A pineapple placed on the front gate of a returning whaling captain’s house symbolized a welcome to visitors who wished to view the treasures from his world voyages. Historical artifacts from these captains, who left the East End to hunt whales in hopes of becoming wealthy from their valuable oil, are on display in “Bridgehampton Whalers: A Farmer’s Life at Sea” at the Bridgehampton Museum, formerly known as the Bridgehampton Historical Society. Among them is a bottle of whale oil, a rare find according to Julie Greene, the curator, who offered a talk last Thursday on the exhibit.

    With about 70 ships having set forth on whaling adventures from Sag Harbor and Greenport, Ms. Greene, who also works as the local history librarian at the Hampton Library, found a wealth of material in whaling logs, writings, drawings, and other objects, which she drew upon to give the community a glimpse of life during whaling times.

    Some of the work demonstrated artistic ability that was “beyond belief,” she said. An example was a hand-carved baleen yarn winder on display in a glass case in a room with scrimshaw corsets, fans, shoehorns, jewelry, tools, and baskets.

    Paintings by Claus Hoie depicting whalers and their lives also grace the walls of the museum. Two were given initially, but since the exhibit opened, 11 more were given to the museum. Maps and navigational items, including a spyglass and compass, which demonstrate how the whalers used the stars and lunar observation to guide their voyage, are displayed. On loan from the East Hampton Town Marine Museum in Amagansett is a piece of whale vertebrae and tail.

    A feathered cape from a trip to Cape Horn in South America, acquired during a historic, life-threatening whaling trip to that area, was gifted by the Hildreth family, descendants of the Halsey family of whalers.

    Reading painstakingly through the often uneventful details described in whalers’ logs, Ms. Greene learned that whalers would sometimes meet up at various places around the world and trade newspapers and letters from home when they met up, and even wagered with each other about their successes. As written in a log by Capt. A.J. Jennings, “I bet a new hat with Captain Rogers today that I would have more oil than he one year from today.”

    Not all whalers were successful, and crewmen would often return with little to nothing, indebted to the ship store for rum, cigarettes, and supplies used during their voyages. A crewman’s “lay” or percentage of profits, even for a successful trip, might result in only $25 for several years of work.

    The logs told tales of woe, drawings of a fin indicated the whales that got away, Ms. Greene explained. Capt. William C. Haines, whom she called a Hayground boy, “waxed on eloquently” about the sad tales and challenges encountered during his unsuccessful four-year venture, which included six months in Australia waiting on repairs and lost crewmen.

    The beginning of the end of the whaling industry came about when petroleum was discovered and during the Civil War, when southern blockades prevented ships from getting through. Many whalers went instead to seek gold in California, among them Captain Haines, who headed an 1840 mining adventure after his unsuccessful whaling trips. He later returned to be a farmer and to marry Frances M. Rogers, and is now buried in Hayground Cemetery.

    Pictures of James and Henry Huntting, two brothers who lived in Bridgehampton, are displayed on one wall in the museum. Their grandfather Benjamin Huntting, whose house is now the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum, set out on the first whaling ship from Sag Harbor, and they followed in his wake.

    A quilt displayed in the museum’s welcome room was a gift for the betrothed Caroline F. Huntting by 40 local women when she was preparing for her nuptials with Henry Huntting upon his return. Quilting and needlework was a “popular distraction” for women who awaited the return of their men, Ms. Greene explained.

    For those at sea, the wait could be arduous. Capt. Edward Halsey, who completed the first dangerous trip to South America out of Sag Harbor, wrote of the longing for home in “A Ditty Made at See”: “When will kind fortion set me free/ That I may leave the boisterous Sea/ I love my friends I love the Shore/ I long to leave the Ocean roar/ Then home sweet home/ Shall be my pride/ With her I love/ Near by my side.”

   A few of the whalers are commemorated on a broken mast monument for those lost at sea during the 19th century, which includes Alfred C. Glover, 29, Richard S. Topping, 29, and William H. Pierson, 30.

    The whaling exhibit, on display through April 1 at the Corwith House, will be a permanent display in the society’s Nathaniel Rogers House when its restoration is complete, in a room named for Captain James R. Huntting, who became the house’s second owner in 1857.

   “I went down to Alphabet City a few weekends ago, saw a guy walking with a guitar, felt like this was a bygone era.”

    That may sound like the opening lines of a song — and maybe it is — but in this context, Jamie Grubb, a Springs native, was musing about the state of rock ’n’ roll music, circa 2013.

