Dwyer Does Cider

    Coming up next in the East Hampton Historical Society’s concert series, the Cider House Sessions, is Doug Dwyer, who will perform at the Clinton Academy on Saturday at 7 p.m. Mr. Dwyer made his musical debut in Southampton in 1964 and his repertory is wide ranging, covering country, classic rock, rhythm and blues, and jazz. Performing with him will be Mike Appel, who was Bruce Springsteen’s original manager and producer (e.g., on “Born to Run”). Mr. Dwyer will sing Mr. Appel’s new song “Pink Cotton Candy.”

    Tickets cost $12 for adults, $10 for those over 65, and $8 for students. Hot mulled cider and snacks will be served gratis after the performance.

Wu Zigs, Zags

    At the Montauk Library on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Alexander Wu, a pianist who has performed there as a member of the ZigZag Quartet, will perform a solo concert, “Rhythm Across the Americas,” which has been called a rediscovery and exploration of the music of North and South America through early American music, jazz, and Latin American classics. Mr. Wu will also take concertgoers through different periods of music and dance styles. Admission is free.

    Mr. Wu released his first commercial solo CD last year. The ZigZag Quartet released its first CD on New Year’s Day.

Dangerous Showing

    The Southampton Cultural Center has undertaken an ambitious event, a performance of Christopher Hampton’s “Les Liaisons Dangereuses,” directed and designed by Michael Disher and starting next Thursday at 8 p.m.

    The original story was published as an epistolary novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos in 1782. The gist of the story centers on the use of sex as a weapon of humiliation and degradation by rival pre-Revolutionary French aristocrats who are also ex-lovers. The novel was made into a play by Mr. Hampton, which ran in London and on Broadway, as well as film, radio, and television versions.

    Showtime is 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. on Sundays until April 1. Tickets cost $22, $12 for students under 21 with ID. Group rates are available and reservations have been encouraged.

‘Becky’s New Car’

    A comedy that had its debut in 2008 in Seattle, “Becky’s New Car,” will have its New York premiere next Thursday at the Hampton Theatre Company in Quogue.

    Charles Staadecker commissioned Steven Dietz to write the play as a present for his wife’s 60th birthday. The cast includes Camille Mazurek as Becky, Edward A. Brennan as her husband, Joe, and Ben Schnickel as her son, Chris. Hailed by critics as being full of “delicious deadpan humor along with warmth and humanity,” according to a release, “Becky’s New Car” will be performed on Thursdays at 7 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8, and Sundays at 2:30, through April 1.

    Tickets cost $25 for adults, $23 for those over 65 (except Saturday), and $10 for students under 21.

‘Comedy of Errors’

    Guild Hall is the place to be for a screening of the National Theatre Live, where Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” is being performed through the end of the month. Dominic Cooke, the director of the Royal Court Theatre in London, is directing the production. Lenny Henry plays Antipholus of Syracuse.

    Tickets cost $18, $16 for members.

Calling Thespians

    Aspiring thespians ages 16 and up can take an eight-week course in classical acting at Guild Hall, starting on March 19 and culminating in a performance at the John Drew Theater on May 8.

    Taught by Tristan Vaughan and Morgan Duke Vaughan, the course will include work on masks, scenes, the sonnet, and the monologue. Mr. Vaughan and Ms. Duke Vaughan earned M.F.A.s in classical acting from the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Academy for Classical Acting at George Washington University and also studied at the Circle in the Square Theatre School in Manhattan and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London.

    The workshop, to be conducted at the Boots Lamb Education Center at Guild Hall, costs $300, $275 for Guild Hall members. Those interested have been asked to e-mail Jennifer Brondo at [email protected] or call her at extension 25 in special events.

    The Choral Society of the Hamptons will explore three centuries of music in its spring concert on March 18 at 5 p.m. at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. Jesse Mark Peckham will conduct and three soprano soloists will participate.

    The 60-member Choral Society has chosen music by Mozart, Fauré, and Rutter, whose sacred music is marked by exquisite melody. Members of the South Fork Chamber Ensemble will accompany the chorus on harp, flute, oboe, glockenspiel, cello, and timpani. Thomas Bohlert, the music director of the church, will play the organ.

