The final page has been torn off the 1996 calendar and the 52nd chapter completed. Will the year be remembered as one of triumph or tragedy?

It was the year of record-breaking snow - snow to ski in, snow to build with, snow to blanket the roads and bring the entire Northeast to a halt.

Snow to spare - 84 inches of it in the 1995-96 winter. It began before the first of the year and did not end until the second week of April.

And just as the snow stopped, the rain began, seemingly ceaseless rain. Last year was also the year of rain.

Good, Bad, Ugly

It was the year of the cigar, when stogies invaded the East End. They were sold everywhere, it seemed, from the Sag Harbor 7-Eleven to the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton.

Brown tide made it a poor year for scallops. It wasn't a good year for farming, either.

It was the year of upscale jewelry stores and thwarted superstores, of big-dollar renovations to some East End schools and a big-dollar theft from one of them. The year of the superintendent/principal shuffle and some East Hampton Town Board scuffles, of plans come to fruition and plans short-circuited.

Here are a few of the most memorable, most curious, and most noteworthy stories from the 1996 book - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Tragedy

On July 17, off the coast of eastern Long Island, Trans World Airlines Flight 800, en route to Paris, exploded over the ocean. All 230 aboard, including several with local ties, perished. The shock waves were felt around the world. Relief workers, investigators, and the press descended. Patrols combed beaches from Montauk to Moriches for debris. The tragedy remains unexplained.

East End roads claimed several lives. Paul Koncelik of East Hampton died after losing control of his car on Swamp Road. Karin Harshmann of East Hampton was killed instantly in a collision with a State Police vehicle near Southampton College.

Accidents

Three East Hampton High School teens were injured, one seriously, when a dump truck hit a Lexus on April 2. Jennifer Gamble, the driver, was badly hurt, but was able to go back to school in the fall.

In May, a visitor from Roslyn Heights, Ann Marie Biondi, lost a leg in a Noyac motorcycle accident. Police charged Richard Bambrick with drunken driving in the aftermath of the collision.

A popular East Hampton Town maintenance worker, Gerard Eberhart of Springs, underwent seven hours of surgery after being struck by a truck while riding his bicycle.

Edward Prado of Montauk was the victim of an alleged hit-and-run driver in Montauk, while preparing to tow a car back to his service station. The driver, Jorge Astudillo, was found the next day and faces a felony count of leaving the scene of an accident.

Fires

In February, a fire destroyed the Montauk studio of the late artist Balcomb Greene. Twelve paintings were destroyed, others smoke-damaged.

On the Fourth of July weekend, an amateur fireworks display near the old Promised Land fish factory, following the Devon Yacht Club display across the harbor, ignited brush and debris but was contained before reaching nearby houses.

Local firefighters again averted tragedy on July 12. Thick black smoke over Bridgehampton was visible for miles after a fire at Hampton Tank Gas Service on Maple Lane ignited a tank truck.

A workshop burned down and several antique cars were destroyed, but the blaze was contained before it could spread to an 18,000-gallon holding tank. There were no injuries.

Big Busts

Southampton Town Police, aided by county drug enforcement teams, rounded up some 70 alleged crack dealers in one late-night October sweep, including four Bridgehampton men and one from East Hampton.

Less than a month later East Hampton Town police, aided by Federal Drug Enforcement agents, conducted a sweep of their own, primarily in Montauk. Fifteen alleged low-level dealers were arrested.

Curious Crimes

A gallery opening became a gallery closing when Farah Damji was arrested for trespassing in the middle of her opening reception. The owner of the rented space, at 75 Main Street in East Hampton, said she had forged his signature on the lease. Ms. Damji has since dropped from sight.

It was the year of thwarted superstores and upscale jewelry stores, of big-dollar renovations to some East End schools and a big-dollar theft from one of them.

The embezzlement of $80,000 from the tiny Bridgehampton School district was followed by the resignation of the school's treasurer, Lyllis Topping. Charged with the theft, she has since made complete restitution and awaits sentencing.

Schools Heads

In November, with the community still reeling from news of the embezzlement, the Bridgehampton School Board fired District Superintendent John Edwards, for unrelated reasons that have never been fully explained. He left the school a week later.