    “There are no new, 25-year-old, not-so-much-money musicians moving to the East Village. It’s too expensive,” he said.

    Though some parts of New York City are still crawling with musicians, the pioneering artists in Brooklyn neighborhoods like Williamsburg were long ago pushed out by gentrification and commensurate skyrocketing real estate costs. And while Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood has experienced a similarly dramatic transformation, it also serves as headquarters and inspiration for Mr. Grubb’s band, the Dumbo Project.

    “We were all side people in other bands,” Mr. Grubb said of the group’s inception. “We had all played together in various bands. We got this rehearsal space in Dumbo, and we didn’t have a name, so we said, ‘How about the Dumbo Project?’ ”

    Formed in 2009, the band, which also includes Drew Burchenal, John Schmidt, Alex Rivers, and Meredith Strang O’Sullivan, convenes at a huge, subterranean complex of rehearsal and recording studios at 68 Jay Street. In a shared space known as Happy House, the band cooks up a unique blend of original music that incorporates rock ’n’ roll, blues, punk, and soul.

    Last year, the Dumbo Project performed for “On the Air” at Crossroads Music in Amagansett, roughly coinciding with the release of their debut EP, “Panacea,” recorded in Manhattan’s Alphabet City. The band has also performed at the Dumbo Arts Festival and various New York clubs. Today, they continue to play in and around New York and are plotting more recording dates, with a full-length release to follow.

    There is a curious paradox at this time in popular music’s history. The major-label infrastructure is a shadow of its former self, after a decade-plus decimation by online piracy and competition from new media including video games, social media, and a trillion-plus Web sites. Artist development is long gone, rosters are lean, recording and promotional budgets leaner, and attention spans almost nonexistent. The paradigm that existed for decades is unlikely to return.

    Yet, the very means by which that traditional path to stardom was destroyed — broadly speaking, the personal computer — also allows the independent artist unprecedented opportunity for do-it-yourself recording, promotion, and worldwide distribution. The Dumbo Project has seized on this: “Panacea” is available for purchase on Apple’s iTunes Music Store and streaming at reverbnation.com/thedumboproject. A video for their song “Dumplings and Creamsicles” is at youtube.com, and the band has a page on Facebook at facebook.com/TheDumboProject.

    “It’s like the press kit you used to send out manually,” Mr. Grubb said of Web sites like reverbnation.com. In this way, a band can build an audience even as live-music venues become harder to find, more victims of the real estate boom that claimed so many clubs and studios in recent years. “If you have a Facebook page, you post the gig information and people might show up. You don’t even talk to them on a regular basis.”

    After a November performance in Brooklyn, Mr. Grubb said, “we had 10 new ‘likes’ on Facebook and we don’t even know half of them. We don’t know where they’re coming from. They’re starting to play our songs on Spotify,” he added, referring to the on-demand digital music service that features more than 20 million recordings.

    There is another paradox more and more musicians confront with the passage of time: playing rock ’n’ roll, a form built on youthful rebellion and irreverence, beyond one’s youth. “Is rock ’n’ roll tied to age?” Mr. Grubb pondered. “Or, if your music is good, it’s good, period? Guitar players just get better, you know? If you’re 50, you’re probably better than when you were 20. But they think the market wants the 20-year-old, even though that 50-year-old can blow away the 20-year-old. You’ve got to find an audience for it.”

    Perhaps, in the rock ’n’ roll world, the youth-versus-age conflict has been settled, anyway. Sixty-nine-year-old Mick Jagger pranced across a Brooklyn stage just a few weeks ago, after all. In that same borough, the collaborative Dumbo Project — its members are multi-instrumentalists and musical ideas from all corners are welcome — forges forward.

    “There’s just some drive to keep writing, and it doesn’t stop,” said Mr. Grubb. “You just want to continue to play and try and do something better the next time.”

King Speaks

    A rarely seen one-hour interview with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be screened tomorrow at 6 p.m. at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill. The film will be introduced by George Silano, the North Haven cinematographer who made it.

    King speaks about the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War. Also featured is a conversation with his wife, Coretta Scott King. The film had never been screened publicly until its premiere on Jan. 28 at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton. Admission is free.

Music, American Style

    Eugenie Russo, a pianist, will give a concert, “Americana: Music by Copland, Bernstein, and Gershwin,” on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Southampton Cultural Center. Ms. Russo is a former artist in residence for the State of Virginia and has toured as a representative of the U.S. State Department and Austrian Foreign Ministry. She has performed, recorded for television and radio, and taught master classes throughout Asia, Europe, and this country.

