Play while the Blog's Away

              The sky is blue, the sun is warm and the blog is off for the weekend. 

              But wait, wait, there's more.

             This was a good week with Bobby Kennedy singing in Harlem, Dinner in a Diner with Ashley Judd, boozing on the beach with the Mad Men of London,   playing tennis with a Bernie Madoff wannabe in Paradise ,

              If you missed any of the above, now would be a good time. 

                 There's almost a year of goodies here. Like Frank Lloyd Wright's last private house and his big mistake. 
       

                     New York had another deluge of snow and still nobody seemed to notice the beautify of a blizzard in New York City You'll find a fine snort and a giggle in the wacky wonderful Coneheads at Silverstone. Or the flip side of that madness to the days of dope and meditation in The Volvo Years.
    

                  if you missed the all-time-record-breaking-hit- monster blog, The Real Allard Story:give it a click.  No, I lied; the tribute to the women who are as"sweet as honey and smile at you like you're made of money," attracted even more hits. And If you missed the 1979 Polish Grand Prix now's your chance.

Or, click on bob judd on the top of this page or slip down the right hand column to click on such gems as  my favorite, How You Look at the Sky.   Or The Kythera Chronicles to shake hands with Barbarossa.

Or just cruise through the links on the lower right hand side of this page, maybe come upon some unexpected little gem like  an excerpt from The Candle,  In Praise of the Belleville Midgets,  The Midgets of Belleville. Part II,  Truth in Grass: a Kansas adventure, The Story of the Larned Eagle Optic, Hollywood Calls, You Pick up the Phone, Hollywood Calls, you pick up the phone part 2 maybe my favorite My Short Happy War in Afghanistan or no, wait, wait, Fangio and the Maserati 250 F for the priceless video of Fangio in a polo shirt and helmet, absolutely relaxed driving a Maserati 250F around a beat up old race track with no run off, no barriers, no safety nothing.  My lunch with Rob Walker is a good one even though it leaves out the Betty Grable stories. 

 

       You don't want to miss My Short Happy War in Afghanistan

 

             Then there's Erno Goldfingers house-and-mine, which throws in Ian Flemming, no extra charge. Riding around Laguna Seca with Jackie Stewart was picked up by Jalopnik.com.

             Read  Uncle John's Prayer for guidance through these difficult days.

 

              Then there was the time my Dad,  Clarence Judd Head-Butts a Truck.  Truck dies. That's a good one. 

             And, of course, the one that started it all, Truck Story.

 

               Then Virgin calls, and Forrest goes to Hollywood to star with an Electric car. And Forrest does a shoot in bed with Virgin. That one is a lot of fun. 

                Although, you might want to take a look at Pheromone Dreams to see what they are doing in bed in front of a film crew. While you're there it's just a short hop to Nurse Pelvis. 

            Or take a dip in the world's largest concrete freshwater free municipal swimming pool.

           And for heat on a frosty afternoon, click on my dance with a prima ballerina.

 

              For a tasty bite with bon mots check out my friend, Gerry Freeman's foodie blog as  Hungry Gerald globe trots from spa to Paris and beyond.

             Or go skip over to the column on the right and click on any date or title from last year.  These blogs are evergreen as we say in the trade.

            

The (almost) view from Frank Lloyd Wright's Kentuck Knob

click on photo to enlarge

         Frank Lloyd Wright built spectacular houses in spectacular settings.  Taliesin West for example, on the brow of a  rugged hill just north of Phoenix.

   

        And Fallingwater in Mill Run, Pennsylvania famously built over a stream.

         Some 20 miles from Fallingwater there's another Frank Lloyd Wright house, Kentuck Knob.  It was built at the end of Wright's career in the mid 1950s..  You'll notice the fortress-like entrance, a signature note in Wright's houses after his first Taliesen was set on fire and his lover and six others were murdered with an axe in 1914..

           

         Taliesin, means "shining brow" in  that gargled, tangled language of the truly articulate called Welsh. Wright positioned his first Taliesin on the "brow" of a hill.  As was Kentuck Knob.

         After falling in love with their friends, the Kaufmann's home, Fallingwater, Bernardine and I.N. Hagan called Wright and asked if he'd design a house for them. They'd bought 80 acres and it would be a wonderful setting for a Frank Lloyd Wright house.

          His answer was, “Of course. Come on out.”  Wright was 86, up to his neck designing the Guggenhiem Museum in New York City.  He could not come to Pennsylvania.  No time. So he asked for a site map, and never having seen the property he designed the house you see here, Kentuck Knob, named after the hill on which it sits.

Click on photo to enlarge

               This is the view from the back of the house facing the pretty woods.

               Wright visited the site just once, when the house was already under construction.  Far be it from the diminutive man in the cape and the floppy hat, the giant of American Architecture, to admit to a mistake. He must have loved that great green, liberating, stretch-your-wings space.  Those rounded high mounds that look like Wales.

                 The woods are pretty like any woods for hundreds of miles.  He did not say, "Pick the structure off its foundation and move it,"   So the house, now owned by Lord Peter Palumbo, stayed where Wright had drawn it on the map.  Facing the woods.

               Too bad. My photo does not do justice to the depth, grandeur and beauty of the astonishing 180 degree vista of farms and forests and hills just a few steps away.  It's a view that makes you say words like "breath-taking,"  "exhilarating" and the words just float away and disappear in the green and blue space. My picture is the middle one of three.  The view on either side is just as deep, rich and beautiful.

               To see all three and one of the finest views east of Kansas walk twenty yards southeast from this porch. 

              Which just goes to show, as they say in Kansas, there is no substitute for the farmer's shadow. Or the architect's.

               And if you really, really want it right, step back from time to time and take a look. You might see something enormous.