In Amagansett, School Superintendent George Aman surprised residents by resigning in October, citing what he called unfair criticism and a lack of professional trust. After many rallied to his side, he changed his mind and decided to stay.

Two East Hampton principals retired in June, Dennis Donatuti from the John M. Marshall Elementary School and Jay Niles from the high school.

More School News

On the private-school front, half the Hampton Day School's board of directors resigned in December 1995 and others announced plans to found a new school down the road. The Hayground School began classes in September. Meanwhile, Hampton Day fired its director, Barry Raebeck, who fired back with a $5.5 million lawsuit.

The new East Hampton Learning Center opened its doors to day care children and the district's pre-kindergarten program. Steps were taken toward establishing East Hampton's first on-site preschool special education program.

An alternative school for high school students at risk of dropping out was established in East Hampton.

In Springs, after nearly four years of contention, teachers and the School Board finally agreed on a contract, raising hopes that the acrimony that has plagued the district may come to an end. Whew!

Voters in East Hampton approved a $5.3 million expansion of the high school on Dec. 4.

Also in December, Springs and East Hampton reached agreement on a tuition plan for the next five years. At long last. And, the two districts, with Amagansett and Montauk, are studying the possibility of forming a centralized high school, or consolidating into one district.

Building Department

Building and Not Building: After 10 years of planning and myriad stops and starts, the East Hampton Housing Authority broke ground in April on its 50-unit affordable housing complex on Accabonac Highway in East Hampton. In September, the Authority fired the project's architect. A new one was hired last month and work has resumed. To be continued.

Building: The construction of East Hampton Town's first-ever recreation center for young people made some large progress in fund-raising, though a promotional film shot during the Memorial Day parade delayed the parade and got veterans up in arms. The finished trailer, however, played to much acclaim at the East Hampton Cinemas throughout the summer.

Not building: A Sag Harbor skate-boarding park. The park, planned for Pierson High School property between two houses, incurred neighbors' wrath, and after liability insurance became an issue the project screeched to a halt.

Building: Construction moved along on the East Hampton Library's new wing. Funds are being sought for a speedy completion.

Building: Seven years in the planning, the new East Hampton Town Airport broke ground at last.

The Town Board

Republicans took over Town Hall in January, their first majority in 12 years. Some highly acrimonious meetings marked the Town Board's 1996 calendar, including disagreements over the direction of the recycling program, over a Republican push to move the Democratic Supervisor into a smaller office, over the capital budget, and more.

Despite its partisan battles the Town Board managed to expand a ban on all-terrain vehicles, adopt a new open-space plan, approve its first-ever capital plan, and approve moratoriums on new ferries and on superstores.

Two longstanding Democratic officials went their separate ways. East Hampton Town Justice James Ketcham retired after eight years on the bench and former Supervisor Tony Bullock headed for Washington, to become Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's chief of staff.

New Republican faces at Town Hall: Robert Savage, town attorney; Gary Swanander, Planning Board member, James Mangano, appointed to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Lawsuits

The A&P's plans to build a new store, roughly twice the size of the present one and larger than any other retail store in East Hampton, provoked a wave of public protest and ultimately a town law regulating the size of retail spaces. The new law makes the proposed superstore illegal, and in its wake the A&P corporation sued the town, saying the law was unconstitutional.

The town prevailed in other lawsuits. One involved an ABC Carpet and Home tent sale billed as a fund-raiser but banned by the town as an ABC bonanza, and another was brought by Montauk residents who wanted the hamlet to become an incorporated village.

A settlement of several suits involving former Councilman Robert Cooper and the Town Police Department virtually fell into the board's lap after Mr. Cooper had a public falling-out with his lawyer.

Southampton

Southampton Town made waves by firing the head of its Sanitation Department, Brian Gilbride, and 17 of his workers. Twelve others were given reduced chores and reduced pay. The Civil Service Association is contemplating a lawsuit.

Southampton voters passed a $5 million open-space bond act in November, giving the town leverage, among other things, to obtain county, state, and Federal land-preservation grants.

