One evening, I sewed a teensy Santa hat out of scraps of felt. The next day, I bribed our tortoise to sit still with one of his favorite meals–sweet potato. (He didn’t realize he was being bribed; I believe he thought he was having lunch.) I set my camera to high-speed and clicked away. The hat dropped off every time he dipped his head for another beak full of sweet potato goodness. Guess I forgot to measure his head properly before sewing his chapeau.

More than a month later, I decided to clean out some photos and saw the many photos of Hermes (did I mention our red-footed tortoise is named Hermes?) in action and decided to accomplish a small but long thought-about goal: Learning to make an animated gif. So, in honor of the holiday season–which apparently lasts until Groundhog Day–I present Hermes the Wonder Tortoise chowing down on sweet potatoes. Merry Tortoisemas!

House of Mystery, Vol. 2: Love Stories for Dead People

By Matthew Sturges, Luca Rossi and Jose Marzan Jr.

Read September 2011

Lovecraft said that the oldest and strongest type of fear is fear of the unknown. And he was an authority on such matters.

But that’s not exactly it, is it?

We like the unknown. We’re hunky dory with the unknown. We are, in fact, perfectly thrilled with the unknown–as long as it remains unknown and we never have to think about it.

What we’re really afraid of is that the unknown will stand up and demand to be recognized. That it won’t get out of the way quickly enough and we’ll step in it, all squishy and moist.  We’re terrified at night in the dark that the rough, slouching unknown will crawl into bed and give us a hot wet kiss on the neck.

We’re not afraid of the unknown. We’re afraid of the unknown becoming known.

(Note: I have decided to write down sections or quotes from books that I read as another way of remembering them. [In addition to Goodreads; inspired by Mighty Girl.] This is a long one. I decided to re-read American Gods before we saw Neil Gaiman’s live appearance in late June. It’s taken me this long to finish the book. I blame Game of Thrones, the new Sookie Stackhouse book, and laziness. American Gods was worth the re-read.)

American Gods

By Neil Gaiman

Read June-August 2011 (first read 2001 or 2002)

There was a girl, and her uncle sold her, wrote Mr. Ibis in his perfect copperplate handwriting.

That is the tale; the rest is detail.

There are accounts that, if we open our hearts to them, will cut us too deeply. Look–here is a good man, good by his own lights and the lights of his friends: he is faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music that plays in the background to pacify them; he advises the Jews not to forget their identification numbers as they go into the showers–many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes when they come out of the showers. This calms the Jews. There will be life, they assure themselves, after the showers. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens; and if there is anyuthing he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he truly a good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy as the earth is cleansed of its pests.

There was a girl, and her uncle sold her. Put like that it seems so simple.

No man, proclaimed Donne, is an Island, and he was wrong. If we were no islands, we would be lost, drowned in each other’s tragedies. We are insulated (a word that means, literally, remember, made into an island) from the tragedy of others, by our island nature, and by the repetitve shape and form of the stories. The shape does not change: there was a human being who was born, lived, and then, by some means or another, died. There. You may fill in the details from your own experience. As unoriginal as any other tale, as unique as any other life. Lives are like snowflakes–florming patterns we have seen before, as like one another as peas in a pod (an have you ever looked at peas in a pod? I mean really looked at them? There’s not a chance you’d mistake one for another, after a minute’s close inspection), but still unique.

Without individuals we see only numbers: a thousand dead, a hundred thousand dead, “casualties may rise to a milion.” With individual stories, the statistics become people–but even that is a lie, for the people continue to suffer in numbers that themselves are numbing and meaningless. Look, see the child’s swollen, swollen belly, and the flies that crawl at the corners of his eyes, his skeletal limbs: will it make it easier for you to know his name, his age, his dreams, his fears? To see him from the inside? And if it does, are we not doing a disservice to his sister, who lies in the searing dust beside him, a distorted, distended caricature of a human child? And there, if we feel for them, are they now more important to us than a thousand other young lives who will soon be food for the flies’ own myriad squirming children?