    The program will include the “Laudate Dominum” from Mozart’s “Vesperae Solemnes de Confessore,” composed in the 18th century, Fauré’s “Cantique de Jean Racine,” written in 1865, and Rutter’s seven-part Requiem, which premiered in Dallas in 1985. Also on the program are solo arias from Bach’s Cantatas 94 and 110, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Pie Jesu,” and “Whosoever Saves a Single Life” by Charles David Osborne.

    The Rutter Requiem has become one of the most popular works in the choral repertory, largely because of Rutter’s gift for melody. The principal work on the program, it uses texts, in both Latin and English, from the Catholic Mass as well as from the Bible’s Book of Psalms and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

    Silvie Jensen, a mezzo-soprano from New York City, will be the soloist in the Requiem. Ms. Jensen has appeared nationally with major orchestras and in recitals and has been a soloist in works from Bach to Mahler to Philip Glass. She also will sing the Bach arias “Ach Herr! Was Ist ein Menschenkind,” from Cantata 110 (for oboe, continuo, and voice) and “Betorte Welt,” from Cantata 94 (for flute, continuo, and voice).

    In a centerpiece of the concert, Mr. Peckham’s wife, Vanessa Hylande Pokor­­­­ny,­ a soprano, and his 8-year-old son, Emmett Schwartzmann, already a member of the Metropolitan Opera’s professional children’s chorus, will sing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Pie Jesu.”

    Perhaps less known to audiences than the other composers, Charles David Osborne is a tenor noted for his oratorio, “Souls on Fire,” based on a book by Elie Wiesel. “Whosoever Saves a Single Life” is a motet. Its simple text is taken from the Talmud.

    At the age of 18, Mr. Peckham was invited to conduct the Beethoven Chamber Orchestra in the Czech Republic, which led to appearances with many of the country’s leading orchestras and a position as artistic director of the Czech World Orchestra, in which he served for almost four years. In the United States, he founded Khorikos, which is a professional a cappella ensemble that performs throughout the metropolitan region and has toured in the Czech Republic and Germany.

    A benefit cocktail party and dinner have been planned for after the concert at the Palm restaurant on Main Street. Tickets to the concert are $25 in advance or $35 at the door for adults, and $10 or $15 for those under 18. Tickets for the cocktail party alone are $75. The cost of cocktails and dinner is $200. Tickets can be obtained and reservations made through the society’s Web site choralsocietyofthehamptons.org.

    The Choral Society’s next concert will be July 7, at the Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church Parish Hall in East Hampton. Works by Haydn and Handel will be performed under the direction of the society’s music director, Mark Mangini.   

   The Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center’s lineup for the spring includes a new Breakout Artist series that showcases young singer-songwriters and musicians, with tickets in the $20 range. This is in addition to the world-renowned artists of the Main Stage shows.

    Diego Garcia is up first, with a performance tomorrow at 8 p.m. that includes his new song “You Were Never There,” which is getting play on WEHM, a partner in the series. Mr. Garcia will display his Latin roots with a jazz and blues flavor.

    On Saturday at 8 p.m. in a Main Stage show, the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies will demonstrate their unique mix of blues, country, folk, rock, and jazz that has earned them a cult following.

    Rory Block, twice named “best traditional blues female artist” by the Blues Foundation, will showcase her acoustic guitar playing and vocal stylings on March 30. The next day, Shelby Lynne, a Grammy Award-winner, will perform songs from her two highly acclaimed self-released albums as well as her latest country-folk effort, “Revelation Road.”

    On May 4, Kathleen Edwards will perform songs from her new folk-pop, alternative-country album, “Voyageur,” which was well received by The New York Times.

    Mike Doughty, a Brooklyn singer and songwriter formerly of Soul Coughing, will take the stage on May 19 for a solo acoustic performance from his newly released “Yes and Also Yes,” an album that ranges from political to personal, including excerpts from his recent memoir, “The Book of Drugs.” The Wood Brothers, a guitar-and-bass duo with a countrified blues sound, will join the lineup the following day.

    Dianne Reeves, a winner of a number of Grammy Awards, and her trio bring old and new jazz and rhythm and blues on June 8. Other performers in June are Gary Clark Jr., Ziggy Marley, Jonny Lang, and Robert Cray, who on June 23 will show how his Southern style, soulful voice, storytelling, and guitar have earned him five Grammy Awards. Rounding out the month, Wayne Shorter, a multi-Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist and composer, will showcase his new quartet on June 30.