Up and Down Mainstreet

Jerry Della Femina, the Manhattan ad man turned local entrepreneur, ran for a seat on the East Hampton Village Board, and the 1996 campaign was like no other. It featured unprecedented fund-raising and spending, profuse print and radio ads, mailings, campaign consultants, polls, and a touch of mud-slinging. In the end, the incumbents, Edwin L. Sherrill Jr. and William C. Heppenheimer 3d, won by a wide margin.

Mr. Della Femina's very own Pumpkin Papers, his lawsuit against the village involving the display of pumpkins in front of Jerry and David's Red Horse Market, was dismissed.

Village offices moved from temporary accommodations on Cedar Street to the renovated Lyman Beecher house on the corner of Huntting Lane and Main Street.

The Long Island Rail Road eliminated its East End ticket agents and announced that new double-decker trains and higher platforms were on the way, by 1998. Residents were not happy.

Martha Stewart was sued by her neighbors on Georgica Close Road, Harry and Linda Macklowe, over a grove of trees on their shared property line. The Village was also named in the suit.

Sag Harbor Village

Sag Harbor celebrated its 150th anniversary, though not with a car show. Opponents short-circuited the Louis Vuitton luggage company's plan to exhibit antique cars on Main Street on a busy June weekend.

In another village-owned-property issue, the Bay Street Theatre was denied the use of Marine Park for its summer fund-raiser. Long Wharf was used instead.

After a village survey showed many Main Street stores and restaurants were spilling over onto public property, they were ordered to stop serving food, selling merchandise, and displaying flowers in the disputed areas. Business owners were furious, but were placated when a license was created allowing them to buy yearly rights to the property.

Women

Women played a visible role in the November election, but did not prevail at the polls. The most prominent, Nora Bredes, challenged Rep. Michael P. Forbes. She won East Hampton, but not the race. After reelection, Mr. Forbes said he would oppose House Speaker Newt Gingrich's bid for a second term.

Melissa Arch Walton, a Democrat chosen to take on State Assemblyman Fred. W. Thiele Jr., also lost.

Also in November, East End voters approved several open-space and clean-water propositions and gave an overwhelming nod to Peconic County, hoping the state will take a closer look at the idea.

Ride'em Cowboy

The East Hampton commercial district appears quite different from a decade ago. This was the year the president of the Chamber of Commerce compared Main Street to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

Having said goodbye to some of the older stores - Engel Pottery, the Whitman Gallery, the Village Shoe Store, and Diamond's Furniture - the village welcomed new ones, sometimes in long-empty buildings. London Jewelers moved into the renovated Veterans of Foreign Wars building and McCarver and Moser, another jewelry store, took up residency in the old Village Hall across the street.

So we open the book on the New Year. While we will continue to reap the benefits of 1996's triumphs, the year's peskiest issues will probably not go away. They will transmute, take on new life. Some may fizzle out. To quote William Butler Yeats, ". . . time and the world are ever in flight."

   With reporting by Julia Mead, Josh Lawrence, Michelle Napoli, Susan Rosenbaum, Rick Murphy, Stephen Kotz, and Russell Drumm.

Of course most of us remember Kay Thompson's "Eloise," the hit children's book of 1955 with the witty scarlet, black, and hot-pink drawings by Hilary Knight.

Subtitled "A Book for Precocious Grownups, About a Little Girl Who Lives at the Plaza Hotel," it's still in print today, selling briskly to a whole new generation of kids who think the Plaza belongs to Donald Trump when - if long-term occupancy and staff devotion count -it's really Eloise's.

To celebrate Eloise's 40th birthday, Vanity Fair ran a story last month about Ms. Thompson, now 94 and living in seclusion in Connecticut, and Mr. Knight, who just turned 70 and lives in East Hampton when he's not in New York.

English Influence

Mr. Knight did the drawings for the article, and recently joined the Vanity Fair staff as a contributing artist, covering the New York Collections for the January issue.

His dust-jacket drawing for the first "Eloise" book shows a bratty little girl standing on tiptoe, scrawling her name in scarlet lipstick on a mirror above a marble mantelpiece. It's a sassy image, but also full of pathos: the spunk of the lonely kid scrambling to make her mark on the Plaza's majestic decor.