We draw our lines around these moments of pain, and remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us. They are covered with a smooth, safe, nacreous layer to let them slip, pearllike, from our souls without real pain.

Fiction allows us to slide into these other heads, these other places, and look out through other eyes. And then in the tale, we stop before we die, or we die vicariously and unharmed, and in the world beyond the tale we turn the page or close the book, and we resume our lives.

A life that is, like any other, unlike any other.

To get there, you take Mt. Baldy Road up the mountain, past Mt. Baldy Village, through the twisty switchback section, and then up to the north end of the Manker Flat campground. It’s only about nine miles from the top of Claremont, and perhaps 12 miles from the 210 freeway. Park on the street near the end of the campground–you’ll see cars there, two portable toilets, and a road across from Manker Flat. The road is the path to the Falls. (Note: You are supposed to purchase a $5 Adventure Pass to park here.)

I hiked here once before, about 12 years ago. I remembered it was simple–you literally walk up a paved road, off of which are two houses. I did forget how steep the walk is. My calves were crying. But we made it. At the end, there is a little bridge with a wonderful view. You can continue on, following a dirt path that leads up and around to the bottom of the Falls, where you can dip your toes in the still very cold water. (There seems to be one path heading straight down; don’t go there.) One section of the path is a little precarious, but most people could traverse it, including an older couple with a dog and a family with a small child. Just make sure to bring shoes that can get wet, some water to drink, a camera and perhaps a towel.

Afterward, we treated ourselves to very delicious and inexpensive nachos at Mt. Baldy Lodge. All in all, a lovely way to start a weekend.

I rarely go to book signings. In fact, I’ve gone to just two: Anne Rice (age 17) and Tom Robbins (age 25). I always fear there will be a giant line and it will not be worth the hassle. But, as this was a ticketed event about an awesome book by an awesome author hosted by an awesome comedian, well, it seemed too awesome to pass up. (You could actually pay more for a signed book, but I passed it up.)

I’ll only note a couple of things about the event: First, Neil Gaiman is such a rock star! Seriously, the girls AND the boys were squealing when he came out on stage, dressed typically in all black with his disheveled hair. His pairing with Amanda Palmer really does make sense.

Secondly, he finally answered a question I had always wondered about: Why the hell does an English goth-y fantasy fiction writer who is pretty much a rock star live in freakin’ Minnesota? Answer: Because when he moved there in the early ’90s, he could afford an Addam’s Family-style abode. Fair enough.

Lastly: the reading. Gaiman mentioned that in a previous San Francisco show, they read a section of American Gods specifically set in San Francisco. I had started to re-read the book a few weeks before the event (and still need to finish it). I immediately thought…no way are they going to read the Los Angeles part of American Gods, which is a very explicit, sexy and disturbing scene involving a goddess hooker. And, oh, yes, they read it–and read it with gusto! It was the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a long time. Tears were shed. Oswalt played the shlubby john. Robin Williams’ beautiful daughter Zelda played the goddess, while Gaiman narrated. And Oswalt pantomiming being sucked into a goddess’s nether regions is not an image I’m likely to ever forget.

One final note: The Saban Theatre is gorgeous! My photos don’t do it justice. Here are some better photos.

So, the Salton Sea: Around the turn of the 20th century, the Colorado River flooded and sent water streaming into a basin in the Imperial Valley. Then, in the 1930s, Hoover Dam was built and cut off the inflow of water, except from agricultural runoff. In 2003, San Diego struck a deal to obtain that agricultural runoff. So now, the Salton Sea doesn’t have an outflow (never did) or an inflow. Thus, Salton Sea is pretty doomed. The water also has an extremely high salinity, higher than sea water.

Every summer, the extreme heat causes conditions that result in massive fish (mostly tilapia) die-offs. When you walk on the beach, you’re not walking on shells but the bones of dead fish. It’s creepy as hell and feels toxic, but the reasons are fairly natural. People still fish there and it’s said the fish are fine to eat, if cooked properly. The Salton Sea is also home to so many birds, it is considered a sanctuary.