    She has taught piano at the Josef Matthias Hauer Conservatory in Austria since 1991 and is a professor at the Vienna International Pianists Summer Academy, as well as a jurist for piano competitions, such as the International Rosario Marciano Piano Competition. Tickets cost $15 and can be purchased at the door. A reception with the artist will follow.

Coming to Bay Street

    The Bay Street Theatre has announced that three plays have been chosen for its Mainstage season. “Lend Me a Tenor” by Ken Ludwig will run from May 28 to June 23, directed by Don Stephenson. “The Mystery of Irma Vep” by Charles Ludlum will be performed from July 2 to July 28, with Kenneth Elliott directing. From Aug. 6 to Sept. 1, it will be “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” directed by Marcia Milgrom Dodge, with book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart and music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

    “It’s going to be a summer full of laughs, that’s for sure,” Tracy Mitchell, the Sag Harbor theater’s executive director, said. “We know people in the Hamptons are here for a good time all summer, and we plan on delivering our share of fun.”

    “We think these shows are some of the best comedies written for the stage,” said Gary Hygom, Bay Street’s managing director for production, “and the musical ‘Forum’ is not only one of the greatest musical comedies, it also features the music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, with the signature song ‘Comedy Tonight!’ ”

    The 2013 Mainstage season program is partially funded by Suffolk County. Three-play subscriptions are available online at baystreet.org or by calling the box office Tuesday through Friday between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Love and Passion

    This weekend, Karyn Mannix Contemporary will present the eighth iteration of the “Love and Passion” series of Valentine’s Day shows at Ashawagh Hall. The subtitle this year is “The Naughty Show,” with mature themes of an erotic nature from more than 70 artists.

    The exhibition will open Saturday afternoon at 1 and then have a reception that night from 5:30 to 8. Alfredo Merat will provide music, along with performances by the Neo-Political Cowgirls and Adam Baranello and the A&G Dance Company. The evening also features a 50-50 raffle to benefit the Springs Food Pantry.

    On Sunday, Teri Kennedy will host “The Wild Side,” a poetry-and-performance open microphone event that begins at 11:30 a.m. Maria Bacardi and Michelle Murphy are the featured poets.

Devil’s Workshop? Not!

    “Not the Devil’s Workshop: Women’s Hand Work, 1800-1930” will be the next show at the Southampton Historical Museum, opening on Saturday and running through April 27. Sheila Guidera, an antiques collector and the curator of the show, used the phrase “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop” as her inspiration.

    Her collection contains 19th-century mirrors decorated with paintings of landscapes and flowers — a popular handcraft at the time — as well as samplers, tatting, lace, and other unique objects and products of female needlework done in the downtime between preparing meals and other chores and raising a family on the South Fork.

    The show will coincide with National Women’s History Month in March. The opening will be held on Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m.

   Anyone who has been in a long-term relationship knows that there is only one real secret to its success and that’s commitment. Mort Hamburg knows it too, and he has used the theme to anchor a new photo book profiling couples, famous and not, who have built long and flourishing lives together. And this is not his first rodeo.

    In 2000, he brought together a number of married couples in a photo book called “Couples: A Celebration of Commitment.” This year, he has gone outside matrimony to find long-term couples that may or may not be legally wed to help examine and demonstrate what makes their relationships tick. He is aided in this by Kashmir Hill, who interviewed each of the couples that Mr. Hamburg photographed.

    “I chose the title ‘Commitment,’ this time, because that’s what it’s all about,” he said recently. “To do something and do it well, no matter what it is, requires commitment.”

    Mr. Hamburg, who took up photography in his retirement after 50 years in communications law, has made his hobby somewhat of a second career, with several exhibitions also to his credit. “I’m proud of the book,” he said. “I just turned 82 a couple of weeks ago and for me to have a book out and it selling out of its first printing is a real mark of success for me.”

    He chose the couples from people he and his wife, Joan Hamburg, a long-time radio personality, know from New York or the South Fork and through the recommendations of close friends. He said it helped that Ms. Hamburg had interviewed many of them over the years on her radio show.

    There are pictures and write-ups of 37 couples. Joy Behar and Steve Janowitz, who are South Fork part-timers, reveal that they dated for two decades before moving in together after Sept. 11, 2001. Although they remained unmarried for several years, they finally took the plunge in August 2011. There are a number of other East End couples in the book, including April Gornik and Eric Fischl.

    Another long-term couple that waited years to marry is Judy Collins and Louis Nelson, who lived together for 18 years before their wedding. “We were very happy and committed to each other and involved in each other’s lives. We didn’t feel any urgency,” Ms. Collins said in her interview.

