The village of Zzyzx, pronounced zye-zix, stands on the edge of the Mojave desert in Sanit Bernardino County. It was formerly called Soda Springs after a natural spring there, but was rechristened by a mineral water pioneer, Curtis Howe Springer, in 1944. The eccentric Springer named it after what he claimed to be the last word that could be spelt in the English language.
“The word has a dystopian, futuristic aspect,” says Halpern, “even though it came out of a utopian dream that Springer had while squatting the land for three years. He somehow willed the word and the place into being. That notion of manifest destiny is there still in California, but also the sense that it’s the end of the dream. You get there and you can go no further. You are faced with yourself and your life, but just in a more beautiful setting”.
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