    The nonprofit performing arts center also offers Finest in World Cinema, a year-round series of art-house, foreign, independent, and documentary films, many of which are family-friendly. A complete schedule with prices can be found at whbpac.org.

 “The View From

Lazy Point”

Carl Safina

Picador, $18

   “The View From Lazy Point” is the fifth book by Carl Safina, an ecologist and profound thinker, and one that is distinctly flavored by the natural history of the South Fork of Long Island. You can not only see Napeague Bay and other parts of the Peconic Estuary from the author’s Lazy Point home, but climb a tall ladder and turn your head 180 degrees and you will be able to see the Atlantic Ocean as well. It’s the first book following the changing of the seasons I’ve read by a Long Island author.

    Published last year and recently released in paperback, it is punctuated by local episodic events — storms, bird migrations, fish runs, and the like — mostly occurring in 2010. Its text and line drawings follow the local passing of the seasons by month from February through January. Mixed in among them are side trips to the Caribbean, Alaska, the Antarctic, and Svalbard, north of Norway. One might say that the overriding theme of the book is global warming, the melting of the glaciers, and the coming rise of sea level and their collective consequences on the world’s population, sea edge geology, and marine and terrestrial fauna.

   It is not a book for the weak of heart, as it ­doesn’t offer a clear-cut roadmap on how to proceed in order to survive the 21st century and thereafter. What book could? It does paint a bleak picture of the present and blames market economics for much of the despair to come. Mr. Safina is extremely well read, in contradistinction to the rank-and-file authors and leaders of today, and draws heavily on the likes of Aristotle, Virgil, Charles Darwin, Svante Arrhenius, Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, Henry Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and E.B. White. The catchword “capitalism” is absent throughout, but this reviewer, biased as he is, inferred unregulated capitalism to be in just about every other paragraph as the chief culprit in mankind’s race to poverty and obscurity.

    Unsentimentally, perhaps, Mr. Safina does base the future success of the world’s fauna and flora and natural environment on the positive activities of man; one gets the intimation that if man were not here in the first place the plants and animals and the ecological assemblages they make up would do better than they are doing now. On the other hand, it is patently clear that if we don’t act responsibly from now on, nature will fare much worse than it is now.

    The view from Lazy Point can be rosy or grim, depending on how we proceed. Having studied and lived with birds and fishes throughout his adult life, the author, it is easy to see, not only understands their ways to a great degree but also enjoys having them around and interacting with them in a kind of one-to-one relationship, animal to animal, even I and thou. Without mentioning the word, a kind of religion bordering on animism is not far from his thinking.

    Notwithstanding that Mr. Safina explores and writes about the land and sea life of exotic locations close to the Arctic Circle and the Antarctic, or the life inhabiting the coral reefs of the Caribbean Sea and Oceania’s South Seas, he looks happily on the comings and goings of the fish and wildlife encountered in his own wonderful backyard, sand-duney Napeague, and the waters washing it. One month it’s ospreys, terns, bluefish, and striped bass, another it’s varicolored warblers, later on it’s soulful songs of the whippoorwills and Fowler’s toads, then the slow up-and-down migrational passing of the monarch butterflies and streaking of the peregrines and other hawks pursuing terns and tree swallows.

    Maybe that’s why so many of us who similarly love the wild animals and wild plants are fully content to see them in a local context without chasing them around the globe. Our respect for those scattered worldwide can be extrapolated based on our affection for those we experience locally every day.

    Corporations, but not necessarily their captains, are deemed responsible for the sad state of things. I would heartily agree. Mr. Safina diplomatically does not point fingers at those who run the corporations or their lobbyists and political tie-ins; one gets the idea that they run themselves. What is missing, too, are some of the success stories as we battle the bad guys, some of which started right here on Long Island, such as the banning of DDT and phosphorous-containing detergents, to name a few.

    While the author is a scientist with a Ph.D., one should not forget that most of Long Island’s great environmentalists were naturalists or merely people off the street, such as Dennis Puleston, Gil Raynor, Roy Latham, Paul Stoutenburgh, Art Cooley, Chris McKeever, John Turner, Dick Amper, and Karen Blumer. They didn’t have the luxury of foundation support; their environmental pursuits were a “second job” that paid nothing but cost them a lot economically.

    And let us not forget the greatest post-World War II environmentalist of them all, Rachel Carson, who not only pinpointed the most serious environmental threats but fought their creators and fomenters tooth and nail, and even her own bureaucratic higher-ups, at a very great personal sacrifice to save the seas and sea life that were her passion.