    One unmarried couple, Tom Cianfichi and Bryan Batt, who might be recognizable to some from his days on the cable series “Mad Men,” decided to wait until gay marriage is recognized in Louisiana, to consider whether or not to wed. They have a house in the Garden District of New Orleans.

    In the case of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, their children brought them together. Mr. Hamburg’s son, John Hamburg, has written for Ben Stiller — the films “Meet the Parents,” “Meet the Fockers,” and “Zoolander” — “but he has since branched off on his own, Mr. Hamburg said.

    Some proceeds from the book will go to the International Rescue Committee, an organization that responds to humanitarian crises. Mr. Hamburg has been involved with the committee for several decades.

    Although he and his wife live in a house on Sagg Pond in Sagaponack, he said a photo book on the South Fork was never something he considered. “Everyone and his brother has a photo book about the Hamptons. I like to keep my life in Sagaponack private,” particularly with all of the attention the village’s high-profile residents and dramatic beach erosion have received in recent years. The couple have not been immune to natural disasters either. Their first floor was partially destroyed by Hurricane Sandy and they are in the process of rebuilding, hoping to have it back to a pre-storm state by May.

    When he began photography, he did a few landscapes, but realized what he really enjoyed was photographing people. “I’m good with people.” For his own enjoyment he will take pictures around the house, of his granddaughter, and of the family dog. Taking good pictures of the latter is the most challenging, he said with a laugh, “but I keep working on it.”

    He did not have a theory or great secret on why some couples stay together, but he had a piece of advice that someone once offered him. “When you have an argument with someone you love, remember to say these words: ‘You may be right.’ That really works.”

   Joan Semmel, a longtime resident of Springs, will have a solo at the Bronx Museum beginning today, with a reception on Saturday.

   “Joan Semmel: A Lucid Eye” will include 27 recent self-portraits in which she explores the process of aging and reveals some of her working methods. A group of four paintings will illustrate how the artist takes pictures of herself in mirrors and then uses the photograph as the basis for the painting.

   Ms. Semmel, who was born in the Bronx, was one of the organizers of a famous feminist art show at Ashawagh Hall in 1975, “Women Here and Now,” at which in one performance, Carolee Schneeman read from a scroll she gradually extracted from her vagina. The image of this work has been illustrated in countless art history books that examine the subjects of both performance art and feminist art.

   Ms. Semmel studied at the Cooper Union, Pratt Institute, and the Art Students League of New York. She began exhibiting her work while she was living in Spain in the 1960s and then returned in the early 1970s to New York, where she became inspired to paint erotically-charged figures with an eye on mainstream feminine ideals. Her work also involves classic feminist art themes such as the viewer’s gaze on the subject/object of the painting. But she also examines other themes such as the relationship between reality and fabrication and age and beauty. Her increased interest in self-portraits dovetailed with her own observations of the aging process and she uses as her subject her body or face as reflected back to her in a mirror.

    The curator of the exhibition, Antonio Sergio Bessa, said in a press release “Semmel’s self-portraits are at their most lucid as she works through her 80s and reveals the realities of an aging body.”

    Yet, in a New York Times review of her 2011 solo show at Alexander Gray Associates, Ken Tucker said, “In her new works Ms. Semmel has painted herself standing against blank walls with a caressing, Impressionistic touch, creating a soft-focus, Renoir-esque realism that erases the wrinkles, blemishes, veins, and other signs of ordinary aging. If, when you are old, your lover sees you this way — whether because of myopia or undiluted affection — you will be very lucky.”

    Of her earlier works of nude couples portrayed from oblique angles and dramatically foreshortened in the spirit of Mantegna’s classic early Renaissance “Lamentation of Christ,” Mr. Tucker noted that the “male gaze did not own the field of desirous looking,” a significant contribution to feminist art history.

    She has exhibited in numerous group shows in museums in New York, Los Angeles, the Netherlands, and Washington, D.C. Her work is also in the permanent collections of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Blanton Museum, Austin, in Texas, Newport Beach Art Museum in California, Chrysler Museum, in Norfolk, Va.; National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., the Parrish Art Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum, among others. She is also professor emeritus of painting at Rutgers University.

    The Bronx Museum exhibition will be on view through June 9. A reception will be held Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m.

Judge or Be Judged

    The eighth annual Crazy Monkey Gallery competition among its member artists will take place at the Amagansett gallery beginning tomorrow.

