F  L  A  U  N  T

 Here's what you do. Here's how you do all the right things. Here's where you have no reservation whatsoever about checking any sort of Americana boxes and/or clichés, because you've endeavored through lockdowns, you’ve embraced the fact that cliché originates with that which is definitive, and oh how the air smells so much sweeter when one is set free. Fast and powerful cars, babes, cooly conversational art, beverages, a twilight desert, and shooting stars. This is the stuff of SoCal freedom, elements we've always enjoyed but perhaps taken for granted. This is why I’d suggest a McClaren GT supercar for any “venturing out” in the new normative now. I’ll say this much: It's absurdly sexy. It handles like the future's got you in its shirt pocket. It feels good on the body, stirs conversation, and makes you believe more in humans.

The performance? It's hard to describe a powerful engine. It must be experienced and respected. So, to Desert X, the annual non-profit art installation, where artworks are integrated into the stunning scenery with the support, outreach, and integration of local community—respect that must be experienced. For many, the happening has become something of a major moment for California. That the happening plowed forward through this remarkable moment in history (having opened in mid-March) made its absorption all the more transcendent.

Transcendence is something of a healing art, and I compounded mine at Two Bunch Palms, one of the finer resorts within reach of LA. There, the lithium baths clung to that which had been limp and dormant, stymied and said, and I awoke the better vessel. As it goes, Desert X is reaching a close but there is still time to partake in all of the above, and if I'm you, I would count on the sunsets being just as pretty. Saturday, from 9AM to 1PM, will be the public outdoor presentation of Frequencies by artist Oscar Murillo at the Coachella Valley Art Center in Indio. For the project, hundreds of students from Coachella Valley schools received canvas and art supplies at the commence of Desert X, to eventually contribute to Murillo’s artwork. I imagine the results of this project will speak to something deep inside its many participants, longing for that deserved escape. Suitably, there’s a closing party too. I imagine, too, its attendees will be luminous vessels as well. For we’re all under the same skies after all, aren’t we?