    It’s a great book, but after reading it I still remain a pessimistic optimist. We’ve got to do something, and we don’t have a whole lot of time in which to do it or our progeny are goners, and it’s the progeny that Carl and I worry about the most.

    Carl Safina is president and co-founder of the Blue Ocean Institute in Cold Spring Harbor. His books include "Song for the Blue Ocean" and "A Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Blowout." 

Actors — talented actors, that is — are usually amusing raconteurs and often good writers. They have a love of language, the sensuous savoring of the perfect phrase, and they develop a feeling for the dramatic arc of a scene, the timing of a punch line. So it is not surprising that Hal Holbrook, in his autobiography, “Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain,” relates an arresting and vividly told life story, both personal and professional.

    His personal story is tragic. He and his two sisters were abandoned as babies by their mother, who in her 20s fled family obligations for New York to perform in the Ziegfeld Follies and then in George White’s “Scandals” revue. She later went to Hollywood and after that the children never saw her again.

    Their father, too, was largely absent from the family, unless he needed money. He led a vagrant’s life, often in and out of institutions to which his own father committed him. Harold’s grandfather was a successful businessman of old-school values and, fortunately for the children left in his care, an anchor for them during their childhood years. He died when Harold and his sisters were in their early teens, leaving them adrift in the care of their erratic, self-centered grandmother.

    Harold, in accordance with his grandfather’s dying wish, was sent to Culver Military Academy in Indiana to remove him from the emotional turmoil of family life. At the academy a pattern emerged. He initially tried to fit in but then, instead of choosing sports and running track, for which he was being trained, he inexplicably joined the small group of “weirdos” studying in the theater program. It was his first taste of the terror and exhilaration of being onstage, and he became hooked. He later chose to go to Denison University in Ohio because he was attracted to the theater arts program, headed by Ed Wright, who would become his mentor and lifelong friend.

    Inducted into the Army toward the end of World War II, he turned down a chance to enroll at West Point because the four years required would have delayed the start of his acting career. He describes himself during this period as a bundle of quirks and twitches, and perhaps the need of an insecure boy to disguise himself behind greasepaint, fake eyebrows, and luxuriant beards partly explains his early addiction to the theater.

____

“Harold”

Hal Holbrook

Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, $30

____

    If ever an actor deserved his eventual fame it is Hal Holbrook. He, together with his first wife, Ruby, put in a grueling apprenticeship. At the time there were booking agents for various levels of touring, the lowest rung being the school assembly circuit, in which “educational” material was performed for schools, often in rural areas of the country.

    Hal and Ruby had cobbled together a show consisting of two Shakespearean scenes, several historical and literary vignettes, and a final scene depicting a humorless journalist interviewing Mark Twain. To perform them, they had to provide and pay for the makeup, wigs, period costumes and props, publicity posters, tickets, and the means of transportation.

    On their first tour they were booked into schools throughout Oklahoma, Arkansas, and the Texas Panhandle. They would often do three performances a day, starting in a high school auditorium or basketball court at 8 a.m., doing a second show at 10 for the seniors, and ending with a late-afternoon performance at another school after racing on back roads 50 or more miles to get there on time. The descriptions of the kids in these remote farming communities, face to face with “culture” for the first time, are both hilarious and heartbreaking.

    After a year, Hal and Ruby graduated to the women’s clubs and college circuit, acting for audiences that actually listened. They logged thousands and thousands of miles in their station wagon, crisscrossing America to various venues.

    For anyone interested in an unglamorous, nitty-gritty view of the theater world, this book is a rich, entertaining resource. I was struck by the detailed recounting of each performance and the obsessive tracking of the dollars earned. The money was a matter of survival, and they were hanging on for dear life. The repetitive nature of their efforts is, however, exhausting reading and could have done with some judicious editing.

    Holbrook’s deepening interest in Mark Twain came about slowly. He began to more fully appreciate Twain’s humor, to go beyond the trappings — the white suit, the white hair and mustache, and the odd walk — and to identify with his thinking. When Ruby got pregnant, had babies, and had to quit touring, the marriage became strained. As a self-protection, Holbrook developed the Mark Twain portion of their show into a solo performance piece.

