VI. Glass Mountains

David Hockney was once asked to illustrate some stories from Grimm’s fairy tails. One in particular captured the artist’s imagination. In it, a king builds a glass mountain and announces that he will give his daughter away to the man who can climb it without falling. Hockney says, “I loved the idea of finding how you draw a glass mountain.”

In a recent article, Mike Boehm of the Los Angeles Times describes the walk to Frank Gehry’s long awaited Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles as grueling. Before public transit was established, those who couldn’t afford to drive or pay for parking at the hall had to “essay a steep, sweat-inducing grade that calls to mind the myth of Sisyphus.”

Contrary to popular belief, Los Angeles is not a fairytale.