(For the View From Your Window contest, the results below exceed the content limit for Substack’s email service, so to ensure that you see the full results, click the headline above.)
Great news! Thank you, Chris. I will take the book.
In that contest, you probably missed the final entry — waaay down past all the sleuthing and fun facts. That entry, from the Santa Monica super-sleuth, was not so fun. It began:
I’m curious about the VFYW policy for exceptions to the “no double winners” rule for book-prize purposes, since I’m asking for a waiver. My excuse is that my original VFYW book was incinerated in the Palisades Fire, likely late morning on January 8th. The sofa went too, and given that the people who sold it to me lied about pet-friendliness, that at least is unlamented.
Dougal and the dearly departed VFYW book
What follows is long, and I do not expect you to reproduce it. It’s just been a time, and I thought I would use this as a way to collect my thoughts, but also to put a full stop on it. It’s as much for my Sent folder, and so perhaps it’s selfish.
Berkeley doesn’t think so:
The long L.A. wildfire report from the Santa Monica super-sleuth has to be one of the most authentic, generous, and moving pieces of writing I’ve come upon on any topic for as long as I can remember. (And as much as I love reading the weekly VFYW writeup, it’s not like I approach it expecting to be touched emotionally.) At first I braced myself to read of a bad end for Dougal the beagle, but once I realized Dougal was going to survive, I surrendered absolutely to the sleuth’s gripping story.
The story is here if you’d like to read it, alongside the many poignant pics. The following one stands out in particular, with the caption, “My friend Jules holding Dougal and ruining a cashmere cardigan in the process so that Dougal didn’t get the ash on his paws — or get his beagle nose into whatever else lies in that”:
Regarding our dear sleuth’s question about the double-jeopardy rule for the contest, obviously I’m just sending him a replacement book instead. He replied, “I will be happy to provide a window view from my new home, and to recreate the sofa shot with Dougal and the new book.” Stay tuned.
A less fraught followup to that contest, in the Greek Isles, comes from the VFYW chef:
The discussion about the Persians reminded me of Robert Graves’ wonderful poem “The Persian Version”:
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon. As for the Greek theatrical tradition Which represents that summer’s expedition Not as a mere reconnaissance in force By three brigades of foot and one of horse (Their left flank covered by some obsolete Light craft detached from the main Persian fleet) But as a grandiose, ill-starred attempt To conquer Greece — they treat it with contempt; And only incidentally refute Major Greek claims, by stressing what repute The Persian monarch and the Persian nation Won by this salutary demonstration: Despite a strong defence and adverse weather All arms combined magnificently together.
This poem is quoted in the epigraph of the history book Persians: The Age of Great Kings, by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, which I highly recommend. It offers a correction to the ancient Greek propaganda we all learned in school.
Also, shipworms! I love the VFYW’s biology lessons and their videos — the creepy ones and beautiful ones.
Turns out the creepy shipworms can lead to some beautiful creations, according to our super-sleuth in Vancouver, WA:
Going back to last week’s writeup in Greece, my interest was sparked by the animal report on shipworms. Usually it’s the damage caused by these animals that gets our notice, but in one circumstance there was an unintended positive consequence.
In the Cretaceous period, ancient Teredo clams (aka shipworms) bored holes in conifer wood and the driftwood sunk to the bottom of the sea. Over the millennia, tiny plankton skeletons sunk and formed a white sediment called radiolarian ooze, some of which turned into a super-saturated silica solution that gradually precipitated into the cavities of the wood and replaced the woody tissues. This turned the wood into a fossil, or petrified wood.
In Western Australia, part of the ancient sea was uplifted into the Kennedy Ranges, and this type of petrified wood has been found there — beautiful when cut and polished. Here is a photo of a rough piece of the petrified wood, and another of a cabochon I cut and polished, which can be used in jewelry:
The material is known by the trade name Peanut Wood, although it has nothing to do with peanuts! Someone must have thought the tube shapes looked like peanuts. Who knew that ancient sea critters would form into something that millions of years later would be used in jewelry!
P.S. I have some possible window views from our recent trip to submit, but I still have to get them organized for you!
Yes please! If anybody has a submission for the VFYW, please send it our way: contest@andrewsullivan.com. Be sure to include part of the window frame, and horizontal pics are preferred. And if you can, please include a photo of the building with the window circled. If your submission is selected, you’ll get six free months of Dish.
Here’s our super-sleuth in Sagaponack:
I was so close to finding the window last week, but only managed to come up with “North-facing view in Northern part of Greece with marinas and mountains.” What makes it worse is my query for marinas that might fit returned Aegina as one of five options, but I felt it was too dry to match the photo. Oh well.
One small request: can you give us the hard ones for the two-week staycations so we can use that extra time? This week’s was much simpler and now I have withdrawal pains :)
I do usually pick the harder ones for the Dish breaks, but dropped the ball this time. Yet another followup comes from our super-sleuth in Yakima:
As a footnote to the last contest, there is (was?) a warm spring (25 C, 77 F) on Aegina Island itself, on Loutra Beach near Souvala, 5 km east of the view. (“Loutra” in Greek translates to “the baths.”) The baths were housed in the white boxy building on the beach, but are now defunct. The building has to be repainted annually to cover accumulating graffiti.
