The 17 Verses… NOTE & CAUTION! This story was previously published in the San Juan Record in Monticello, Utah, where the population is about 90% Mormon. My tale of woe was taken in good humor by almost everyone I heard…
Paul Vlachos is a New Yorker who understands The West. And he is a New Yorker who understands New York. Wherever Paul goes, he finds signs of life… Santa Rosa, New Mexico – 2012, from the overgrown parking lot…
Home on the Range for Xmas… and Wilder’s homage to Abbey and O’Keefe: Dave Wilder’s art can be seen at: http://www.wilderarts.com and at the Laughing Raven Gallery 417 Hull Ave. Jerome, Arizona and on facebook: “David…
Can there be any doubt that we live in an age quantified, represented and defined by the cell phone? I came to this conclusion a few years back when visiting San Francisco at the Thanksgiving Holiday. I had given two…
TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT…Jim Stiles Election Blues…Speaking of Elections, Hate Bain Capital? Now Go Look in the Mirror…The Stiles Job Plan: “Do as the French do.” SOWING CLOVER… Tonya Audyn Stiles “The Walnut Desk” THE POETRY of DAMON…
Election Blues… I have little or no enthusiasm for this election campaign. Nor do I think the outcome, either way, will dramatically change anything. The election of 2008 was supposed to change EVERYTHING. It didn’t. Whether you want to blame…
Dove Creek I know how my father Picked through the desert Looking for ruins. I know the golf clubs He carried to ward off snakes, Swinging them through sage And dens made uneasy In their own shadows then. All for…
I don’t live in Moab anymore. It’s been a decade since I packed my bags and slipped south (and then east) to smaller, quieter communities. Last week, after 37 years, I closed out my box at the post office. Box…
…As Urban Sprawl and “Civilization” swallow us up, a second look at the ‘Hooved Locusts’ by Dave Jarvis It was just after two in the morning and I heard the soft putter of an All Terrain Vehicle drive past. My…
The first time I went to Big Bend I drove all night. West of San Antonio on US 90 the land emptied into flat black space and one or two distant lights. After two hundred miles I crossed the wild…
Thirty Years in the Beehive State & Still a Heathen After All These Years… For most of my adult life, I’ve lived in Utah. I discovered the canyon country when I was not much more than a kid and…
Visions… Once in a while something very like a vision comes along. Those, as we all know, are not scheduled in advance. They happen in subways, tangled woods, high plains, classrooms, prisons, battlefields. There are many recipes, special behaviors,…
Paul Vlachos is a New Yorker who understands The West. And he is a New Yorker who understands New York. Wherever Paul goes, he finds signs of life… 1. Texas billboard on the interstate. Four sheets of plywood and…
The Imaginary West We love our myths here in America, and where would our beloved West be without them? After all, reality is complicated; myth is tidy. Here I’ve tried to take on the myth of the cowboy artist, a…
Elsewhere in this issue, we have talked about the soon-to-be-built “Colorado River Elevated Bikeway and Transit Hub,’ at a cost of $9 million to improve what one local politician called a “stale” tourist economy. But is this kind of extravagant…
(from Truthdig.com) ‘Growth Is the Problem’ —Chris Hedges Survival will be determined by localities. Communities will have to create collectives to grow their own food and provide for their security, education, financial systems and self-governance, efforts that Heinberg suspects will…
Edna Fridley was a good friend of the canyon country of southeast Utah for more than 30 years. Every year she returned to the slickrock from her home, back east, to wander and explore what was then one of the…
HERB RINGER came West from his home in New Jersey in 1939. Camera in hand, Herb captured the American West, from the Canadian Border to the Rio Grande and from the Big Sur coast to the High Plains. We…
RichBoy Romney & Friends…a history of partisan ‘characterizations’ —Stiles Much has been written about the obscene opulent wealth of the Republican nominee MITT ROMNEY. He has many homes and an elevator for his car. They say he’s worth almost $250…
Sadly, the end of summer is drawing near. Most of us have been lucky enough to get away for a lazy, hazy week or two. It’s such a relief to escape the hurly-burly that fills every American city with annoying…
From the 1995 Zephyr archives… Maxine Newell was born in New Mexico in 1919 and moved to western Colorado a year later. She has lived in the Four Corners country ever since. In 1995, I sat down with Maxine and…