    He presented it first in a New York nightclub, Upstairs at the Duplex, on a bill with the singer Lovey Powell. He was seen there by Ed Sullivan and given a spot on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Television made him visible to a larger audience and this led to his being asked to appear on the “Tonight” show with Steve Allen.

    From then on, bookings tumbled into his lap — well-paid bookings. Once more he would drive endless, incredible miles across America, this time alone. He used the time to read more about Twain’s life, write, and try out new material, inserting gems sprinkled with laugh lines. He was gaining invaluable performance experience. He assembled, by trial and error, a full-length show and began to dream of Broadway. In between touring engagements he returned to New York, newly confident, and set up an office with a friend and co-producer, John Lotas, to hold backers’ auditions and look for a theater.

    The autobiography might have ended with his triumphant opening on Broadway and his savoring of the universally excellent reviews, but he adds a postscript. It is 1959 and Hal Holbrook is 34, at a midpoint in his life. He looks back at what he has gained and what he has sacrificed to his driving ambition, acknowledging that he has been egregiously self-involved. He has many friends but his family life is, to quote him, “a mess.” He harbors a deep bitterness over the callous rejections he has endured from people like Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio coterie.

    All the same, his acting career was then finally on track, with many chapters still to be written. The climb had been arduous but the trajectory was clearly upward. Above all, he achieved what he set out to do — he established himself as a well-regarded member of the acting profession.

—

    Hal Holbrook had a house in Amagansett for many years.

    Jennifer Hartig left England in 1958 to star in “Jane Eyre” on Broadway opposite Errol Flynn. She lives in Noyac.

   The Hayground Forum at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton will present Groove Gumbo Super Band, a Nordic world jazz group, tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m.

The evening will include bread making and a local cheese and wine tasting. A $10 suggested donation will be collected at the door.

   Guild Hall has had a lot to offer this season and that continues in the final week of August.   

   Tonight, the Red Carpet film series will continue its cinematic celebraton of Judy Garland with “A Star Is Born,” at 8 p.m. The film is a musical remake of the 1937 drama with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, and was produced as Garland’s return to the screen after a four-year absence. There will be a talkback to follow with Richard Pena, the programming director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Scott Doundas, and more. Tickets are $12 and $10 for members. Next Thursday’s film will be “Summer Stock,” the film that reunited Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. Nicolas Rapold, senior editor at Film Comment, will talk with the audience after the screening. On Wednesday “Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man’s Prison” will be screened at 8 p.m. with a discussion to follow with the filmmaker, T.J. Parsell, who is a Sag Harbor resident.

   Tomorrow, in the John Drew Theater, “Celebrity Autobiography” will be on the stage at 7 and 9:30 p.m. In this comedy, created and developed by the Emmy-nominated writer and performer Eugene Pack and Dayle Reyfel, celebrities perform excerpts of “superstar” memoirs and writing. On the stage tomorrow will be Alec Baldwin, Ralph Macchio, Scott Adsit, Mr. Pack, Mr. Reyfel, and others interpreting the poetry of Suzanne Somers, the outlandish “romance trips” of Tommy Lee, and the famous Hollywood love triangle of Elizabeth Taylor, Debbie Reynolds, and Eddie Fisher, among other tales. Prime Orchestra tickets are $65 and $63 for members. Reserved seating is $40 and $38 for members.

   Anyone following the national art scene last year was probably aware of a series of Southern California exhibits devoted to the area’s regional artists called Pacific Standard Time, which took over most museums and many galleries with related events and shows. The art ranged from works produced in 1945 up through 1980, and the series was initiated by the Getty Center, where some of its own exhibits continue to be on view through May.

    The Parrish Art Museum is responding with its own evocation of Los Angeles Art: “EST-3: Southern California in New York — Los Angeles Art from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection,” opening to the public on Sunday. It will be on view through June 17.

    The show will highlight about 150 works in a variety of mediums. The title is short for “Eastern Standard Time minus three.” A survey of art created over the same 40-year period covered in Los Angeles, it was organized by David Pagel, a Los Angeles critic, academic, and curator who is also an adjunct curator for the Parrish.

    At the opening reception on Saturday evening, a film will be screened documenting the organization of the exhibit, followed by a discussion with Mr. Pagel and Ms. DeWoody. Reservations are required for the 6 p.m. program and can be made by calling the museum. The cost is $10, or free for members.

