Photo Essay: In the Cradle of Desert Dada (Or, Spending the Night Outside Death Valley at Villa Anita)

My biggest problem when I spent the night at Villa Anita in Tecopa, California on my way to Death Valley...



...was that I tried to make sense of it.



But by nature, it's nonsensical.



That doesn't, however, mean it's meaningless.



Villa Anita is a work-in-progress in the spirit of such assemblage masterpieces as Zorthian Ranch and folk art castles like Nitt Witt Ridge, with a healthy sprinkling of the spirit of Noah Purifoy mixed in.



But out there in the easternmost reaches of the California Mojave desert, it didn't make any sense to me...



...because once I entered it...



...I lost my sense of the surrounding desert.



And I'd rather die of exposure...



...than have the world cave in on me.



I find myself drawn to modernist homes that blur the lines between the indoors and outdoors with large plate-glass window walls and trees and boulders that breach the building's frame.



But at Villa Anita, the labyrinth of pathways may take you outside and around the exterior of the tiny house that was built in 1951...



...but while you're searching for your way out, you're usually under some type of cover, be in pallet or tarp...



...and there are walls just for the sake of being walls.



Each room is meant to be a kind of sculptural vignette...



...but I'd rather live surrounded by sculpture...



...rather inside one.



Villa Anita's creator says that its construction began as a way to make the Death Valley desert bearable year-round.



But air conditioners and swamp coolers can do that.



Death Valley is bearable to me because I bare myself to it.



I lay bare my fears and insecurities, my loneliness, weakness, and inadequacies.



People come to desert towns like Tecopa to hide from the world, perhaps...



...but not from themselves.



Charles Manson's second-in-command, Paul Watkins, lived out his life's second act in Tecopa—with his second wife and two daughters—right there on the Old Spanish Trail Highway, by Villa Anita.



He wasn't fooling anyone. And he didn't deny his Manson family ties. (He even authored a book, My Life With Charles Manson, published in 1979.)



But the Death Valley desert gave Manson's main disciple a second lease on life. He founded the Death Valley Chamber of Commerce. He became the unofficial mayor of Tecopa.



We all go to the desert for different reasons.



But no one has really managed to conquer the desert yet. The desert changes you—not the other way around.



And so, the next morning, after my one night at Villa Anita, I was relieved to slough off all the distractions and clutter of this massive art experiment and expose Death Valley to my new, naked skin.



The above video encapsulates the Villa Anita experience way better than my photos or words. Many thanks to Aaron, Katelyn, Carlo, and Jack for their hospitality. 

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: The Rite of Zorthian Ranch, By Invitation Only
Photo Essay: Nitt Witt Ridge, One Man's Castle

It's Britney, Bitch.

First of all, there has got to be a better way to get home from Nassau Coliseum. I get that it's serving a predominantly Long Island-based populace, but when a big star like Britney Spears comes to Uniondale and not to Manhattan, you would think they would schedule an extra bus or two.

Instead, I was standing on Hempstead Turnpike in the cold for over a half hour with 100 other freezing people, waiting for the N72, watching others try to hail cabs that drove by with their top lights on, and backseats full. The ground is surprisingly sandy out there, and when the wind picked up at that big intersection with no buildings to block it, we all got a mouthful of dust. When the bus finally arrived, we managed to all cram in and get dumped out at the Hempstead LIRR station for the 12:17 a.m. train to Flatbush, transferring at Jamaica to arrive into Penn at 1:10 a.m. And then I still had to take the M16 bus home.

I've taken two-hour treks to Long Island for concerts before, but it's usually for a retro act at Jones Beach, and after a Stevie Nicks, Poison, or John Mellencamp show out there, plenty of busses await your embarkment right in the parking lot.

I felt like I spent most of last night waiting for Britney to get onstage. After the nearly two-hour trip to Nassau Coliseum, I arrived (across the street, where the bus drops you off, which is not that close to the gate) at 7:30 and found out that the Pussycat Dolls had cancelled because of illness. For a moment I hoped Britney would just take the stage earlier, but instead was met with circus performers. A guy spinning pottery on his head. Acrobatic tricks with a chihuahua. A lot of slow posing.



The show finally began with an over-the-top intro by Perez Hilton dressed as a queen - the Queen of Hearts? - on a circular video screen that rose to reveal a three-ring circus stage below, and lots more circus performers who lifted Britney onto platforms and out of cages and rolled her from one end of the stage to another in a dizzying tennis match with Britney as the ball.

