59. elvis skips town to look at art

This week was a frantic one—five states in four days—but the fast clip was well worth it. Over that span, Elvis and Emma Lee viewed a slew of art that would make any undergraduate art history major weak in the knees. It may even get an art history minor swooning.

The pair went to Boston to catch up with a long-lost college roommate and their new Yorkipoo, an endearing ragamuffin named Fitz. While their kind host and hostess were at work, Elvis and Emma Lee spent 24 hours cruising Beantown.

First order of business was clam chowder:

Then they visited the MFA. The pair caught the el Greco to Velzaquez show, which featured a number of Elvis’s favorite El G’s from the Metropolitan, along with some strangers from DC. Elvis’s favorites are still at the Prado—they’re hard pressed to loan the Holy Trinity out—but it was great, as was the Antonio Lopez Garcia exhibition. For a while Emma Lee was thinking about getting the dove from el Greco’s Pentecost tattooed on her back, right between the shoulder blades. The jury’s still out, but nothing’s gonna be done until the end of swimsuit season. Don’t want to burn that sucker while he’s fresh.

Thursday morning was a South Boston adventure to the new Institute for Contemporary Art. The ICA’s Anish Kapoor show was that great. And the water window. That Diller Scofidio and Renfro really know their shit.

This week also brought the birthday of our fair nation, and that of Elvis and Emma Lee’s dear old friend Gale. The trio spent most of the 1980’s, and an embarrassingly long stretch of the 1990s making parades to commemorate both events, simultaneously. Gale’s mother made watermelon sorbet, and Brother John was known to play some Sousa on the trombone.

This year, they celebrated on a rooftop with no less that 80 blue crabs, a couple hammers and a mound of Old Bay seasoning. Oh, and a jumpsuit. The white one, with the gold studs.