What the Blazes?

Apparently Bill de Blasio is the new mayor of New York. Which according to Lhota's attack ads means one has only a few precious hours to get out of Manhattan before the crack addicts, pimps, and dreaded squeegee gangs retake the city like it's the bad old days of the '80s. But since most New Yorkers consider the current state of Times Square - infested as it is with tourists clutching unlimited Olive Garden bread sticks and festooned with Red Lobster disposable bibs - a debatable improvement on the old version, let's try a scare tactic that actually works: tax the rich!

 

And if that's still not a good enough reason to head upstate to your Catskills holiday mansion, how about the legendary Hudson Valley Jack O'Lantern Blaze? 



 

5,000 hand-carved pumpkins (as opposed to what, 3D printed ones?) flicker gleefully on the lawns of the historic Van Cortland Manor, luring those brave enough to venture forth into a fantastical world of ghosts and graveyards entirely crafted out of pumpkins.

Nothing sends chills down the spine like Haunted Einstein. You know you're in the twilight zone when a cubed term mysteriously sneaks into E=mc2.

An entire garden made of Jack O'Lanterns. Someone is eating a lot of pumpkin pie right now.

Each section of the Blaze has it's own theme and atmospheric sound track. This one is used by NASA to study the physiology of alien life forms now that they can't afford to actually send rockets to space.

Mei doesn't quite get the appeal of braving a wintry evening to see something you can get in a latte at Starbucks around this time of year.

Long-time West Village resident Count Dracula thought the worst thing to happen to New York was having those citibike stands ruin the elitist aesthetic of his townhouse-lined street, but that was before de Blasio's millionaires tax. At least he's not the only bloodsucker in town now.

That's the grave of the data-driven, pragmatic, mayor-as-a-CEO Bloomberg era. Time to run out to buy a Big Gulp and light up a smoke in Central Park.


 

In 2005 the Blaze started as a simple row of Jack O'Lanterns on a couple hay bales in a field. Now, in typical New York fashion, it's blown out into an extravaganza that's booked out faster than Tao Downtown and features such installations as a giant spider web made entirely of pumpkins.

 

Hope you have health insurance, because an x-ray like that is going to set you back at least the price of a car. What do you mean the website crashed?

Here kitty kitty.

Ok, this is getting a bit ridiculous now. A grandfather clock made of pumpkins that actually works! What next, dinosaurs? Well, yes.

A tunnel of this length would take the MTA a decade to drill. Here they carve it up every year and still have time to bake the insides into pumpkin pie. Maybe de Blasio isn't so bad after all, when you consider the alternative was the dude who actually ran the MTA.

Three witches and a cauldron. Looks like they've got room for one more. Mei, step right up.

How many pumpkins does it take to make an elephant?

The newest edition to the Blaze is this gigantic sea serpent, complete with mood lighting and eerie background music.

Did we mention the dinosaurs?

How prophetic, if that's not the squeegee gang waiting to ambush you at the exit of the Lincoln tunnel I don't know what is.

 Yes, you heard right, it's the latest edition to Museum Mile: the MoPA. That's Museum of Pumpkin Art for the uninitiated.

The Rise of the Storm King



Thor is back in the theaters swinging his big hammer and his L'Oreal locks around but that's got nothing to do with the bizarrely named Storm King Art Center. The idea is novel: take 500 acres of stunning Hudson Valley farmland and convert it into an outdoor sculpture garden where monumental contemporary installations are juxtaposed against the vastness of the landscape.



 

The Storm King is in da house!

Actually it turns out the name isn't so weird after all, Storm King is the name of a nearby mountain that's the highest point in this part of the valley. What is weird though is that spaceship that's just landed over yonder. Close encounters of an artistic kind.

Did you remember to bring you 5 iron?

That's why they call it a fairway.

Nothing keeps the rain off like a giant Zippo lighter.

A searching examination into the circular paradox of the subconscious void, or three toilet bowls stacked on top of each other? You be the judge.

The sculptures have some tough competition from the blazing autumn landscape. Where are those impressionists when you need them? Oh that's right, getting their ears sewn back on.

 

You never know what kind of weird contraption is lurking in the woods. The only sure thing is that it's going to be big. Or, in art-speak, monumental.

Forget about that quaint artist's studio in Tuscany, Airbus might have a spare hanger you can borrow instead.

Is it a turkey?

 

Or a giraffe?

Or a whale? Whatever it is, it seems fine arts has moved beyond the lowly paintbrush and turps. Try an industrial rivet gun and welding torch instead.

A bridge between the real and the imagined, the permanent and the transitory. Writing about art is really easy since you can make up anything you want, so long as it makes no sense whatsoever.

Maybe the Storm King really does roam these lands.

The Storm King casts a baleful eye over his domain. Now would be a good time to cower in supplication, or at least get your umbrella ready.

The epic scale is hammered home by the brooding autumn sky. This is art at its very best.

This is the road to take if you want to end up living on instant noodles in a decaying warehouse on the bad side of Bushwick surrounded by easels laden with the unsold remnants of a liberal arts education.

Got the spoon, now where's the ice cream?