strange-geographies

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Strange Geographies: The Mojave Desert's Airplane Graveyard

I thought it was a mirage the first time I saw it. I was driving through the wastes of the Mojave Desert, two hours from anywhere, when off in the shimmering distance appeared the silhouettes of a hundred parked jetliners. I pulled off and tried to get closer to them, but a mean-looking perimeter fence keeps onlookers far away. All I could do was stand and stare, wondering what the hell this massive armada of airplanes was doing here, silently baking in the 110 degree heat. For years afterward I'd ask... READ ON

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Strange Geographies: The Watts Towers

Los Angeles doesn't have a Statue of Liberty. It can't boast an Eiffel Tower. But we do have one monument unlike anything else in the world: the Watts Towers. Built between 1921 and 1954 by an Italian immigrant named Simon Rodia -- in his backyard, with a window washer's tools and no special equipment -- they're among the United States' best and most famous examples of vernacular art. (Another is Leonard Knight's Salvation Mountain, just a few hours away in the desert, which I did a photo essay about... READ ON

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Strange Geographies: OIL! in L.A.

Most people aren't surprised to hear that Los Angeles is one of the top oil-consuming areas in the country. But fewer people realize that it's also among the nation's top oil-producing areas, as well. Back in the old days -- when Edward Doheny struck oil near downtown LA in 1892 and Shell Oil discovered an enormous oil field beneath Signal Hill in the 20s -- parts of the city were literally forested with hundreds upon hundreds of oil derricks. In 1923, California produced a whopping 1/4th of the world's... READ ON

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Strange Geographies: Iraq in San Diego

In the 70s, Stu Segall made porn movies. In the 80s he became a mini-mogul, building a studio in an industrial part of San Diego where he began producing low-budget movies and TV shows like Silk Stalkings. After 9/11, he built a mock Iraqi village in a neglected corner of the backlot, rarely used by film crews but frequently filled with marines, thousands of whom have run through intense training exercises there. I was at the studio for a few days last week to work on the set of a friend's film (not... READ ON

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Linda Vista Revisited: East LA's Abandoned Hospital

Last year, while scouting for a short film that never came to fruition, some friends and I talked our way inside an empty, run-down hospital in Boyle Heights. The short was supposed to take place in a hospital, but after a few minutes wandering the halls of Linda Vista -- alone and decidedly creeped-out -- it became obvious that there was no way the place would work. It had been closed for twenty years, and it showed: there was dirt caked in layers on walls and mysteriously wet floors; windows were... READ ON

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Strange Geographies: Salvation Mountain

California's Mojave Desert is an enormous, undulating swath of brown, gray and alkali white; driving through it is such a monochromatic experience that you almost feel like you could go into color withdrawal. That's why Salvation Mountain, just south of California's own Dead Sea, the Salton, is such a shock to the system. It's a man-made mountain covered in 100,000 gallons of technicolor paint, one man's 25-year project. I was lucky enough to visit with a friend last week, and this is what we... READ ON

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Strange Geographies: The Salton Sea

As someone with more than a passing interest in ghost towns, abandoned buildings and the apocalypse, the Salton Sea has long been high on my must-visit list. This week I finally had the chance to make the three-hour drive from LA, and my morbid curiosity was not... READ ON

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Strange Geographies: Exploring a WWII Shipwreck

I'd like to think I know a thing or two about the Second World War, but there's only so much you can learn from history books and Ken Burns documentaries. To really delve deep, you have to go back to the battle sites -- unfortunately, the places where many of the European Theater's famous battles were fought are now unrecognizably encrusted with development (or were cities and have long since been rebuilt). The Pacific Theater, however, is a different story: many battles were fought on water, making them... READ ON

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Strange Geographies: The Happiest Place on Earth?

In 2006, the "happy planet index" named Vanuatu, a tiny archipelago nation in the South Pacific, the happiest place on Earth. Determined to find out what all the fuss was about (and having already been to Denmark, 2008's "happiest country," and not finding it all that excessively cheerful a place), I booked a ticket and, two weeks ago, went there. Actually, I went there to go scuba diving and watch volcanos spurt lava from unsafe-by-Western-standards distances, and partly because whenever I told people... READ ON

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Strange Geographies: On Jumping Out of Airplanes

There is a town on the South Island of New Zealand where jumping out of an airplane is considered normal behavior, and doing so will raise nary an eyebrow. While my wife and I were in country last week, we spent three days in the adrenaline-fueled hamlet of Queenstown, where if skydiving doesn't tickle your fancy you can bike down a mountain from a helicopter, rappel down a waterfall, climb any number of steep rock faces, take the controls of a small aircraft for twenty minutes ("absolutely no experience... READ ON