"I'd always admired the pen-and-ink drawings by English artists in Punch and in a tiny magazine called Lilliput, which first published the work of Ronald Searle," Mr. Knight told a visitor recently.

Wicked Schoolgirls

"He did these dreadful, vicious little schoolgirls terrifying their teachers: one, for example, with a boa constrictor draped over her shoulders. I loved the wicked style, and in the early '50s began doing contemporary drawings along those lines."

These humorous works were first published in Mademoiselle, and later in House & Garden and Gourmet. They caught the attention of D.D. Dixon, Mr. Knight's neighbor in their East Side apartment building and a fashion editor under the legendary Diana Vreeland at Harper's Bazaar.

Ms. Dixon was just back from a shoot at which Richard Avedon had photographed Ms. Thompson posing with a coq-feather fan Mr. Knight happened to have designed.

"She said I must meet Kay, who had this alter ego, Eloise, whose voice she did on the phone. Kay was writing a book about her, and D.D. thought my drawings might be right for it."

First Meeting

The author and the illustrator met at the Plaza - where else? - where Ms. Thompson, a noted singer and voice coach, was appearing in a nightclub act. (She later starred in the movie "Funny Face," playing a Vreeland-like fashion editor who commands her staff to "think pink.")

"Kay showed me her manuscript, I did some drawings, and we worked very closely for a year: It was the birth of an exhilarating collaboration."

Ms. Thompson is quoted in the Vanity Fair article as saying she once desperately drove her car across a golf course, rushing to get to the choreographer Bob Alton's house on time: "I opened the door . . . and he said, 'Who do think you are, coming here five minutes late?' I said, 'I am Eloise. I am 6.' "

And that is how the book begins.

First Spinoffs

"Kay really was like this mischievous waif with the absent parents, who lives with her Nanny and hobnobs with the Plaza staff," Mr. Knight said. "But there was a lot of her in the mother-substitute Nanny, too, and I drew her that way."

After getting a big spread in Life magazine, "Eloise" was an almost immediate success, and the first children's book to generate a line of toys produced in the heat of one of publishing's maiden merchandising binges.

The following year Mr. Knight went to Paris, where Ms. Thompson was filming "Funny Face," to begin work on a sequel, "Eloise in Paris," published in 1957.

"Eloise at Christmastime" followed in 1958, and "Eloise in Moscow" in 1959. The two were working on "Eloise Takes a Bawth" when "the collaboration became utterly devastating for us both, and fell apart."

"Bawth" Submerged

"By the end of our association," said Mr. Knight, "Kay wanted total control over the little girl's every movement, and really would not let me contribute anything. I realized that it was getting to be less and less fun, and that the later books were not up to the quality of the first."

Ms. Thompson evidently agreed, for she let all but the first, "Eloise," go out of print.

As for the "Bawth" book, it never saw the light of day.

In The Family

"It started out as a funny story about a bath that culminates in a giant flood in the Plaza lobby, a parody of the disaster film, that lost its humor because we worked on it for nearly four years," Mr. Knight said.

With several non-Eloise books already to his credit, as well as mag-

azine illustrations and, notably, many theater posters, he went on to work with other authors, and to write his own material as well. Among his solo works is the beguiling "Where's Wallace?", about a disappearing orangutan a young reader can find hiding in a new, surprising place on every page.

He also did the drawings for "Algonquin Cat," with story by Val Schaffner, and illustrated Judith Viorst's "Sunday Morning," entirely with silhouettes. His art work for Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat" perhaps shows him at his most charming as a visual storyteller.

Illustrating runs in the family. "I grew up in an amazing household in Roslyn with two very active and successful illustrator-parents," Mr. Knight said. "In the '20s, illustrators painted huge six-foot canvases for various magazines before photography took over; it was a big thing."

Art-Filled House

His father, Clayton Knight, a World

War I pilot and Chicago Art Institute graduate, did aviation illustrations for boys' books and World War II magazines and literature.

