IN THE EMPTY AIRWAVES OF the early 1960s, my album of Dick Dale’s guitar was a rare treat. It’s insistent reverb-laden Stratocaster all but smelt of the rush and power of surfing. It fuelled the busting-out of a marginal activity practised by a relatively few bleached-blonde beach bums and cemented California as the epicentre of a beach-focused cultural phenomenon, and burgeoning new industry. Much later, I read an interview with Dale describing his retreat into the Mojave Desert and reluctance to come below 1500 feet above sea level for fear the San Andreas fault-line would shift, precipitating an earthquake in which he might be caught.
I was musing about the role of the high desert as a place of refuge
