60. elvis buckles up for safety and brakes for art

Elvis spent most of the weekend out of Brooklyn, enjoying cars, art, and landscape architecture. On Independence Day, Diana Ross rolled her lesbian-favored Subaru up to Williamsburg to drive Elvis, Emma Lee, and Blondie to New Canaan, CT. No, it wasn’t manicured lawns and white-columned estates the quartet was after, they were headed for the residence of NCan’s favorite bad-boy architect, Philip Johnson. They weren’t allowed to take picture of his amazing Glass House, the  bunker-like painting gallery (with three 12-foot spindles filled with large-scale painting), or the MC Escher of a sculpture gallery (a white diamond that descended  down pentagramal stairs), but no photo could have done it justice. So many circles, so many squares. So many panes of glass and green, green everywhere. Ah, modernism in the country. Elvis says well done, Philip, well done.

Next up was a Saturday at Storm King, Hudson valley’s home for large scale sculpture. One side of the park has small scale works and pieces sited for tight interplay with the land (ie, a hulking Kadishman in the depression between two hills, or a Sol Lewitt framing far-off trees), but the other half is downright monumental. First, Elvis visited with Ursula von Rydingsvard:

Then he went over to the rolling hills part of the park. Here’s the lookout, with a trio of Mark Di Suvero in the backdrop. Pardon the soft focus.

Nature sure does smell good this time of year. And when you don’t have to pay for gas, cars are rad.

In other landscape-architecture related news, Elvis, Emma Lee and their friend Dan were looking to have a bagel picnic breakfast at the new waterfront state park. Instead, when they reached the Williamsburg waterfront, they found the gates locked and a representative of the New York Restoration Project waiting by the padlock. After a moment of inquiry, the group got to talking about trees. “More trees, please,” Emma Lee quipped, “especially on the big concrete slab at the south end of the park. No one uses it now, and anything you can do to block the Edge out of my life would be swell.” The tree man said that was a good idea. As they parted ways, Emma Lee sure was glad she’d put on her Landscape Architecture shirt. It’s a vintage rag from the Univ. of Washington’s department, circa 1982. Elvis smiled and said it gave her some street cred on Kent Avenue.