Sights – Flung

From Blueberries to Baby Blanket: History’s Most Entertaining Efforts to Describe the Color of the Ocean

Sarah Stodola — Sat, 04 Jun 2022 19:04:37 +0000

During the several years that I researched The Last Resort: A Chronicle of Paradise, Profit, and Peril at the Beach, I immersed myself in our cultural obsession with the beach. One byproduct of this obsession that kept me perpetually entertained: the writers major and minor the world over who have taken up the challenge to finally describe the ocean satisfactorily. Here, I’ve collected some of the best and most amusing attempts I’ve come across. [T]he beach itself is still the […]

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Oheka Castle: Stomping Ground of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Taylor Swift

Sarah Stodola — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 01:33:59 +0000

In the summer of 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald sat every day in the sun-dappled studio above the garage of his and Zelda’s Long Island house and laid down the foundations of his novel, The Great Gatsby. He was drawing on life as he saw it around him, in those enclaves on Long Island Sound where the richest people in the world built the biggest mansions they could imagine in which to flout Prohibition. During their time living in Great Neck […]

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Jordan’s Other Magnificent Ancient City

Sarah Stodola — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 02:39:00 +0000

Petra gets all the glory, but there’s another ancient city in Jordan with serious capacity to awe. Jerash, located just 30 miles north of the capital city of Amman, is a sprawling, incredibly well-preserved ancient Roman metropolis. The ruins, including a food market, a main street, a water fountain that supplied the entire population, and intact streets let me envision life in Roman times viscerally. For my money, it was better than the Forum in Rome. I came away from […]

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El Caminito: Buenos Aires’ Least Intriguing Attraction

Sarah Stodola — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 14:10:33 +0000

Every guide to Buenos Aires, and I mean every guide, recommends a visit to El Caminito in La Boca. Many of them even feature the colorful street on their covers, despite an afternoon spent there being the surest way to avoid anything real about culture in Buenos Aires. El Caminito isn’t Buenos Aires; it’s Buenos Aires tourism. Nobody lives in these colorful buildings. The clothing lines are there for effect only. The street itself is a former dump, literally. This […]

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The Roses at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Are Out of Control

Sarah Stodola — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 15:42:17 +0000

I never got botanic gardens. They’re just parks, right? Except with signs that indicate the species of every single plant and ruin the scenery, plus a steep entry fee. I especially never got botanic gardens located inside other parks. But such is the setup of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, located in Prospect Park, where I found myself this week, spurred on by a free pass sent to me in the mail in hopes of enticing me to become a member. […]

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Ancient Greek Theater in the Peloponnese

Erum Naqvi — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 13:59:31 +0000

Az ókori görög színház és az online szerencsejátékok izgalmas világa egyaránt képes elrepíteni Önt egy másik időbe, helyre és élménybe. A peloponnészoszi ókori görög színház építészeti csoda volt és tisztelt kulturális intézmény, ahol a múlt visszhangja még ma is érezhető. A görög színházban tartott előadások nagyszabású látványosságok voltak, akárcsak az a lélegzetelállító élmény, amelyet a Wanted Dead Or A Wild online nyerőgép tárcsáinak pörgetésekor átélhet. Ez a nyerőgép egy felejthetetlen nyugati kalandra viszi el a játékosokat, a görög színházi tragédiák […]

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10 Ways To Get the Most Out of Your Trip to Petra

Sarah Stodola — Tue, 09 May 2017 15:42:07 +0000

You’d have to try pretty hard to have a bad experience at Petra, the stunning ancient city carved into the desert cliffs of southern Jordan. That said, the landscape there is extreme, and aside from the Treasury building, the way to the gems not always obvious. After my trip there last December, I assembled this list of 10 things you can do to get the most out of this trip of a lifetime to the Lost City of Petra. 1. […]

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Highlights of the 2017 Whitney Biennial

Sarah Stodola — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 18:00:01 +0000

There’s no point trying to mask the fact that I come at art as a neophyte. A proud neophyte, actually. Rarely do I actively consider how a certain work or artist fits into a larger art-world narrative, nor do I want to. I want to experience art on its own terms, and be interested or moved or charmed by that. (Text continues below…) I like art that looks nice. Exquisiteness can be enough. If a work isn’t attractive, it sure […]

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The Shuttered Casinos of Atlantic City, in Photos

Sarah Stodola — Wed, 29 Mar 2017 13:59:58 +0000

In the past three years, five of Atlantic City’s 12 casinos have closed, a stunning descent for what was once the gambling mecca of the East Coast. The root of the problem can be found in Pennsylvania and New York, which now operate gambling spots of their own, meaning that many of Atlantic City’s former clientele now have little reason to make the trip down the Jersey Shore. Of the five casinos that have shuttered, two bear the Trump name–the […]

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The Fascinating Ruins of 5 Long-Lost Beach Resorts

Sarah Stodola — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 14:49:11 +0000

It’s a spine-tingling thing to see things that were once coveted fall into decay. That sentiment guided my interest in researching the glamorous beach resorts of times past, places that were once in history the apex of life for those fortunate enough to visit them, but ended up abandoned, seaside ghost towns left to crumble, left unloved. I expected their abandonment to be related to passing fashions, with people inevitably moving on to the next hot thing. Most often, though, these areas […]

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