Desert

Paolo Soleri, an Italian-born architect who created a visionary prototype for a new kind of ecologically sensitive city in the remote Arizona desert four decades ago, only to watch the suburban sprawl he detested begin to creep near it in recent years, has died. He was 93. Soleri died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in Paradise Valley, Ariz., according to an official with the architect's foundation . PHOTOS: Paolo Soleri | 1919-2013 A onetime apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West compound on the edge of Scottsdale, Ariz., Soleri founded his own desert settlement, called Arcosanti, in 1970 at a site roughly 70 miles north of downtown Phoenix.

POTOSÍ, Bolivia - A gentle breeze swept across Laguna Colorada, momentarily turning the magenta mineral lake water neon-orange as it rippled around the knobby knees of several dozen flamingos. Suddenly, a pair of frisky vicuñas trotted through the shallows, sending the flamingos aloft like a flock of hot pink pterodactyls. It was that kind of week. I tend to be lightheaded at altitude in the best of times, but road tripping across the Bolivian altiplano was downright psychedelic.

Penny Puckett came to Slab City and fell in love. After four years of "bumming around and hopping freight trains," the 25-year-old from Kansas City arrived at this hardscrabble section of the Imperial Valley desert and immediately embraced its sense of liberation from society's rules and norms. What others might view as desolation and deprivation, Puckett saw as a way to reduce life to its essence: water, food and shelter (plus Internet and cellular phone service). PHOTOS: Slab City "Slab City people have a great need to live with just the bare necessities and are happy about it," she said.

La Piedra is one of 23 estates in Palm Springs' guard-gated Southridge community. The Midcentury Modern retreat, with views of the San Jacinto mountains and Coachella Valley, is made of more than 700 tons of quartz. Location: 2399 Southridge Drive, Palm Springs 92264 Asking price: $9.555 million Year built: 1983 Renovated: 2005 Architect: Edward Giddings House size: Five bedrooms, six bathrooms, 7,500 square feet Lot size: 2.25 acres Features: A great room with high ceilings, sunken wetbar, kitchen island, circular dining room, detached two-bedroom guesthouse, swimming pool with waterfall and spa, putting course, travertine shuffleboard court, outdoor kitchen.

This letter is in response to your editorial "Split Allegiances" (Aug. 2). In my opinion, the Bureau of Land Management has done a good job on limited funds managing our vast desert areas. It is not easy to administer the diverse needs of mining, grazing, recreation, ecosystem protection, etc. Perhaps the real question is whether we want to use our desert resources responsibly or simply close large areas to all but the fortunate few, strong enough to put on a backpack and trek into an environment that can vary 50 degrees in an 8-hour period.

A Palm Springs home once owned by the late film star William Holden is listed at $1,495,000. The post-and-beam Midcentury Modern house has a tongue-and-groove ceiling, terrazzo floor and glass walls. Sitting on nearly an acre of land encircled by ficus trees, the nearly 5,000-square-foot house includes four bedrooms, four bathrooms and a detached guest casita. A wet bar sits poolside. There are two double garages. Holden, who died in 1981 at 63, lived in the house for 18 years.

Every Wednesday afternoon, my colleague Douglas Burton-Christie and I try to conjure the desert in a classroom at Loyola Marymount University. We are both bona fide desert rats, but we come to the "land of little rain," as Mary Austin once called it, from very different places as we teach an interdisciplinary seminar called Into the Desert. I'm in the English department and have long written of the deserts along the U.S.-Mexico border and the drama of the migrants who try to cross.

Operation Gatekeeper started in October 1994, focusing federal border security efforts on the five-mile stretch from the Pacific Ocean to San Ysidro. Within three years, the budget of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service -- since split into two agencies -- doubled to $800 million. The number of Border Patrol agents also doubled, along with the miles of fencing. Underground sensors nearly tripled. In the 15 years since its inception, Gatekeeper, now shorthand for all federal enforcement efforts at the Mexican border, has had a range of consequences, some expected and others grimly surprising.