His mother, Katharine Sturges, worked for the Ladies Home Journal, designed fabrics, and filled their house with murals: circus animals for Hilary's bedroom, exotic Art Deco scenes in the dining room. The couple collaborated on a New Yorker cover in 1926.

When Hilary was 6 the family moved to New York, where he learned "absolutely nothing, not even how to add or write script" at the progressive City and Country School.

He later floundered academically at the High School for Music and Art and at Friends Seminary, until his mother finally let him go to the Art Students League, where he studied with George Gross and Reginald Marsh.

In The Navy

"I never wanted to do anything but be an artist anyway," he said. "Marsh was a great draftsman who taught me how the bones and muscles moved around, and gave me a sense of action in drawing."

Later, drawing children's fashions for Saks Fifth Avenue newspaper ads, he found this background allowed him to work without a model, "really whipping out the drawings and having a lot of fun."

Mr. Knight was drafted into the Navy in 1944. "I was an 18-year-old midget," he said, "and a complete innocent. I remember trying to look invisible on the train to boot camp, and being totally amazed at how often the F-word was used."

He spent the war literally painting ships, and in a logistic support company that set up camps on Okinawa. "I had no idea what was going on. Sometimes I'd hear distant gunfire, but I was in another world, reading and drawing in my little tent and waiting to get out."

Stage Design: Short Run

Back home, a decision to become a stage designer led to an apprenticeship at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, then run by George Abbott.

"Nancy Davis Reagan was in the company, and Ruth Chatterton, Jane Cowl, and Richard Widmark. Set designing and building was very hard work, and too big, somehow. I wanted to be back at a drawing board."

After studying art and decorative-art history at the New York School of Design, Mr. Knight took a job as a room renderer for the decorating firm Amster Yard Inc. "I did slightly over-the-top renderings of room designs that made them look impressive and flashy. It was fun," he said.

He recently completed an Eloise display at the Museum of the City of New York on upper Fifth Avenue, where "New York Toy Stories," an exhibit of New Yorkers' playthings, has just opened.

Museum, Gallery

Eloise, fittingly, is the only character with her very own installation: a recreation of her pink Plaza bedroom that includes real '50s room-service plates from the Plaza collection. "She's the quintessential New York kid," Mr. Knight said.

For this summer, East Hampton's Giraffics gallery is planning a three-person show of works by Mr. Knight and his artist-parents.

"It should be interesting," he said. "We all have wildly different styles."

"I was very influenced, however, by a huge painting of my mother's of a sassy little Victorian girl in a big pink bow. She's prettier than Eloise, but has her smart-aleck attitude."

"As my mother used to say, 'She knows how many beans make five.' "

The New York Times crossword puzzle on Saturday is often of teeth-grinding difficulty. But while you may call down a pox and a mullein on the puzzle's editor when you fail to complete it, you would never exchange it for Monday's, which usually offers no challenge at all.

And so it is with books and music and poetry and an exhibit of 15 small photographs by Linda Connor at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller.

The limited edition artist's book of Charles Simic's long poem "On the Music of the Spheres," which the photographs accompany, opens with the words of Pliny the Elder, written over 900 years ago.

"Whether the sound of this vast mass whirling in unceasing rotation is of enormous volume and consequently beyond the capacity of our ears to perceive, for my own part I cannot easily say - any more in fact than whether this is true of the tinkling of the stars that travel round with it, revolving in their own orbits; or whether it emits a sweet harmonious music that is beyond belief charming. To us who live within it the world glides silently alike by day and by night."

Spiritual Photographs

Today we don't even have the comfort of a silently gliding world. If there is a celestial music, then our roaring, clattering globe has surely drowned it out, and the uninterrupted hour of peace and solitude when we might hear it in our imagination has become a rare treasure.

Like the chance to sit down in the book-scented silence of Glenn Horowitz and unhurriedly turn the big, gray, you-can't-afford-to-buy-me pages, read the poem, and absorb Ms. Connor's intense, spiritual photographs.

"This Saturday night the sky is a giant Pythagorean

jukebox sparkling in a corner of a darkened night club.

The black wax is spinning.

Tarantula Nebula.