In the 1950s, Salton Sea was sold as a Palm Springs with water and beachfront property. Houses and resorts were built; plots sold. But it didn’t take. Today, the few cities along the eastern coast feel half-abandoned. One is even walled off from the water, due to flooding in the ’80s. Much like Slab City, you feel like kind of a jerk for staring, but it’s hard to look away when half the houses are just empty shells.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Salton Sea, I would recommend this amazing video from Mental Floss, the Wikipedia page, and the full-length documentary Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea, narrated by John Waters.

When I first went there in 2008, my best friend and I had fun exploring an abandoned resort in North Shore. Turns out, it was the major resort in the area, the North Shore Beach and Yacht Club, built in 1962 by modernist architect Albert Frey, who also created the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Valley Station and gas station. It was in use until 1984.

I kept trying to figure out where the building went. It was open to the elements, full of graffiti and bird poo and trash. There was an empty swimming pool overlooking the Salton Sea. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that the newish, but closed-in-summer, Salton Sea Museum was the same building, but it is. In just the three years since I visited prior, it’s been completely renovated.

On the way home, we stopped by the dinosaurs in Cabazon. We are perpetually saddened that creationists took over the dinosaurs and are trying to rewrite history and science. It’s also disappointing that the dinosaurs no longer loom over the 10 the way they did when we were kids. So much has been built around them–a Burger King, a defunct Denny’s I once slept behind on the way home from Coachella–they don’t stand out so magnificently as they once did. But it’s still worth the visit because, well, they’re giant fake dinosaurs! (There’s a new Robotic Dinosaur Museum there, too, but we didn’t visit. Has anyone gone? Report back!)

To see the dinosaurs in their 1980s glory, watch the video for “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears. Or rent Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure!

To get to Salvation Mountain, you have to head off the 10 freeway down the 111, which begins in the Indio/Coachella area, winds around the eastern edge of the Salton Sea and then heads straight south through the agriculture fields of Imperial County and on down to Mexico. As you pass the Salton Sea, you enter Niland, California, a tiny near-abandoned town that’s literally about six blocks square.

Google Earth map of Salvation Mountain and Slab City

Outside of Niland is Slab City, which is an empty spot of desert punctuated with concrete slabs left over from a World War II miltary base. Residents have been squatting in RVs, campers and buses in this area with no electricity or running water for dozens and dozens of years. The ranks swell in winter when the snowbirds land.

From a rather sad 2004 New York Times article:

Slab City is not so sinister as it is a strange, forlorn quarter of America. It is a town that is not really a town, a former training grounds with nothing left but the concrete slabs where the barracks stood. Gen. George S. Patton trained troops here. Pilots of the Enola Gay practiced their atomic mission, dropping dummy bombs into the sea.

The land belongs to the state, but the state, like the law, does not bother, and so the Slabs have become a place to park free.

We drove through Slab City, but didn’t stop or take photos, except for a sign leading in. It feels invasive to do so, like you are staring at impoverished (or perhaps just nomadic) seniors as if they were circus freaks. That being said, there are some really cool art vehicles out there baking in the sun. There’s a hippie feel here; you sense that Slab City resembles an intentional community, but its residents might might shoot you if you call them that “H” word.

What we really came for is right past the Slab City sign but before the actual slabs: Salvation Mountain. I visited this giant art site about three years ago and it’s not hyperbole to say the experience is incredibly inspiring and I’ve been wanting to go back ever since. I couldn’t get Leonard Knight out of my mind.

He came to Slab City in 1984 and never left. The first mountain he made to spread his love of God collapsed and he learned lessons from it, building the second mountain out of adobe and hay (rather than random junk) and then covering it with donated house paint. It’s now several stories tall and carries basic religious messages like “God is Love.” There are all sorts of nooks and crannies and alcoves. Walking inside the main structure (which is separate from the mountain) is like walking into a church, if that church was built as a nest by a giant bird who then dipped it in a rainbow. It’s fairly indescribable.