# of songs lip-synched: all but 2 (unless I'm giving her too much credit for "Everytime" and "Toxic")
most head-scratching moment: an Eyes Wide Shut-style video montage of Britney lip-synching to Marilyn Manson's version of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)". It got weird after that.
biggest audience response: surprisingly, "Toxic" and "Womanizer," but I think the audience was comprised mostly of young girls and not moms or old ladies like me, so I guess they would be more into her recent hits
most pleasant surprise: the inclusion of "Boys" on the setlist, which was pretty heavily focused on the new album
song I was hoping for but didn't hear: "Stronger," which is totally underrated
favorite moment: Britney's bellydancing remix of "Me Against the Music"



At times, Britney looked amazing, with a dazzling array of costume changes from circus to S&M to glam. She was juicy and half-naked most of the time, butt hanging out of her hot pants and jiggling it all over the stage. But there was something missing in her live performance that you always see in her videos - the spark, the hunger, the grit that makes you want her and want to be like her.

I love Britney but I don't feel like I really saw any part of her last night. She didn't speak besides the occasional "What's up New York?!", and she didn't make me feel anything behind the songs. I don't know if she was feeling anything. Regardless of how frivolous a song like "Baby One More Time" might seem in the scheme of pop music, lyrics like "My loneliness is killing me" really hit you, even if it takes hearing a cover version by Fountains of Wayne for you to realize it. If you don't feel something while you're in the room with the artist, what's the point of being there in person? Unless you think they're singing (or talking) to you?



Or, maybe the point is really the shared experience with all the other audience members, hearing the music boom through the floor up your legs and into your chest, mixed with screams and concrete echoes. Then it's more of a concert-as-nightclub experience, especially if you're used to going places like Webster Hall that include aerial artists and facepainting and fireeaters with the price of admission. Then again, admission to those places aren't $150.

Britney's Circus was a spectacle for the sake of spectators, with moving set pieces and props and themed tricks (like ninja dancers and samurai warriors), but unlike similarly grandiose tours by Madonna, there didn't seem to be any message behind it, besides "Look at me." Maybe that's Britney's problem.

If you love the circus, go see Big Apple Circus (a special guest last night) or Cirque du Soleil or go hang out at Spiegeltent this summer. If you love Britney like I do, you never know when this might be your last chance to see her live, so you might as well go.

Photo Essay: Into the Abyss of Downtown LA's Underground Tunnels

[Last updated 11/26/19 7:32 PM PT]

Los Angeles is a town that has gotten away with hiding behind a veneer of glitz and glamour, a silver screen sheen that makes it seem like everything here is fancy. But this city has a seedy underbelly: it will go down in history as the site of the most mysterious and grisly murders, home to the notorious and the nefarious (Mickey Cohen, Al Capone, Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, the Black Dahlia).

After all that, a little bootlegging during prohibition doesn't seem so bad.

Speakeasy-style cocktail lounges have become popular with the renewed interest in classic mixology, but LA is home to some actual, real speakeasies – many of which have sat in hiding for years, and are still being discovered – as well as the underground tunnels that once led to them. Reportedly, there are at least 11 miles of those underground walkways, plus the abandoned subway tunnels and equestrian tunnels used to transport criminals (or anything illicit) safely and securely.

I set out to find one of the best-known, and shortest, of such tunnels: between the Hall of Records and the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in the Civic Center area of Downtown LA.

It took me two tries on my subterranean adventure, but I got there...eventually.



It turns out, I could've started at either building and end up in the other one...



...but I began my journey (on both tries) at the 1962 Richard Neutra-designed Hall of Records, noted for its Joseph Young-designed "Topographic Map of Water Sources in County of Los Angeles"...



...and its cool Modernist screen by Malcolm Leland (which is supposed to be a freestanding sculpture but now abuts the building).



The tunnels can't be so secret, because there are several signs throughout the park about them...



...even though technically they're condemned because of sustained earthquake damage.



I took a scary elevator down to every floor below ground...



...weaving through stacks and stacks and boxes and boxes of records and archives...



...but my misdirected wanderings led me into the parking garage, stuck and lost. I had to abort and return later.

Three months had passed, and I finally made my way back, actually finding the tunnels this time, identifying them by those unmistakable "SOUND HORN" signs.



Apparently carts like this would once zoom down these long hallways and clip around corners...



...making it necessary for them to announce themselves so as not to crash on a blind curve.



But these days, there's hardly anything moving down there, except the cool breeze from the air conditioning...



...which soon turned into a warm blast of air as I went deeper, past a disturbing chute...



...some fenced-off areas...



...and equipment...



...until the path dead-ends.



But with all those corners, the tunnel isn't just a straight line to the Hall of Administration...



...so I wandered down there for a while, poking around every turn...



...until ascending the escalator which was to be my egress...



...and emerging on the other side into the Paul R. Williams-designed Hall of Administration, just across the street from the Hall of Records.

In this town, you never quite know what might be underfoot.

Related Posts:
Underneath the City (Hall)
Photo Essay: Searching for Gold Under Scotty's Castle
Photo Essay: Eagle Mining Company's Underground Tunnels
I've Outdone Myself Again
Downtown LA's Upwards Build into the Open Air
Looking Up from the Streets of Downtown LA