Flung Magazine

04/05/2024

"The show inhabits the entire 19th floor of 101 Greenwich Street, a structure that over more than a century has housed the headquarters of the Electric Bond and Share Company (a major precursor to many of our present-day electric companies), the offices of the law firm that successfully fought the censorship of Ulysses, and more recently, an outpost of the co-working company Convene. (It was also the scene of a grizzly murder in 2009 that grabbed a slew of headlines.) But currently, its tenants, or lack thereof, reflect the city’s increased office vacancy rate since the pandemic—according to the building’s website, eight of 26 floors are empty (including the 19th, which is available to rent after the Wool show closes), with parts of others also vacant."

Artist Christopher Wool has opened “See Stop Run” in a disused 19th-floor office space in New York’s Financial District, providing a template for the future.

08/25/2021

Imagining what's going on at the world's notable new hotels...

What a delight to discover that we once again live in a world in which new hotels open. In this continuing pandemic era, of course, depending on the country of the hotel and of your residency and your…

04/23/2020

Today’s recluse/master social distancer: Fiona Apple, who recorded the most important album of our current time mostly without leaving her Venice, California bungalow. In the , Emily Nussbaum describes Apple’s reclusive approach as “pridefulness in retreat.” In her own home, she’s always in control, etc. On the other hand, fetch the bolt cutters, we’ve been in here too long.
Second photo is a random one I took at the Abbott Kinney Festival in Venice a few years back.
@ Venice, California

04/14/2020

Today’s recluse/master social distancer: Jeff Mangum, of the band Neutral Milk Hotel, who lives somewhere in Brooklyn, although the internet doesn’t seem to know precisely where, so here’s a picture of my own Brooklyn neighborhood. After putting out what may be the best indie album of all time in 1998, Mangum disbanded NMH and disappeared from the public eye just as it turned toward him. In 2003 he emailed a reporter trying to interview him with: “I’m not an idea. I am a person, who obviously wants to be left alone.” He’s come out for a couple tours in the past ten years, and was spotted at an Occupy Wall Street thing and a climate protest thing, and that’s about it. Like every other guy in the world right now, his beard seems to have gotten a little out of control, and that’s more or less all I know.
@ Brooklyn, New York

04/08/2020

Today’s recluse, aka master NYC social distancer: Greta Garbo, the Hollywood A-lister who left the movies for good at age 35 (or, was forced out at the general female expiration date?). She then remained in LA for another decade or so before moving into the super-exclusive Campanile apartment building on the East River in Manhattan, pictured here. She never gave interviews or dined out, but she did become famous for her long solitary walks through the city. A lifestyle we can all emulate in these weird times.
@ East Midtown Manhattan

04/02/2020

Today’s recluse: Dave Chappelle, who at the height of his fame in 2005 peaced our to a farm outside the village of Yellow Springs, Ohio (after a stint in South Africa), pictured here. He’s been living there ever since with his wife and three kids. The whole family rarely appears in public. Chappelle himself appeared in public only a handful of times between 2005 and 2013, when he began staging a comeback. Aside from performances, though, Chappelle still prefers the quiet life in rural Ohio.
@ Yellow Springs, Ohio

03/26/2020

Today’s recluse: Stanley Kubrick, who not only mostly shut himself in to the English manor in slide three, but also made the best film in history about losing one’s mind when holed up in a place for months on end—The Shining. Some red rum, anyone?
The movie is the worst case scenario for us all. Kubrick himself seems like the best: although he seldom left home, he loved talking on the phone, his creativity thrived within the confines of his massive house, and people who did know him really liked him. Bonus points for almost never flying, out of a fear of it: Kubrick recreated Vietnam landscapes in England so he wouldn’t have to actually go there, for one example.
@ Childwickbury Manor

03/23/2020

Today’s recluse: Emily Dickinson, who spent most of her life in this mighty nice yellow house in Amherst, Massachusetts. In her adulthood, Dickinson rarely ventured out of her home, and maintained friendships almost exclusively through letter writing or less often, by speaking to others from the other side of a door.
@ Amherst, Massachusetts

03/19/2020

Let’s highlight some famous recluses, shall we? This is the Princess Mundo Imperial in Acapulco, the penthouse of which is the last in a string of hotels Howard Hughes shut himself into. Among many other habits, OCD and germaphobia led Hughes to wash his hands until they bled. Don’t do that, but do keeps your paws under the faucet for 20 seconds.

03/17/2020

Not traveling, so have been going through my travel photos. Here’s a pub in Brighton, England, one of the world’s first seaside resorts.

02/27/2020

La Garoupe Beach on Cap d’Antibes on the French Riviera. This was the first beach in France to be used as a summertime playground, and it’s where Rosemary meets Dick Diver in Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night (although Fitzgerald relocated it to the grounds of the Hotel du Cap). Today, it’s crowded as can be.

01/23/2020

This photo from 1941 of the pool at the Raleigh Hotel in South Beach provides an example of how the hotel properties in Miami Beach once opened directly onto a (very narrow) beach. If you are familiar with Miami Beach, you know that there is now more land, a brick beach walk, the dunes shown in my previous post, and an artificially widened beach between the hotels and the ocean.