{"product_id":"yuck-the-birth-death-of-the-weird-wondrous-joshua-tree-yucca-brevifolia","title":"Yuck: The Birth \u0026 Death of the Weird \u0026 Wondrous Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAre you headed to Joshua Tree this summer? \u003c\/strong\u003eGet ready to hate your life. It's not the heat that will wilt your spirit, nor the choke of traffic waiting to trample the park, but the enduring grotesquerie of its cherished namesake, the Joshua Tree.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"One can scarcely find a term of ugliness that is not apt for this plant... A landscape filled with Joshua Trees has a nightmare effect even in broad daylight: at the witching hour it can be almost infernal.\" -Joseph Smeaton Chase, 1919\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSimilarly, few terms exist that do not fit Barret Baumgart's appalling \u003cem\u003eYUCK\u003c\/em\u003e. Part prose poem, pamphlet, collage, history, essay, memoir, and fiction, \u003cem\u003eYUCK \u003c\/em\u003eis a grotesque malformation beset with uncanny connections, jarring juxtaposition, and a buried true history that will have you asking yourself the big questions, particularly... Why am I here?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWho knows, but here you are... in the weird and wondrous world of \u003cem\u003eYUCK\u003c\/em\u003e, a brief and searing ode to the world's hottest desert, the Mojave, its divine and dying mascot, \u003cem\u003eYucca brevifolia\u003c\/em\u003e, and the magical land that killed it all, Los Angeles.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the publisher: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eYUCK \u003c\/em\u003epresents an unsettling new history of one of the most loathed and beloved objects on the planet, the Joshua Tree, \u003cem\u003eYucca brevifolia\u003c\/em\u003e. It primarily focuses on the discovery, naming, and attempted eradication of the Joshua Tree beginning in the late 1870s in Southern California. The Joshua Tree was universally reviled as the most grotesque object on earth following its discovery by white Europeans in the 1840s. Numerous schemes arose to extirpate it from the planet, the most promising among them an attempt to turn the tree into paper, \"California Cactus Paper\" [\u003cem\u003eYUCK\u003c\/em\u003e is, of course, printed on faux CA Cactus Paper]. The book excavates this unknown, buried history against the ironic backdrop of the Joshua Tree today becoming the ultra-hip signifier of some kind of cultural authenticity, and its national park the most photographed and fastest growing in the nation #JoshuaTree. This current popularity boom, in a further irony, is occurring just as scientists warn that the tree will likely vanish due to climate change by the end of the century.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Barret Baumgart","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46337303773420,"sku":"9798218515751","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0684\/1791\/3068\/files\/9798218515751.jpg?v=1743703239","url":"https:\/\/intl.allstora.com\/products\/yuck-the-birth-death-of-the-weird-wondrous-joshua-tree-yucca-brevifolia","provider":"Allstora","version":"1.0","type":"link"}