Zoe Kurland

Producer at KRTS-FM (Marfa, TX)

Currently: @marfaradio Work on/in: @LAist @marketplace @thecut etc.

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Articles

Desert Dispatch Vol. 49

4 weeks ago | marfapublicradio.org | Zoe Kurland

Dust. Everyone’s talking about it these days. It’s worse this year, right? Everyone says so, and they’re right. And the dust always seems to find its way in: it sneaks through the crack below the door, and gathers in a finely sifted pile on my windowsill. It’s somehow in my car to the point where I can write “WASH ME” inside of my vehicle. As we approach 21st-century Dust Bowl conditions in West Texas, the stuff has become an omnipresent force.
Live updates: West Texas local and regional election results

Nov 5, 2024 | marfapublicradio.org | Travis Bubenik |Mitch Borden |Zoe Kurland |Alberto De Leon

The polls have closed in most of Texas for the November 2024 general election and results are beginning to come in. In West Texas, a handful of competitive local races are on the ballot in the Midland-Odessa area, including the race for Odessa mayor, city council seats in both cities and multiple Midland ISD school board seats.
Desert Dispatch Vol. 14

Jul 19, 2024 | marfapublicradio.org | Zoe Kurland

REMEMBER: THE BARREL IS ALWAYS HALF FULLRecently, I found myself alone in Midland, Texas, reading this message on an electronic billboard. It wasn't just any billboard – it's a fixture of the city’s downtown, a kind of thermometer for Midland. If you stand around for a few minutes, the board will cycle through a variety of graphics, puns, quotes, and, notably, the daily prices of oil and gas, giving you a sense of how things are going in the Permian Basin.
Desert Dispatch Vol. 13

Jul 11, 2024 | marfapublicradio.org | Zoe Kurland

In the summer of 1959, writers Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath took a road trip across America. They stopped in New Mexico at the Carlsbad Caverns to see the bat emergence– a nightly summer ritual in which hundreds of thousands of bats fly out of the caverns at once. They disappear over the horizon to eat their weight in moths, then return to the cave before dawn to do it all over again the next night.
Desert Dispatch Vol. 12

Jun 27, 2024 | marfapublicradio.org | Zoe Kurland

When the sun sets in West Texas, it’s technicolor. Hues blast across the horizon, and it’s like you’ve been plopped in a bowl of melting sherbet. You can’t help but stare…and then take a photo. Elise and I were talking about this phenomenon: why do we all take sunset pics? What is it about them that captivates us, particularly in West Texas? I remember my first West Texas sunset. I had just made a Stripes run with a friend, and we were crossing East San Antonio Street.
In Far West Texas, a disappearing river poses a challenge to tourism

Jun 13, 2024 | texasstandard.org | Zoe Kurland

From Marfa Public Radio:On a hot, dusty day on the border in Far West Texas, the Rio Grande, which separates the state from Mexico, was barely trickling along over a bed of exposed stones. It was low enough to cross on foot. “You could do it without getting your feet wet, just hopscotch from rock to rock,” said Charlie Angell, a local river guide. Angell owns Angell Expeditions, a company specializing in river trips.
The disappearing Rio Grande poses a threat to West Texas tourism

Jun 6, 2024 | marketplace.org | Zoe Kurland |Amanda Peacher

On a hot, dusty day on the border in far west Texas, the Rio Grande, which separates the state from Mexico, was barely trickling along over a bed of exposed stones. It was low enough to cross on foot. “You could do it without getting your feet wet, just hopscotch from rock to rock,” said Charlie Angell, a local river guide. Angell owns Angell Expeditions, a company specializing in river trips.
Desert Dispatch Vol. 2

May 2, 2024 | marfapublicradio.org | Zoe Kurland

Dear astronomers, star gazers and thrill-seekers,The last time a total solar eclipse passed over Texas was in 1878. At the time, this was a major event: scientists traveled from all over the country to view the eclipse in the path of totality and record their observations.
Somewhere There’s Cheese

Feb 8, 2024 | brightwalldarkroom.com | Zoe Kurland

When I was younger, someone told me the moon was made of cheese. I looked up at it, with its dairy-yellow brightness, its mottled holes, and I believed that person for longer than I’d like to reveal.
The Woman Who Demonstrated the Greenhouse Effect

Nov 9, 2023 | scientificamerican.com | Zoe Kurland |Katie Hafner |Elah Feder

In 1856, decades before the term “greenhouse gas” was coined, Eunice Newton Foote demonstrated the greenhouse effect in her home laboratory. She placed a glass cylinder full of carbon dioxide in sunlight and found that it heated up much more than a cylinder of ordinary air. Her conclusion: more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere results in a warmer planet.