Bonus Episode: Cashing In On The Desert
California City
LAist Studios
4.5 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 September 2020
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For decades, Californians have been obsessed with trying to profit off desert land. In this bonus episode of California City, host Emily Guerin, the Desert Oracle’s Ken Layne, and artist and curator Kim Stringfellow explore the myths of the Mojave Desert as "wasteland," failed schemes and utopias, Instagram-driven tourism and coronavirus refugees. The audio was recorded during a live virtual event on September 3, 2020 and presented by LAist Studios and KPCC in partnership with The Autry Museum of the American West.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Support for LAST comes from Pasadena Playhouse presenting Eureka Day. |
| 0:04.6 | Jonathan Spector's Razor Sharp 2025 Tony Award winning satire. |
| 0:09.1 | Eureka Day is on stage at Pasadena Playhouse beginning September 10th. |
| 0:13.2 | Tickets are on sale now at Pasadena Playhouse.org. |
| 0:17.0 | Live stream, supported by South Coast Repertory, presenting million-dollar quartet. |
| 0:21.6 | Step back to 1956 when Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins |
| 0:26.7 | made music history with one of the greatest rock and roll jam sessions in this musical |
| 0:30.9 | with over 20 hits. September 13th through October 19th, tickets at sCR.org. |
| 0:37.2 | Hey, podcast listeners, this is Emily Garon, host of California |
| 0:40.4 | City. So last week on September 3rd, L.A. Studios and the Autry Museum of the American |
| 0:46.3 | West held a virtual event together about the allure of the Mojave Desert. I was the host, |
| 0:52.0 | and our guests were Ken Lane of the Desert Oracle podcast, and |
| 0:55.9 | Kim Stringfellow. She's a writer and photographer whose work is focused on the Mojave. |
| 1:00.7 | We talked about a lot of interesting things. The myth of the desert is wasteland, utopian fantasies, |
| 1:06.7 | spectacular failures, UFOs, and coronavirus refugees. Here's an edited version of our conversation. |
| 1:14.1 | I hope you enjoy it. I feel like a lot of you probably know the story of the podcast, California |
| 1:19.6 | City, but I just kind of wanted to give a brief overview. So I've spent a lot of the last few years |
| 1:24.4 | thinking about the Mahabee Desert, and in particular this one small town in the Mojave Desert, California City. And basically, the story I told through this |
| 1:32.6 | podcast was one, it took place over 60 years. And over that time period, real estate developers |
| 1:38.5 | have been selling this dream, right? That this place is going to boom one day. And if you buy |
| 1:42.6 | land now, you'll get rich and lots of different |
| 1:45.9 | people have made this pitch in california city over the years you know in the 60s the pitch was kind |
... |
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