I’m not a religious person whatsoever, but he is not someone who pushes that on you. He just radiates a joy and purpose and passion for his art. Although Salvation Mountain is basically squatting too, the structure is recognized as a national treasure in the Congressional Record and by the Folk Art Society of America.

Unfortunately, we were not able to meet Leonard Knight again this trip. Apparently he retires to an air-conditioned place in Niland during the hotter part of the day (it was more than 100 when we visited), which is good as he’s around 80. For the next visit, we need to get started earlier.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate the deeply weird places that only seem to exist in the desert. I’ve even had many a fantasy of buying my grandparents’ old place, a wonderful four-acre ranch, reimagining it as some sort of bizarro art retreat.

This past weekend, we went on a brief tour of some of these deeply weird places: namely, Pioneertown, Salton Sea and Salvation Mountain (with a quick stop at the Cabazon dinosaurs).

In 1946, investors from Hollywood discovered a swatch of land north of Yucca Valley (which is right next to the splendid Joshua Tree) and began building an old west town called Pioneertown to use for filming western films and TV shows like The Cisco Kid, Annie Oakley, and The Gene Autry Show. Folks bought houses that doubled as sets, while others lived in the local motel, which I read was built as one giant log cabin. It’s still open and offers corrals for horse owners and themed rooms. The Pioneer Bowl bowling alley was built in 1947 and is supposedly one of the longest-running bowling alleys in California. People still live in Pioneertown and every Saturday there is a Wild West show. (I would link to it but, oh my god, the audio on that site. Gunshots!)

One of the most vibrant businesses in town is Pappy and Hariet’s Pioneertown Palace, an enormous restaurant and concert venue–really, it’s a roadhouse–with a wonderful array of outdoor seating. About two and a half hours from Los Angeles, the venue attracts some national touring acts as well as tons of local talent. There are stages both indoors and outdoors.

All this is a set up to say: We saw Peter Murphy there. The lead singer of Bauhaus. At a cowboy restaurant in a pretend-turned-real cowboy town in the middle of nowhere. The king of goth. This fantastic, amazing man.

Did I mention the desert is deeply weird?

We arrived around 9:30 p.m. after checking into our hotel in Yucca Valley–a Super 8 that was about $50 cheaper than the Pioneertown Motel. I think it would have been worth the extra dough to stay in the ’40s era motel just a dusty walk away from the venue. But, getting back to the story, we had a look Pappy & Harriet’s, following the outside patio area in giant half circle to end up “backstage” and standing about 10 feet away from Mr. Murphy himself.

The show started quickly and we found a prime spot on the side of the stage, about 10 feet from Peter Murphy. It was absolutely fantastic. I may have teared up when he played guitar on “A Strange Kind of Love” and it morphed into “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” (Shut up.) And he was just in prime form.

We’ve seen Bauhaus a number of times over the years since they’ve reformed and he always seems so cranky, just pissed off to have to be there (especially when playing during the early evening at that Peaches/Bauhaus/Nine Inch Nails show a few years ago at Irvine Meadows). I’m not sure if that’s a persona he’s playing up or he’s just that much more happy as a solo artist. But he was joking with the crowd, flirting, really goofing around, in addition to his typical rock-star swaggering and dancing. And he played a perfect amount of Bauhaus songs. (And no “Cuts You Up!”) It was such a great show, I would go see him again next weekend if I could.

I also hope to return to Pappy & Harriet’s for another show sometime soon. I’m holding out hope for Gram Rabbit, another strange desert fixture from nearby Joshua Tree.

Some videos from the venue:

• Cracker and Camper van Beethoven do annual three-day campouts there. One is coming up in September!
• Arctic Monkey’s performing Nick Cave and the Bad Seed’s “Red Right Hand“
• Some of the Peter Murphy show! (I think this was filmed in the exact spot I stood in later. Weird. And yes, this is song that made me go all goosebump girly.)

Since we arrived in the pitch-black dark at Pioneertown, we realized we had to return in the morning to see what the town actually looked like. And so we did! (I’ll post an entry soon about the rest of our weekend in the desert.)

