Reggie Carlisle Archives

Assumptions in the Desert

“There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb it.” -The Dispossessed, Ursula K. LeGuin

We make assumptions. For example, as a writer, I make assumptions about my audience, about you. One of those assumptions is that you read, most of you widely, and many of you deeply. Since this blog is attached to a literary journal, it is very possible that some of you write. At the same time, I could be completely wrong. That is the nature of assumption after all.

Last week, my wife and I were driving through a small town in the Utah desert. The evening was approaching and I was hungry. The next town was probably an hour off. The problem was that we only passed two restaurants on the highway, China Star and Pizzaria. Take a moment to look at the pictures and you might make some assumptions of your own.

Pre-K & MLK

Most people don’t spend an hour in the morning trying to pick out which coloring page they are going to take to work that day. Of the people who do, most are teachers. But with teachers, most have Martin Luther King Day…

Pilgrimage to Cadillac Ranch

Last summer, my family and I went on a road trip which included a stop at Cadillac Ranch. For those who are unfamiliar with it, this enormous installation is composed of old Cadillacs planted end-up in an empty field. The history of the work has to do with the evolution of the cars’ tail fins. For a car guy, this is interesting enough. Yet, even if you aren’t aware of — or don’t care about — tail fin evolution, you can enjoy interacting with the work by spray-painting the cars. In fact, this is sort of the point. You don’t even have to bring your own paint. Partially-used cans are scattered all around. In our case, another family offered us their cans when they decided to leave.

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