“We dry and die in the sun / While the seascape arranges old fruit, / Coming in and the tide, glistening / At noon.” — Weldon Kees

The Lost Art of Sunbathing

The dog days of summer have nearly come and gone, but there are a few weeks left to catch those last rays of summer sunshine if you’re still daydreaming of a beach day from your air-conditioned office cubicle.

Let me make a recommendation: Brighton Beach.

In ninth grade I watched a high school production of Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs. Back then I had only an inkling of the place —…