The geyser formations in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, shaped by minerals, algae, and cyanobacteria, seem almost unnatural in their vivid colours. Their stark strangeness recalls a quality in certain writing: the ability to bring a reader abruptly into a heightened perception of the familiar.
Reading Geoff Dyer’s Otherwise Known as the Human Condition brings a similar sensation. Although initially concerned to find that much of the collection draws from two earlier volumes already on my shelves, Anglo-English Attitudes and Working the Room, the irritation faded quickly. Dyer remains a brilliant essayist, weaving personal experience with cultural observation in a way that resists easy categorisation.
The ‘Visuals’ section of the collection is best read with access to a screen, to follow the photographers and places he discusses. Dyer’s essays seldom offer critical judgments in the traditional sense; rather, they stage a form of lived encounter with art, film, photography, and place. This elasticity of approach, at once serious and casually precise, is part of his particular strength.
>Oh wow, that is gorgeous! I haven't been to the Black Rock Desert, but I have done some hiking in the Red Rocks area around Las Vegas, and I love that southwestern landscape. If you ever do visit, I'd recommend March-April or Octoberish – the desert gets intensely hot in the summer and very cold in the winter.
>Thanks, Emily, October might work, though I have always wanted to attend Burning Man which is a little earlier.The landscape is stunning.