Edited to add: I just found this quote by artist James Turrell. He’s an alum of my work, and we have a Skyspace on campus. But, the quote is apropos: ”It has this strange power,” said Turrell about the desert. “I used to think that only people who were crazy were attracted to the desert but once you’ve lived there you become that way anyway.”

I visited from Long Beach, which meant I had a good excuse to drive over the very high Vincent Thomas Bridge, which connects Terminal Island (speaking of weird urban places) and San Pedro. I spent a lot of time driving around that area when I was a kid because my dad was a truck driver and often worked out of Long Beach. But I never did drive over the bridge myself until Sunday.

To get to the Sunken City, you enter via Point Fermin Park in San Pedro, near the end of Paseo Del Mar, which is the street that broke off into the ocean. I figured out where to slip under the fence–where a previous explorer has dug a very large hole–from Yelp.

(I do wish I had paid a little more attention to the surrounding attractions–the Point Fermin Lighthouse dates to 1874 and you can take a tour, the Korean Bell of Friendship is just up the road, and I haven’t visited Ports O’ Call since I was a kid. This just means I have to go back.)

The initial walk to the cliffs is a bit heart-pounding as you are out in the open and officially trespassing, but once you find the path down the cliff, you are more hidden. I admit I am such a wuss that I hid under trees a couple of times when I thought helicopters or harbor patrol boats could see me. I didn’t want a ticket or to be kicked out! But I many photos, did not fall into the ocean, and escaped unscathed.

The primary residents of the area seem to be kids partying, graffiti artists, squirrels and birds. Almost every inch of broken concrete is covered in paint. Much of the artwork was really nice and the colors brilliant, but the amount of trash left behind–broken glass, spray paint containers, a Starbucks cup, a condom box–was disappointing. Still, the Sunken City offers exactly what one would expect: the thrill of being somewhere you are not allowed and a glimpse at a post-apocalyptic landscape that nature has swallowed up and people have abandoned.

We looked everywhere...couldn't find them.

We had three main reasons for visiting Santa Cruz: The Mystery Spot, the Bigfoot Museum, and vampires. We were sadly disappointed in the latter two. The Bigfoot Museum is closed on Tuesdays, the main day we were there, and we didn’t spot any bloodsuckers.

The Mystery Spot, however, was great. It’s like that funny shack at Knott’s Berry Farm on steroids and surrounded by lovely redwoods. And they give you a sticker! Be warned: If you want the secret to stay a secret until you visit, skip my photos below.

Such brilliant viral marketing

Later, we walked from our hotel, the Coastview Inn (nothing fancy but in a great location and fairly cheap), along the Boardwalk, through this great pathway that follows a train bridge, to Engfer Pizza Works. Aaron was able to enjoy pizza with vegan cheese. I ordered the Ace’s Wild (red onions, feta, roasted red bells, cashews, pesto) because of a recently uncovered memory of my mom’s obsession with cashews on pizza. The obsession is worthy. It’s delicious. And we all enjoyed lots of beer.

We returned fairly early to check out the Boardwalk…which had closed. What? It was the weekend before Memorial Day but we were still shocked that it would close by 6, even on a weekday. We popped into the arcade, but it was a little pathetic. The place felt deserted. We finally walked down the pier, so as not to return to our room too early. The pier offered beautiful views and some seal friends.

The next day we found more vegetarian food at Dharma’s. It’s a bit hippied out and seemed expensive until we saw our food. The servings were enormous and everything was tasty as heck. I had the Mole Burrito (Beans, soy chicken, onions, potatoes and red bell peppers all in a traditional mole sauce with cheese, sour cream, tomato, avocado and chips) and I believe Aaron ordered the monstrous-sounding 3 Dog Morning Burrito (Scrambled tofu, potatoes, onions, tofu hot dog, jalapenos, red bell peppers and mushrooms).

After just about 24 hours in Santa Cruz, the highlights were the Mystery Spot, the food, and the winding and gorgeous drive into town. I don’t think I’ll feel the need to return any time soon (well, maybe to go to the Bigfoot Museum), but it was worth the detour.