SPALDING GRAY: Actor-Slash-Writer
It's 10:30 on an uncharacteristically sweltering morning in mid-June, and Forrest Gray has come down, overnight, with chicken pox.

Camp Wikoff Lives Again
On an outdoor stage in Theodore Roosevelt County Park, in a pasture that is one of the few places in Montauk that looks the same as it did in 1898, Camp Wikoff and the Rough Riders will return, large as life, for nine weeks this summer.

Littoral Drift
The only dignity is in death, the saying goes. Few of us, save for undertakers, Armageddon fanatics, and Dr. Jack Kevorkian, obsess about our ultimate demise, but we all are aware of our mortality. When it's time, it's time. Of course, all of us would like to shuffle off this mortal coil in a dignified way - if not peacefully in our sleep, at least jumping into icy waters to save Mrs. Brown's wayward poodle or attempting to foil a holdup at the local Gas-'N-Go.

SAG HARBOR: Historic Houses Tour
Four residences in Sag Harbor and two on North Haven will be featured in the annual Historic Sag Harbor house tour sponsored by the Friends of the John Jermain Memorial Library on Friday, July 10.

Critics

Opinion: Hyping 'Sex And The City'
Taking their work on vacation with them, the stars of HBO's new program "Sex and the City" attended a preview party at Jet East in Southampton on Friday night.

Long Island Books

DESIGN: Keeping The Integrity Of Barns
Buried deep in the marsh grass that edges Northwest Creek and with Barcelona Point in the distance, the 6.2-acre parcel that Pat Mundus and Earl Vorhees bought in 1985 was beautiful, but necessitated variances for building near wetlands.

BRIDGEHAMPTON FESTIVAL: 'Mozart:His Words And Music'
"I have just heard a fugue, and I cannot believe how wonderful it is. So all week long I have chased around hearing every fugue I could, and, dear Constance, I am going to write one for you."

From The Studio
What is there in the very air of the East End that makes for an environment of such fervent and fervid creative output, especially on the part of the painters and sculptors who came here to live and work during the last 50 years?