    Visitors are invited to vote for their favorite art works by secret ballot. Included in the show will be works in painting, drawing, mixed media, collage, photograph, or sculpture, one per each artist.

    Categories will include “Best in Show,” “Most Original,” and “Most Thought-Provoking.” The artists will include Tina Andrews, Beth Barry, Barbara Bilotta, Sarah Blodgett, Lance Corey, Dan Dubinsky, Katherine Hammond, Jana Hayden, Jim Hayden, Cathy Hunter, June Kaplan, Diane Marxe, Andrea McCafferty, Stephanie Reit, Sheila Rotner, Clare Schoenheimer, Daniel Schoenheimer, Cynthia Sobel, Bob Tucker, Ellyn Tucker, and Mark E. Zimmerman.

    At the same time, the gallery will have a solo show of work by Joyce Silver, who studied art at Cooper Union and the University of New Mexico. Her work addresses a variety of subjects and employs a style between realism and abstraction.

    A reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. and the show will remain on view through Feb. 24. Winners will be announced during the reception for the next show on March 2. The winner of the Best in Show category will be given a solo show at a future date in the gallery.

Toni Ross in Maryland

    Toni Ross is presenting her ceramic work in a solo exhibition titled “Symbiosis” at Hood College in Frederick, Md., through Feb. 24. Ms. Ross is also showing some drawings. Ms. Ross is the Toni in Nick and Toni’s restaurant and lives on the South Fork.

    The artist works with shino glazes used for centuries in Japan. Her shapes are inspired by ancient coiled vessels, cycladic stone, and the paintings of Mark Rothko. Her vessels have little practical function, but instead address containment — of time, emotions, experience, and collective memory.

    According to the artist, “There is a search for identity as well as a desire to capture the beauty of line and form, to explore the space in between and the ever intriguing question of what lies within.”

Clairaudience: Sound Collage

    The Parrish Art Museum will present “Clairaudience” on Friday, Feb. 8, at 6 p.m. The event is a D.J. set consisting of different audio samples of the sounds of the East End, such as farming, transportation, dialects, and weather.

    This will be the closing event of Hope Sandrow’s “Genius Loci” project, in which the artist addressed the new site of the Parrish by creating a series of events tied to the qualities of the location. The project was part of the museum’s Platform project, which invites artists to create works that are engaged in a dialogue with the site.

    Carlos Lama and Ulf Skogsbergh are the creators of the sound collage, which has periods of silence to reflect the “evolution and diversity of activities that have, over time, been associated with the Montauk Highway site of the new Parrish Art Museum,” according to the museum.

    “According to Sandrow’s research, the Shinnecock people once inhabited the land, Thomas Sayre, a founder of Southampton, farmed the land, and it later functioned as a poultry farm, then a tree farm.” Each sample played will reflect the previous one to create an aural time line. “Viewers may choose to be seated or move about the theater, and are invited to contribute sounds to the composition as it is performed,” the museum said.

Visual Heritage in Southampton

    The Southampton Cultural Center will present “Visual Heritage IV: Contemporary African-American Artists” tomorrow through Feb. 27 in correspondence with Black History Month.

    Artists will include Tina Andrews, Brent Bailer, Manuel Hughes, Rosa Hanna Scott, Reynold Ruffins, and Danny Simmons.

    A reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. Beginning tomorrow, Ms. Andrews will also present a theater performance of her play “The Mistress of Monticello” at 8 p.m. The piece will have encore performances on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets for the performance are $10 and $5 for students with ID and are available at the door beginning 40 minutes before the event. The art events are free.

‘Living, Out Loud’

    Guild Hall and the Naked Stage will present an evening of essay readings on Tuesday at 7:30. “Living, Out Loud: Writers Dish on Love, Sweat, and Fears” will feature readings by Paula Ganzi Licata, Robin Eileen Bernstein, Iyna Bort Caruso, Michael A. Casano, Claudia Gryvatz Copquin, and Heather Dune Macadam. The event is free.

‘Out Loud’ Auditions

    The Southampton Cultural Center will hold open auditions for performances of “Motherhood Out Loud,” which will have a run there from March 7 through 24. There are roles for women of differing ages and ethnicities.

    The auditions will be held on Monday and Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the cultural center on Pond Lane in Southampton Village. Auditions will begin promptly and late arrivals will be seen at the discretion of Michael Disher, the director. Rehearsals will begin immediately.