Desert A Novel J.M.G. Le Clézio, translated from the French by C. Dickson Verba Mundi/David R. Godine: 352 pp., $25.95 When Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, criticized the American literary establishment for its insularity last fall, I couldn't disagree with him. A small handful of non-Anglophone novelists do steal their way into stateside dinner-party conversation each year, but for the most part, we...

Three aftershocks rattled through the desert today where residents were shaken by Tuesday's moderate earthquake, but no damage or injuries were reported.

TUCSON - The harsh Sonoran Desert claims the lives of hundreds of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border each year. Many of the dead - about 1 in 3 - go unidentified. Now there may be an easier way to put a name to some of the suspected border crossers who died north of the international boundary. On Monday, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner and the human rights organization Humane Borders Inc. started an online system that will allow the public to identify the deceased found in southern Arizona - more than 2,000 deaths over 13 years.

Last week, Texas and Oklahoma squared off in a Supreme Court battle over water rights that has the drought-ridden West on edge. At issue is a state's control over its own water: Texas seeks to buy or otherwise tap water from Oklahoma under the terms of an interstate water compact, actions that Oklahoma has so far refused to permit despite the compact. The stakes of the court's decision are high. Interstate water agreements provide the legal foundation for the economies of most Western states, which are disproportionately dependent on irrigated agriculture.

Epidemiologists are investigating an outbreak of valley fever that has sickened 28 workers at two large solar power construction sites in San Luis Obispo County. Staff from the California Department of Public Health, and investigators from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health and San Luis Obispo County visited the sites near the Carrizo Plain two months ago, officials said. They identified the sites as the Topaz Solar Farm and California Valley Solar Ranch, two large-scale photovoltaic power plants whose construction often requires considerable scraping and clearing to make way for thousands of acres of solar panels.

It's called the Trinity Site, an expanse of baked-white land in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert - the spot where "the gadget" was set off, launching an era of nuclear proliferation. Reactions to this place - the site of the world's first atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945 - vary widely and are usually influenced by age and background. For a 65-year-old Californian, it summons images of having to hunker below her school desk in a drill during the Cold War. For a 79-year-old Texan, it conjures up memories of sitting next to the radio as joyous news arrived - World War II was over and the boys were finally coming home.

The TCM Classic Film Festival is screening several vintage blockbusters this weekend in Hollywood, including “The Great Escape,” “My Fair Lady” and “Giant.” But peppered among these classics are films that don't have such high profiles, including Ernst Lubitsch's final film “Cluny Brown,” from 1946; Mel Brooks' 1970 comedy “The Twelve Chairs”; and the offbeat 1973 Al Pacino-Gene Hackman buddy drama “Scarecrow.” ...

There are a lot of people in this world, and it seems as if most of them were at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival last weekend. A logistical puzzle, certainly, and one that requires feedback in order to improve. The festival continues next weekend in Indio, so now's a good time for a mid-festival debriefing. What didn't work? What could be better? What follows are 10 modest proposals for promoter Goldenvoice that could add more sparkle to the festival. Expand the Yuma tent.

'Detained In the Desert' Where: Casa 0101, 2009 E. 1st St., Boyle Heights When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays. Ends Oct. 24. Price: $10 to $15 Contact: (323) 263-7684 'La Victima' Where: Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St. When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Oct. 31. Price: $10 to $35 Contact: (866) 811-4111

We recently dined at Acqua Pazza in Rancho Mirage. The service was excellent and the food choices unique. I enjoyed acorn squash stuffed with quinoa and currants ($12.99), plus gelato for dessert. Pastas from $13.99, entrees from $15.99. Acqua Pazza, 71-800 Highway 111 Rancho Mirage; (760) 862-9800, http://www.acquapazzabistro.com Cheryl Kohr By email

A lot has changed in the 11 years since Eve issued her last record. The world of female rap became a veritable ghost town as nimble voices like the self-proclaimed “pit bull in a skirt," Foxy Brown, Da Brat, Rah Digga, Missy Elliott, Lauryn Hill, et al.  either took a backseat or shifted their focus behind the scenes. The already largely male dominant world got an extra boost of testosterone with a surplus of new faces - until Nicki Minaj burst on the scene and helped unpack a new era of femcees.