04. What specifically did the desert teach me?
HOST AND CURATOR
Sara Ortiz
SENIOR PRODUCER
Nicole Kelly
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS
Vera Blossom and Layla Muhammad
MIXER + ENGINEER
Fil Corbitt and Kevin Krall
CONTRIBUTORS
Soni Brown, LeVar Burton, Guest Host Scott Dickensheets, Jordan Kisner, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Megan Stielstra, and Erica Vital-Lazare.
MUSIC BY
Jeremy Klewicki
ILLUSTRATION
Jesse Zhang
ESCAPE, PORTAL, VORTEX
During the dry Vegas summer of 2020, writers Megan Stielstra (The Wrong Way to Save Your Life) and Erica Vital-Lazare (Of The Diaspora) met at a backyard gathering, where they connected through their love of Octavia Butler. In a conversation that equates quarantine with the desert, Megan and Erica unpack a Butler-esque question: What specifically did the desert teach me?
Music in this segment: Scott Holmes Music - Shimmer, Siddartha Corsus - Song for Ramanujan (Saraswati Devi)
THE MINT 400
In 1971, Hunter S. Thompson chronicled his drug-fueled haze during an off-road-desert race, the Mint 400, in his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Fifty years after Thompson’s escapades, writer Soni Brown set out to reconsider what’s left of the elusive race. LeVar Burton reads an excerpt from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, transporting listeners into the engine oil-infused dust storm that Thompson made (in)famous.
Music in this segment: Additional sound effects from Zapsplat.com, Lobo Loco - Good Boy, Nctrnm - Distilled, Crowander - Parody
WHOSE STORY GETS TO BE TOLD ABOUT OUTDOORS AND WHOSE DOESN’T?
For this segment, poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Jordan Kisner (Thin Places) discuss Aimee’s latest book World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, & Other Astonishments, a collection of 28 essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us. In this conversation, Aimee speaks of her relationship with the Arizona desert and finding belonging on the trails with her dad.
To hear the full conversation with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, listen to Jordan Kisner’s Thresholds podcast.