(From the Feb/March Zephyr) Pointblank: On desert water rights, the relevance of literary traditions to interspecies relations, and the Disney Weltanschauung…by Patricia (Toni) McConnel

An excerpt:

Millions of years ago, according to one theory (mine), the mammoth child of some now extinct race of giants spilled globs of wet sandstone clay, red as rusted iron, on the Nevada desert in what is now known as the Valley of Fire.  Perhaps she was modeling some kind of prehistoric jack-o-lanterns, for she poked holes in them with her fingers so the mounds were riddled with grotesque eyes and noses and mouths.  Whatever her intention, she left them to dry and forgot to come back.

Some of the globs are a hundred feet high, some only ten or fifteen.  As I arrive, looking for a place to camp, the late afternoon sun is turning them red as fire and the holes––enlarged and sculpted now by eons of wind-blown sand––hold shadows so black that I know without going too close that some blood-thirsty, bone-crunching horror lurks in the holes, just waiting to pull me in.  I decide that this is just the right place, for even though I am now a jaded old iconoclast who in her old age has taken to wandering around in the desert alone, I have never lost my childhood delight in using my imagination to terrify myself…

To read more of Toni’s article, click the image below:

http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2014/02/03/pointblank-on-desert-water-rights-the-relevance-of-literary-traditions-to-interspecies-relations-and-the-disney-weltanschauung-by-patricia-toni-mcconnel/