    The production consists of a series of monologues on the subject of motherhood, often challenging traditional notions about parenthood, while mining its inherent comedy and celebrating the personal truths. “Motherhood Out Loud” premiered at Primary Stages and was conceived by Susan R. Rose and Joan Stein. It contains monologues written by Leslie Ayvazian, David Cale, Jessica Goldberg, Beth Henley, Lameece Issaq, Claire LaZebnik, Lisa Loomer, Michele Lowe, Marco Pennette, Theresa Rebeck, Luanne Rice, Annie Weisman, and Cheryl L. West.

    Mr. Disher may be contacted at [email protected] for further information.

Your Family Tree

    Sharon Pullen will give a presentation on researching family genealogy at the Archives Building of the Bridgehampton Museum (formerly the Bridgehampton Historical Society) on Saturday at 10 a.m.

    Ms. Pullen, the archivist at the Suffolk County Clerk’s Office in Riverhead, offers educational instruction in her free time. The museum is often asked for assistance in discovering local genealogy, a necessary component in assembling a family tree or even researching the history of a house. Ms. Pullen can provide references beyond well-known Web sites such as Ancestry and Long Island Surnames, and trips to local cemeteries. Her presentation will be interactive, allowing participants to take their laptops, use the museum’s WiFi connection, and follow along as she shares a variety of other publicly available resources.

    This presentation is open to all and costs $10 per person. Students and children 12 and under are free. Registration is requested by calling 537-1088 or sending an e-mail to [email protected].

For Aspiring Actors

    Michael Disher will teach a course in “Voice and Diction” on Wednesday evenings from 6 to 9 from Feb. 27 through March 20 at the Southampton Cultural Center. Mr. Disher will guide a group of 16 actors through an arduous exploration of understanding one’s vocal potential and skills, and creating a more engaging, fluid, and convincing vocal quality. Elocution, articulation, and projection will be individually examined, and monologues will be studied.

    “This 12-hour workshop has been created to help student actors and adults understand their range and limitations in their voices and physical attributes,”  Mr. Disher said in a release. “Too often, actors underestimate their abilities.”

    Mr. Disher will also teach “Developing the Scene, Destroying the Demons” at the cultural center, on Tuesday evenings from 6 to 9, from Feb. 26 to March 19. That class will guide a group of 12 to 14 actors through an in-depth examination of two-character scenarios, with emphasis on listening and reaction.

    “This 12-hour workshop has been created to help actors understand the collaborative nature of the scene,” said Mr. Disher. “Presentation of prepared works will occur during the fourth Tuesday class.”

    Both classes are available to actors over the age of 17 and cost $175 for the four sessions. Those interested should send an e-mail to Mr. Disher at [email protected]  to request a brief informational form, which should be returned (electronically if possible) with a résumé and headshot, if available.

   When the Sunday afternoon jam proved impractical to continue in the confines of Crossroads Music, in Amagansett Square, it quickly found a warm welcome a half-mile to the east, at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church.

    To the lively, welcoming congregation, hosting the jam session is just another expression of its desire to serve the community. To its pastor, Katrina Foster, the relationship is an especially good fit: After an 11 a.m. service that includes the pastor’s fervent singing on a selection of hymns, one is likely to find her behind a drum kit, jamming with the guitar-toting musicians grouped around the church’s baby grand piano.

    Forgive the cliché, but this is not your father’s minister. The native of Fernandina Beach, on Amelia Island near Jacksonville, Fla., is an ardent lover of rock ’n’ roll — the devil’s music, to previous generations of clergy — a hunter, and, until the birth of her daughter, Zoia, now 10, rode a motorcycle. She is also openly gay, married to Pamela Kallimanis, and risked defrocking to promote a change in policy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

    “I grew up listening to Southern rock,” she said. “I loved whatever my brother loved, so AC/DC’s ‘Back in Black,’ Ozzy Osbourne, Molly Hatchet, Lynyrd Skynyrd, .38 Special. Today I love hip-hop, R&B, an amazingly wide variety of music.”

    When a surprised visitor suggests that some of these artists’ music celebrates sinful behavior, the pastor is adamant. “You can’t be so serious about everything. We sang ‘Runnin’ With the Devil’ the first week [the Crossroads jam] was here. They said, ‘Pastor, can we do this?’ ‘Yeah, go ahead!’ ”

    “Sometimes, Christians get so serious, and stubborn and obstinate about things, that it’s no wonder people don’t take us seriously. You can’t talk to us! People live in a real world, and the real world is messy and hard. God is in the midst of all that, and we should be in the midst of it too. I enjoy music, and I enjoy the music here — these musicians are amazing. And I got to sing last week and hang out with them. I’m going to bring my congas in and play.”