    Ms. DeWoody is a wide-ranging collector who inherited an interest in California artists from her family. Her mother and stepfather collected art by Joe Goode, Ed Ruscha, John McCracken, and John MacLaughlin, she said in a press release. Mr. Pagel worked with Ms. DeWoody in making the selections, which include an early lithograph by Frederick Hammersley, paintings from the 1960s by John McLaughlin, signature works by Ed Ruscha, and portraits by David Hockney.

    Mr. Pagel has approached the art primarily by theme, rather than by time period or style, putting work into three categories — people, places, and things — to organize it visually and presumably to allow viewers to make greater connections between artists from different styles and periods.

    Artists in the people section will include Don Bachardy, David Hockney, Beatrice Wood, John Wesley, and Robert Colescott. In the places category will be Eleanor Antin, John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Bruce Conner, and Jack Goldstein, among others. The things category will include work by such sculptors as Larry Bell, Craig Kaufman, John McCracken, Helen Pashgian, and DeWain Valentine, as well as the abstract painters Karl Benjamin, Joe Goode, Frederick Hammersley, and John McLaughlin. Vija Celmins, also of Sag Harbor, will be included as well with her “Plastic Puzzle Piece, No. 1” from 1966, a fur-lined box containing nine shaped Plexiglas pieces. She is more typically known for her paintings of skies and ocean waves.

    Terrie Sultan, the director of the Parrish, said in a press release that the show has thematic parallels to this region. “Like our own region, Southern California in this time period was a place of innovation and experimentation. This exhibition gives us an opportunity to see not only the artistic crosscurrents that flowed between the two coasts, but also the ways in which California artists developed idioms specific to the region.”

Artists Alliance Show

    Ashawagh Hall in Springs will become the temporary clubhouse of the Artists Alliance of East Hampton this weekend. The alliance, a nonprofit arts organization founded in 1984 in memory of Jimmy Ernst, will feature some 40 member artists in the show.

    The show will include paintings, drawings, photography, mixed-media works, and sculptures. Artists on view will include Laura Benjamin, Barbara Bilotta, Carmela Borelli, Lance Corey, Anna Franklin, Jerry Grant, Jana Hayden, Jim Hayden, Maryam Jahveri, Al Marino, Eve Marino, Lynn Martell, Andrea McCafferty, Joanna McCarthy, Mary Milne, Wendy Nadler, Kat O’Neill, Deb Palmer, Alyce Peifer, Gene Samuelson, Tina Saposhnik, Christine Sciulli, Catherine Silver, Joyce Silver, Daniel Schoenheimer, Claire Schoenheimer, Rosa Hanna Scott, Linda Sirow, Cynthia Sobel, Frank Sofo, Lieve Thiers, Sarah Jaffe Turnbull, Lois Wright, and Mark Zimmerman.

    The exhibition will be on view beginning Saturday at noon with a reception for the artists from 5 to 8 p.m. It will also be open Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.

Crazy Monkey’s New Show

    In March, the Crazy Monkey Gallery will show the work of two members of its cooperative, June Kaplan and Barbara Bilotta.

    Ms. Kaplan is an Amagansett resident. Both an artist and poet, she has been painting on and off since the late 1970s. She carries her poetry into semi-abstract paintings of nature.

    Ms. Bilotta has said, “I believe the language of form remains the key to unlocking the magic of art.” She attended the Stony Brook University arts program and considers herself an abstract impressionist.

    Other artists on view will include the cooperative’s members Anna Franklin and Catherine Silver, and the guest artists Jim Gingerich and Gerry Giliberti. The exhibit opens tomorrow and there will be a reception on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. It will be on view through April 1. The winners of the gallery’s seventh annual art competition will be announced during the reception.

Third and Final for Tonic

    The Tonic Artspace in Bridgehampton will present its last show of the winter season at the Kathryn Markel Gallery space on Main Street.

    The show, “Third Time’s a Charm,” will feature artwork by Marcie Honerkamp, Chick Bills, Ryan F. Kennedy, and Oliver Peterson and will build on the other artists also on view from the gallery’s previous shows. Mediums will include video, painting, collage, photography, installation, and artist merchandise.

    The show will open Saturday with a reception from 6 to 10 p.m. There will be video projections on the building during the event.

Winter Tempest

At Islip Art Museum

    The Islip Art Museum will display the work of four East End artists as part of its group show, “Winter Tempest,” organized by Janet Goleas of East Hampton.

