A SPECIAL PRESENTATION: DUST – JOHN FORD & THE ATOMIC FRONTIER

1890s in America. In the Southwest, the Frontier closes. On the other side of the country, John Ford is born.

1950s in America. Las Vegas rises. Del Webb plans Sun City. Goggle-wearing onlookers. Nuclear tests in the desert. Boom or bust has become BOOM & DUST.

In that same desert, John Ford makes his science fiction movies. John Wayne and Henry Fonda risk radiation poisoning. The cowboys – astronauts. The desert – Mars. Both the natives and the settlers are Martians to each other. Trains – Interstellar technology. A gunslinger with a Colt revolver is a spaceman with a ray gun.

The land has all been mapped. The territory has all been taken. But a new frontier opens again in the Southwest desert. THE RED MENACE STILL EXISTS! And beyond the Las Vegas skyline, past the Pioneer Club sign, a mushroom cloud rises.

John Ford – our man with a movie camera – seizes the drama that emerges from the debris. Geronimo is reborn – from a new womb – the BOMB.

BOOM.

DUST.

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ART

ESSAYS

FICTION

POETRY

header illustrations by Sterling Bartlett

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