    “We’re really interested in building community,” said Ms. Kallimanis, a poet and professor. “Music is part of that. That’s the idea behind bringing the Crossroads here, to try to extend a certain hospitality. We like to welcome as much creativity as we can here.”

    The pastor’s recognition of a call to serve came early. “I started acolyting” — performing ceremonial duties — “when I was 4. I got to wear a little robe, light the candles and extinguish them, and carry the cross, carry the Book. My dad built special candle holders because I was so short I couldn’t reach the standard candle holder that they had,” she said. “I would stand up there and sing louder than the pastor. I knew the entire service and absolutely loved it.”

    “We feel blessed to have her,” said Marge Harvey, a parishioner who lives in Montauk. “She’s got a lot of energy, a lot of interests, and she’s open to suggestions. We’re grateful for her presence.”

    “She’s dynamite,” Joyce Flohr, a parishioner from Springs, agreed. “I love her, my husband loves her. She’s gone clamming with my husband. I don’t know where she gets her energy — she’s very, very active.”

    Indeed, Ms. Foster’s energy appears limitless. She is also pastor of Incarnation Lutheran Church in Bridgehampton, and is involved in aspects, large and small, of the church’s outreach, from the newly opened senior citizens housing on the grounds of St. Michael’s to taking an elderly parishioner shopping. Following the service on a recent Sunday, she simultaneously held a broad-ranging conversation while addressing questions from parishioners and, from Zoia, an inquiry concerning lunch.

    As in the worship service and the jam session to follow, music was in the mix. When John Lennon’s remark that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus Christ was mentioned, along with the subsequent backlash — from Christian clergy in the American South, in particular — she was quick with an observation of her own. “John Lennon was very prophetic in a lot of ways,” she said, referring to another quote attributed to the slain Beatle: “We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.”

    “I’m glad that we hide lovemaking — I don’t want to see any of that — but we have really distorted so much of the Bible, of the Christian tradition,” said Ms. Foster. “Christians must stand with the least and the last, because if you fail to take a stand, you stand with the majority, or the oppressor. Were the Beatles more popular than Jesus? They were certainly better known. The best way to make Christ known is for Christians to act as Christ. The fault is not the Beatles’, the fault is ours.”

    As pastor of the Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Bronx, where she served for 16 years, music was an instrument with which Ms. Foster transformed a church in decline. “When I got there, there weren’t that many people,” she said. “The whole place was falling apart, there was no money. One of the things that really helped was music. We went from very European, staid music to everything having a keyboard, bass guitar, congas, timbales, drums. If my drummer wasn’t there, I sat in on the drums, in my robes. If he was there, I played the timbales. We went from stiffness to Afro-Caribbean-Latin, enlivened music, and from 20 or fewer people on a given Sunday to 80 or more. We were also involved in the community, kind of like what we’re doing here: There’s music, there’s St. Michael’s housing, we have A.A., we have a food pantry.”

    Perhaps the most powerful example of the pastor acting on her faith came in 2007. At the time, the Lutheran Church allowed openly gay pastors but forbade same-sex relationships. “When I came out on the floor of our churchwide gathering, I put myself right in the crosshairs. I was part of a group that said, ‘The church sets aside so much money to defrock an otherwise qualified pastor — a half-million dollars every year. If we all came out en masse, if we make it no longer a financially viable option to pick off a qualified gay pastor year after year, we’d begin to dismantle that structure of inherent, institutionalized homophobia.’ I was speaking in favor of a resolution that would have changed our policies.”

    The resolution failed, and several bishops threatened to defrock Ms. Foster’s bishop if he did not defrock her. “My bishop, and other bishops who had openly gay pastors, now had skin in the game. They put together a Band-Aid resolution that basically said, ‘Bishops may choose to not defrock an otherwise qualified candidate or pastor.’ It was a small Band-Aid; it was a huge step forward.”

    Two years later, Ms. Foster, Ms. Kallimanis, and Zoia were featured in a documentary, “One Baptism, Many Gifts: The Story of Three Lutherans Called to Ministry.” The documentary was sent to all eligible voters attending the church’s national gathering, a move Ms. Foster said was instrumental in effecting change. “People went from seeing this as an issue to seeing this as people. My daughter was 5, and the camera loves her — she was just adorable and sweet. I think that changed more hearts than anything. And in 2009, we changed the policy of the church.”

    “It’s not too much of a stretch to say we changed Christendom,” the pastor observed. “It’s part of the inheritance of the Lutheran Church, this ongoing Protestant Reformation.”

