert holds a special place in our geographical hearts. While there is certainly much to be said and written in terms of arid lands research, there is always a mysterious and wondrous aspect to the desert that calls us to explore these regions and delve even deeper into their secrets. For some, it might be Coachella or the Desert Trip music festivals, or even Burning Man; it might be Joshua Tree or White Sands. For me, it was always the desert landscapes of Coconino County found in George Herriman’s Krazy Kat cartoon strip. One can always rely on a textbook to provide the academic knowledge of the desert. Sometimes, however, we need to go a little further to find the true nature of those landscapes, and for that we now have Desert Oracle magazine, the self-described “Voice of the Desert.” And what a voice it is.

Issues generally begin with an “Our Desert Friends” section, which has covered the common desert centipede (which always has an odd-numbered set of leg pairs), the ring-tailed cat (aka the “Miner’s Cat” and the official state mammal of Arizona), the great desert horned owl, and Gambel’s quail, among other desert animals. There is a “These Desert Lands” section that highlights various, little-known factoids related to our deserts: filming the new Twin Peaks, Iggy Pop jogging in Joshua Tree, creating the cover of the first X album (lots of plywood and rubber cement), how The Eagles got their name (which of course involved a variety of substances), the famous Star Trek “Arena” episode filmed at Vasquez Rock (as was the famous “Zanti Misfits” episode of the original Outer Limits) [the place is, after all, named after Tiburcio Vasquez, one of California’s “most notorious bandits”].

Then there are, of course, stories on The Great Mojave Phone Booth (760-733-9969), Roswell, Area 51, Groom Lake, the Phoenix Lights, the Krill Papers, and all kinds of other UFO stories (go to the Sedona New Age Store for a UFO Sightseeing Tour). There is a great story of NASA astronauts undergoing “desert survival training” (just in case their returning capsule missed the Pacific Ocean and landed in the desert); the mysterious Yucca Man (the California Sasquatch living in Joshua Tree National Park), and, of course, the fabled Jackalope. There are desert shaman and Dr. Curtis Springer’s Zzyzz mineral springs and the Mojave tui chub fish, “strange radio signals” (using the SW1 band of a shortwave radio, try 4078, 4089, 4096.6, 4097.25, and 6626.2), and, for Manson conspiricists, the “Satanic” legacy of the Amboy Crater.

Most issues include a profile of some sort, such as Edward Abbey and his journeys through the Southwest deserts, how the lives of beat author William Burroughs and atomic scientist Robert Oppenheimer intersected in Los Alamos, and the story of Marty Robbins’ “Gunfighter Ballads” album.

Then there are the “advice”-type stories: how to buy desert land at auction (make sure you know the Assessor Parcel Number, and look out for past liens), how to “car-trip” in the desert, and getting ready for spring (basically how to scorpion-proof your desert home).

My favorite line: “There are roadrunners and creosote, abandoned meth shacks, Mad Max characters bouncing down washboard roads in barely operable jalopies, low-altitude drones blinking in the sky by night, and towering thunderheads on a September day.”

Somehow, these words bring the desert to life much more than any textbook. Desert Oracle is paperback-sized, and each issue runs around forty pages, complete with many archival photos and maps.