One more followup comes from our super-sleuth in Nashua:
Long time, no write. I’ve been very busy with work, travel, and family, so haven’t had time. This long holiday weekend, I finally got a chance to catch up and really enjoyed going through the contests I missed, searching out the views and then reading everyone’s contributions. I missed our quirky little community.
The Key West contest in particular caught me off guard. Some of my weekends have been filled traveling back and forth to visit my dad, who is not doing well. Key West is one of his favorite places. He is retired military, and every winter he would reserve a place on the navy base for any of us who could come. We’d fish every day we were there and eat downtown every night. Sometimes we’d take our catch directly to Schooner Wharf, where they’d cook it for you. A really satisfying dinner after a long day on the water. I have a lot of good memories in the Keys and now more than ever I am really grateful to have them.
On to this week’s view, a sleuth writes:
My very first instinct was Florida, with the tropical waterfront and flat terrain. But the hotel (matching blinds in each window made that pretty clear) looked a little out of place for Florida. The glass roof seemed the best unique landmark. Sure enough, a Google search of “glass pyramid roofs, hotel tropical” got me there.
From the A2 Team in Ann Arbor:
You promised the other week that the pendulum between easy and difficult contests would swing back, and boy did you keep your word! Having grown up around the Mediterranean, both of us knew that the latest contest had to be along the coast of Greece or Turkey, and we realized it had to be near a major shipping lane, like the Dardanelles or the access to Piraeus. And we still missed it!
Fortunately, the pendulum is swinging the other way this week. We are looking at what the Germans call Bettenburg … maybe you can translate it as “tourism fortress”? In any case, a massive hotel in a place of mass tourism. And somewhere within the America sphere of cultural influence.
Searching for “glass pyramid building” has failed us once before, in Portland, OR (which we found through other means), but this time around, a picture of the hotel next door suggested that we are looking out from a room in [location redacted].
Here’s a sneak peek of the pyramids and the window building, thanks to the DC super-sleuth:
Another sleuth sees coastal Maryland:
This building in Ocean City is familiarly called “the Pyramid.” It won an award for lighting in its first year out. It’s so tall that after 3:00 pm, bathers on the beach are in the shade because the sun has moved to the front of the building.
My family has been going to Ocean City since 1959. We stayed at the Carrolton Apts on 12th St, in an old clapboard four story building, with rocking chairs on the porches of each floor. We were behind the Mayflower Hotel within one block of the boardwalk. Opposite us was the Stephen Decatur Hotel where Mayor McKeldin stayed. Also located in OC is “the Carousel,” a hotel built by Tommy D’Allesandro, former mayor of Baltimore and father of Nancy Pelosi.
Here’s Chini with a vivid aerial view of the right place:
Here’s the beginning of the entry from our super-sleuth on Park Avenue:
Thankfully this one was pretty quick, since I am still working on last week’s view in Greece. I initially thought maybe Orlando — one of the Disney places? But after a quick look there, it didn’t look right.
Another sleuth gets warmer:
The photograph appears to feature the side of some sort of Mayan revival-style hotel, in a reasonably well-watered tropical location with plenty of green space and coconut palms. It appears to be looking out over a lagoon of some sort. And there appear to be additional hotels in the distance. Obvious guess is [redacted], since it checks every box.
This next sleuth reveals the right country:
Cheers from the outer banks of NC! Been a while since I took a stab at the contest. Every week that I think I’ve got time to figure it out, I get stumped and give up. Luckily my annual family beach vacation provides plenty of free time — in this case, to search for other beach vacation destinations.
I had an immediate hunch this was a Mexican resort. Lots of rough painted concrete, cheap boxy construction, a pile of junk and crooked air conditioners amongst well-manicured St Augustine grass. The landscapers are meticulous, but the maintenance people aren’t: that style of fire extinguisher, in a useless location, to please some know-nothing inspector’s checklist.
A Google search for “pyramid hotel Mexico” got me to the right place in seconds.
Our super-sleuth in Asheville writes, “Here is an aerial view, showing many of the landmark features from the VFYW” — and it looks like something out of Sim City:
From the UWS super-sleuth:
Well, no problem finding the resort we’re looking at ... but figuring out which of several identical-looking buildings in the View was the tricky part. In spite of Dusty’s camouflaging efforts, though, the tennis courts gave it away. We’re somewhere in southernmost building on [resort redacted].
I can’t seem to get on the resort property to take a look around, though at one point I ended up on someone’s balcony and was able to peek into their room! In any event, I’ll leave the window identification to the more skillful sleuths. My excuse is that I’m too busy celebrating my and my husband’s (semi-)retirement this week. Retirement from work, that is, not from attempting to figure out the Views!
Our super-sleuth in Albany names the right city:
The visible clues: tropical, sunny, beachy, built-up and touristy, ritzy buildings close together. The building next door: white walls and an architectural motif reminiscent of Mayan pyramids. Yucatan peninsula? But not Belize. Belizean hotels aren’t as “on the nose” with Mayan influence. Plus Belize isn’t quite that built-up and is less economically advanced.
The manicured lawn and tennis court suggest a higher-end resort. The calm water suggests a sheltered lagoon or bay. This leads to only one place:
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