    Taking her inspiration from William Shakespeare’s play, Ms. Goleas has found works in the museum’s permanent collection that examine similar aspects of tumult and illusion that manifest themselves in the play. In addition to a few others, the exhibit includes work by Perry Burns, Jane Martin, Michael Rosch, and Frank Wimberley, all of whom live or work on the East End.

    The exhibit is on view through March 25.

   What’s the recipe for a myth? There’s no one formula, of course, but it seems as though gods or super-motivated humans are usually involved. Someone keeps rolling a stone up a hill, or makes fire, kisses a frog into a prince, gets swallowed by a whale, procreates, dies, gets reborn. A good myth usually requires a powerful natural or supernatural force.

    The modern myth is trickier, especially in the supernatural department. It can be harder to recognize in the present, but they do exist and reveal themselves with time.

    Earlier this month a filmmaker named Richard Yelland premiered online a documentary titled “12 Miles North — the Nick Gabaldon Story,” a modern myth by any standard, and one that Peter Spacek, an illustrator and The Star’s cartoonist, has helped bring to light in the documentary via his signature scrimshaw work that appears at intervals — art that fits the myth. 

     In this case, the mythological force is the ocean and the hypnotic spell its waves cast upon surfers. Mr. Gabaldon was born in Santa Monica, Calif., in February 1927, the son of Mexican and African-American parents. He graduated from high school in 1945, and by ’51 he had finished a tour with the Navy and was attending Santa Monica College while working in a polio rehabilitation facility. He was strong, handsome, and addicted to surfing.

    The surfing part was unusual for a black man at the time. He had grown up hanging at “the Inkwell,” a beach frequented by blacks that was 12 miles south of Malibu. Because of its perfect wave, “the Bu,” as Malibu was known, was fast becoming the epicenter for surfing in Southern California, and a nursery for many of the sport’s enduring myths.

    California beaches were not segregated per se. But, as the film explains, there was enough racism around for the black community to feel more comfortable taking their kids to the Inkwell.

    Among the pantheon of surf gods whose immortality was secured during the early days at Malibu were Micky Munoz and city lifeguards including Buzzy Trent and Ricky Grigg, who knew Mr. Gabaldon first while guarding the Inkwell, where Mr. Gabaldon bodysurfed, and then, with the encouragement of Trent, as a fellow board rider at Malibu. 

    In the documentary, the old guards explain that because a black man would have found it difficult if not impossible to hitch a ride the 12 miles to Malibu, Mr. Gabaldon paddled the distance, surfed, and then paddled back home. If not superhuman, it was at least an amazing feat of endurance that brought the young man into the fold, the first black man to join the pioneering surf community.

    But then on June 5, 1951, something terrible happened. It was a crystal clear day, the ocean was blue, and Malibu was breaking perfectly and big. His fellow riders described how they watched him take off and ride with graceful style toward the Malibu pier. The waves were winding north to south down the coast and were big enough to continue breaking through the pier’s pilings. 

    On smaller days, a surfer might be tempted to “shoot the pier,” weave his board through the pilings, but not when it was big. Mr. Gabaldon’s friends watched as his wave approached the pier with him still riding. Then he disappeared. A frantic search followed, but he was gone. His body was found floating a few days later. A young surfer died, but a hero was born.

    The documentary and its clear message about overcoming obstacles was sponsored by the Nike company. It includes interviews with athletes who have risen above other types of adversities. Although vivid in the minds of his Malibu comrades, Mr. Gabaldon’s story has not been widely known until now. 

    A little over a year ago, Mr. Spacek, a surfer who grew up in California, began translating his drawing skills into the old whalers’ art of scrimshaw by etching images into the fiberglass of old surfboards instead of whale bone. A collection of his work titled “Scratch” was shown at the Out East gallery in Montauk last fall.

    He was showing his art at the Sacred Craft surfboard-shaping expo in San Diego earlier this year when Jason Cohen, producer of “12 Miles North,” saw his work.

    “Jason saw my scrimshaw and read in my catalog how I scratch into old surfboard fiberglass and drip ink onto the surface to reveal the image. He made the connection between method and story because it was an old story and Mr. Gabaldon had learned to surf at the Inkwell Beach and paddled 12 miles north to surf the better waves at Malibu. It seemed like a good fit to him.”

    “12 Miles North” can be viewed online via Theinertia.com or on Nike surfing’s Facebook page.