Archives

Fifty Years Ago: Aqaba in Almeria  

Fifty years ago, in April of 1962, the Algarrobico beach on the southeastern coast of spain was bustling with activity as two hundred local workers constructed a replica of the Red Sea port of Aqaba circa 1916 for the filming of Lawrence of Arabia. They took three months to construct 300 false-front buildings and a quarter mile sea wall. The crew planted palm trees, trucked in from Alicante, placed four full-size canons on the hills above, and brought 450 horses and 150 camels from Morocco. Hundreds of local fishermen and gypsies served as extras. In the film, British officer T.E. […]

Read More

Straight to Hell  

In August 1986, an unlikely crew descended on the Tabernas desert, including Joe Strummer, Courtney Love, Elvis Costello, members of the Pogues, Sy Richardson, and Jim Jarmusch. Even Dennis Hopper and Grace Jones jetted in for a day. The resulting film, Alex Cox’s Straight to Hell, was neither a commercial nor critical success, but it has since achieved a form of cult status. A remastered director’s cut was just released last year. But the fact that the film got made at all was the result of an equally improbable set of circumstances. In 1984 The Clash were on the verge […]

Read More

Aldous Huxley’s Almeria  

In mid-October of 1929, Aldous Huxley and his first wife Maria Nys set out on a road trip through Spain in their scarlet two-seated Bugatti. Starting in Barcelona, where Huxley had attended a conference which left him bored and wanting to escape, they went south along the coast through Valencia and Murcia, on to Almeria, then west to Granada, Cadiz, and Seville, before heading north again to Madrid and back to France. The entire trip took abut five weeks. Shortly after returning, Huxley described Spain as “the strangest country in Europe … one of the oddest in the world even.” […]

Read More
Travels
Oct 29, 2007

Desert Memories: Journeys Through the Chilean North  

“All of us, living in ghost towns though we do not know it.With the illusion that what we leave behind will not be swept away by the wind, that something will remain against the corrosion of time.Hand by hand, hand in handGloriously making believe we will outlast the desert” Ariel Dorfman, Chilean novelist, playwright, poet and human rights activist writes about his journey through northern Chile through San Pedro de Atacama, along the Panamerican highway and the nitrate corridor, and up to Arica. Along the way he stops in Pisagua to remember his close friend Freddy Taberna who was executed […]

Read More
Travels
Sep 16, 2007

Valle de la Muerte  

A few kilometers from the Valle de la Luna is the Valle de la Muerte (Valley of Death). A trail winds its way between steep cliffs and strange rock formations. Halfway through the trail opens to an enormous sand dune, which attracts a handful of sandboarders. Otherwise the trail is usually empty and eerily silent, particularly in the late afternoon when the rocks turn colors and odd shadows appear and then fade away. A good pair of sunglasses is a necessity in this environment, even in winter, due to the clear skies and the sun’s intensity at higher altitudes.Valle de […]

Read More
Menu