    A reformation now featuring a lively soundtrack.

   Anyone pursuing a life in books in this digital age has to pause to consider the consequences. An entire generation has come of age learning to question the value of books or not even considering their tactile permanence.

    Still, there are some book experiences that digital facsimiles will never replace and most of those are visual. In the case of the photography books that Harper’s Books specializes in, Harper Levine said photographs are inextricable from that printed form.

    “People who don’t even realize there are rare photo books are just stunned when they begin to understand that the best way to view the history of photography is through its books, not through its prints. That’s sort of the raison d’etre of being a rare photo book dealer,” he said recently at his store and gallery space on Newtown Lane in East Hampton.

    The store is a mix of rare and popular photography books, uniquely signed or inscribed literary works, and rare or one-of-a-kind artist books. On any given day, a customer can walk in and find an original set list by Kurt Cobain from a Nirvana concert, particularly rare because Cobain never wrote the band’s set lists; an original Patti Smith journal, or a Richard Prince book jacket sculpture he made for a copy of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road.”

    There are books with art in them and books further embellished by artists after publication with drawings or other jottings. Old vinyl record albums are on display, particularly those designed by artists such as Andy Warhol. In all, it is a colorful amalgamation of quirky treasures with an appeal that is irresistible to a relatively select few.

    Recently the store has given itself over to unusual and sundry items from its basement archives, which Mr. Levine purchased from Glenn Horowitz, his neighbor two doors to the west, when he sold the business he operated in this space to Mr. Levine a few years ago. In December, Mr. Levine had an event he called Harper’s Bizarre with refreshments and the D.J. Carlos Lama providing music, to celebrate the holidays and invite his friends and clients to purchase books, prints, and other items at a much friendlier price point than the $35,000 prints he might otherwise be selling.

    The sale was such a popular draw that he has kept much of the remaining merchandise on display for anyone who might want “a really cool book for $20. . . . With so much attention in the art world given to striving for the blue chip stuff, which we have, it was gratifying to find people with piles and piles of books so excited to buy regular books, to see so much passion for it instead of the rare books we usually sell.” Plus, he said, it was a really fun party.

    The storefront draws serious collectors or casual perusals of the merchandise year round, but particularly in the summer when the likes of former president Bill Clinton or his daughter, Chelsea Clinton, Richard Prince, or other notable South Fork residents and visitors may drop by.

    Much of his business, however, is conducted online, where he recently had his big annual sale to clear the decks and make way for more inventory. “It’s good to have a sale.” Being a book dealer is a noble profession, he said, “but we’re called booksellers for a reason. A lot of people in my business started out as collectors and it’s very difficult for them to part with their material, or they have a hoarder’s mentality,” but he wants to sell his books, primarily so he can buy more.

    “I’m always looking to travel to buy collections of books or to buy art or photographs,” he said. As the leading seller of rare Japanese books in the United States, he travels to Japan once a year to “hit the streets and hang out with my Japanese bookseller friends.” He also goes to Europe two to three times a year, including to Paris Photo, a November fair specializing in contemporary and historical photography. He participates in the New York Antiquarian Book Fair and the San Fran­cis- co Antiquarian Book, Print, and Paper Fair.

    While he may buy and sell many items online, “I find the best things privately. There is nothing like the relationships I’ve made traveling, in terms of buying books.”

    His wife, Marianna Levine, a writer who is working on a special project at the store, stopped by during the conversation. While it sounds like a great life, she said, her husband works seven days a week most of the year. She was happy to be working temporarily in the store just to have some time to spend with him.

    The couple came to live here full time after their daughter was born. Mr. Levine had been coming to Amagansett, where his parents had a house, since the 1980s. Ms. Levine, who grew up in Hawaii, was happy to be near the beach and liked the artistic and literary heritage here. They live in a house in Sag Harbor where their daughter, Sarah, is in junior high at Pierson.

    Mr. Levine said he had two types of ideal clients. One is a major collector of art or photography, “someone who hasn’t understood prior to meeting me that they also want to own the books that represent the artist that they collect or art form that they love.” The other is a wealthy artist who loves books and wants to own interesting things or things they can use in their own art.

    “When you tell people you have a bookstore, they have this vision of an English guy in a tweed coat smoking a pipe and sounding like Hugh Grant,” he said. But, “the world of being a book dealer or a gallery owner is constantly hustling to keep looking for new stuff, have a sale, then have to find more things to sell for the next big sale. It’s a great ton of fun and I wouldn’t want to do something else, but it’s not this genteel life.”