Editor’s note: Flavorpill HQ is taking today off to enjoy the unofficial end of summer. But we’re not leaving you empty-handed. Enjoy the all to appropriate feature below, and check back in with us tomorrow.
It was one of those Saturdays in deep summer when everyone thinks of going to the beach. You might have heard it at the grocery store check-out aisle from the couple in flip-flops buying vodka and watermelon, heard it at the local coffee shop on the lips of the tattooed girl talking to her band-mate over iced lattes, heard it from your mother via text message. It was one of those days when everyone was saying, “Maybe we should go to the beach.”
But the beach meant freeway traffic, crowded parking lots, and the long stretch of burning sand between PCH and the Pacific. So instead, I was roasting in my A/C-free Silverlake apartment, too lazy to move, when a collection of John Cheever’s short stories caught my eye. Flipping to “The Swimmer,” I re-visited protagonist Neddy Merrill’s expedition “swimming home” across his Connecticut suburb. Picturing Burt Lancaster in Sydney Pollack’s 1968 film adaptation of the tale, handsome and diving into a clear blue pool, I thought, I could do that — avoid the beach but still cool off by going pool-to-pool. So I hopped into my car and set out to swim across the City of Angels.
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