I spent two nights in ps at the Caliente tropics, lair of the tiki gods and half-price mai tais. The second night, I walked the boulevards under starlight past huge adventist churches and the high school, the mega Ralphs and the frog-filled Tahquitz wash, fresh from Southern California’s wettest winter in recent history, to see Bruno Ganz play out Hitler’s last days.

After my required attendance at two days of lectures given by futurists and kindergarten teachers, I was able to hire a cab driver who had his life apparently ruined by the U.S. government and its mercenary contractors, to drive me around some of the north end of Palm Springs. With Palm Springs Weekend and the Palm Springs Modern Committee’s tour map in hand, we made our way around Donald Wexler’s steel houses, Frey’s collaboration for Raymond Loewy’s house, Craig Ellwood’s Palevsky house, Elvis’ honeymoon hideout (otherwise known as the House of Tomorrow) and the too-impeccably restored Kaufmann house by Neutra. (For those who don’t know, Kaufmann’s other house was a small one built a few years earlier back east out of concrete and stone in a wooded place in western Pennsylvania called Fallingwater). All as the sun went behind Mt. San Jacinto, the dust storms started to kick up and it was time to make stops for ATM cash and a date shake and head to the airport.