Vitamin Sea

It’s not August. And it’s not mid-week. But summer is slipping through fingers like sand and time is confounding and there were days this month I had free but instead of writing I went to the beach. So if you’re reading this and you have an opportunity to be sun-soaked and swimming instead, do it. I won’t get mad. In fact, I’ll come with you if you’ll have me! But when the air gets colder and the days get shorter, and you need an escape to something sweaty and salty, these beach picks will be here waiting for you.

Movie: Fort Tilden

This movie is delightfully stupid. A familiar plot for those residing in NYC - 2 Brooklynites on a sunny afternoon are just trying to get to the damn beach. Much like its namesake, there is nothing spectacular about Fort Tilden. But it is the quick 90 minute romp through insufferable people’s suffering, splashed with moments of true insight into arrested development and that lost-at-sea feeling between youth and adulthood, that make it the perfect movie to throw on after a long day at the beach. Sun burnt and pooped, don’t worry about dozing off. Just let the easy laughs and creeping hangover lull you into that perfect early evening slumber only summer can provide.

Fun fact: the film’s writer/director duo Sarah Violet-Bliss & Charles Rogers make a cameo just after the 60 minute mark.

Silly. Cringe. Consumable.

Sketch: Beach Day et al.

Too scorched for a full-fledged feature? Any of the comedic relics from Brian Jordan Alvarez & Stephanie Koenig will give you the quick pre-nap giggles you are seeking. Start with Beach Day for some knowing looks to salty companions. From there you can go through the mindless humor of When you’re not sure if someone’s in line, When someone gives you feedback on your art, or the absolutely idiotic A HUNDRED PERCENT. Feeling warmed up and ready for deeper waters? Every episode of The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo kills me. 

Hot tip: watch on laptop to fully immerse yourself in the YouTube sketch vibes of the time.

Playful. Surprising. Crude.

Art Book: Stranger Lives

From 2008 to 2015, Caitlin Teal Price walked the stretch of sand between Brighton Beach and Coney Island portraiting the vibrant and varied sunbathers that peppered the shore. The result is a portal to the refreshing clash of gusty winds, bright pink speedos, wholesome sand castles, and sugary drinks sold right out of coolers on wheels. Limiting her quest to the hours when the sun is hot and high, Price’s imagery is uniformly sharp and glistening. On the surface the collection is visual candy, but a deeper dive reveals anthropological intrigue. With idiosyncrasies strewn about the frame - an array of chips, a protruding scar, a book titled “9,000 insults” - one begins to imbue each stranger with a story beyond the page.

Crisp. Colorful. Eccentric.

Snack: Cup Noodles

Each summer as a kid my mom and I would spend one week in Nags Head, a sleepy section of the Outer Banks with steep sand dunes and gentle waves. Every year we’d stay at the Blue Heron, a rundown motel with scratchy towels, wood paneling, and the type of shower curtain that never seems to dry. Activities were sparse - I’d do my yearly surf lesson that always seemed like my first, and we’d walk the beach collecting shells that rarely made it home. One year the room next to ours was occupied with a mother/daughter duo. With the shared harrowing experience of being 9, the little girl’s and my devotion to each other was swift to come, and upon departure home swift to go. I remember swimming a little too far for comfort, my mom’s embarrassing mummification to protect herself from the sun, and the charm in my mother’s eyes every time we visited a lighthouse. But what I remember most is Cup Noodles. After a long day of ocean tumbles and roasting, my mom and I would saunter the 20 feet back to our ground-floor motel room, microwave a Cup Noodles, and slurp in bed watching whatever C-list movie was playing on basic cable. The distant ocean sounds paired with the familiar comfort of warm soup and warm family soothed me into a slow-blinking stupor. More than once I remember my mom hushing me back to sleep as she slipped the softened styrofoam from my hands. Everything in that noodle-belly moment felt perfectly simple. 

The truth is I didn’t quite care for those vacations as a kid. I was bored. Each year I begged my mom for a trip to New York City instead, seduced by the promise of arts and lights and chaos. Now 30 years later here I am writing this in my Bushwick apartment trying to concentrate through sirens and snippets of weekend debauchery and I am crying. I love my rich, dynamic life, and I am infinitely lucky in a billion ways, but with bills and chores and love and loss and the inevitable baggage of being alive, nothing about it has felt particularly simple in a very, very long time. I am craving simplicity. 

And yet, I am terrified of it. 

So for now, until I’m ready for the same quiet beach in the same motel with the same easy dinner, I’ll pick up a 99¢ Cup Noodles at the corner bodega and - for a moment - simply be.

Cheap. Comforting. Customizable.

Some of my favorite additions (but just as good as is):

• A spoonful of kimchi or a dollop of chili crisp

• Halved cherry tomatoes & chopped scallions, sautéed or plopped in raw

• Ripped up fresh herbs of your choice

• A soft boiled egg & fresh spinach

• Peanut butter & Sriracha

• Sesame oil, soy sauce, fresh ginger, & a few sheets of nori

• Tofu, sautéed shrimp, or crumbled tempeh

• If you can swing it - an ocean view

Soak it up,

<3 Julie