It's one of the Golden Oldies.

The mystics among us will hear the music."

Satisfying Challenge

There is the music he's writing about, and then there is the music of the poetry itself and the music in the photography. You don't have to be a mystic to enjoy them, but you do need a bit of concentration and lack of interruption. It's like the crossword - it is satisfying because it is a challenge.

In the book, the 15 photographs run at the end of the text rather than beside it, leaving you to make your own interpretation. Some of them are taken from 19th-century astronomical prints, like a shattered plate of an 1895 lunar eclipse. The cracks run like ghostly meteorite trails framing the distant moon. White-on-black archive notes run around the edges of the negative impression like a religious mantra.

A woman on a threshing floor pours wheat from a silver bowl. It's hard to say why the picture, which was taken a few years ago in Turkey but could have been from the time of "The Song of Solomon," ties in with the polar axis and Andromeda and asteroids, but it does.

Chill Down The Spine

In an early photo of the Milky Way, so many more stars have burned their impressions into the plate than can be seen with the naked eye that it sends a chill down the spine.

"If photographers are soul-stealers, whose soul is being stolen in the photograph of the night sky?

The eyes of the last one to go to bed and the eyes of the first one to rise, perhaps?"

Then there is a stunning slow exposure of the Mohammad Ali Mosque in Cairo, with its three circles of hanging lamps and high domed ceilings. At first glance the mosque is deserted, but then you see the faint ghosts of worshippers who have entered and left under the camera's slowly whirring eye.

Blissful Silence

Of similar intensity are pictures of sand mandalas at the Mindroling Monastery in Tibet and "Prayer Wheels and Lumber," taken at another monastery. The elaborate hand-poured mandalas are indeed "mindrolingly" impressive in their size and intricacy and perfection. An ill-advised cough at the wrong moment and hours of work would have been ruined.

In "Jesus Raising the Dead," all but a small piece of a religious mosaic has fallen from a dome of a church in Istanbul. Jesus reaches out his hands to the dead but all around his head the exposed circles of brick look like a swirling astronomical plate of stars moving through the night sky.

The series closes with "Window and Thankgas," taken in India. Sunshine coming through a window forms a blinding supernova of light, behind which can be distinguished wall hangings of the Hindu pantheon. And the 15 illustrations have composed themselves into a whole.

By the time you have read the poem a few times, and slowly felt your way along the procession of photographs, you do hear the music of the spheres. It is a blissful, whirling silence, like that charged moment between the final notes of a concert and the burst of applauding hands.

It's a little late to announce signs and portents perhaps, but a trend I've noticed developing is the rebellion against the Fat Police and food fearmongers. I don't mean the pollsters who make a living telling us of the burgeoning fatness of the entire American people - they can make a "study reveals significant. . ." out of almost anything.

It's the K.G.B. of diet, that D.C. organization known as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, that has recently come under serious fire for using bad science to push their fanatical agenda. Michael Jacobsen, "the closest thing we have to a national nag," as Stephen Glass calls him in the Dec. 30 issue of The New Republic, heads C.S.P.I. His histrionic plays to the press -- dressing up like Tony the Tiger while damning sweetened cereals and attaching 170 rotted teeth to a petition sent to the Federal Trade Commission -- have gotten him ink, but also considerable derision from public health professionals.

This organization publishes frequent nutrition and poison scares and last year sent Chinese restaurants into a 25-percent decline with its hysterical attack on an entire 5,000-year-old cuisine.

A former director of the National Institutes of Health declares that C.S.P.I. is actually a misnomer: "It's not always science, and these mini-scares are not in the public interest." The center's board, which consists of an actress, two lawyers, an accountant, a statistician, and an advocate for the poor, led all too vigorously by Michael Jacobsen (a microbiologist by training), has not a single member with medical or nutritional education.

This doesn't inhibit C.S.P.I. from inveighing against meat, alcohol, sweets, caffeine, microwave ovens, and, more recently, movie-theater popcorn and Mexican food. It's my observation that French food is returning to well-deserved popularity after a tedious decade or more of pasta and pizza. It develops that all those carbs haven't led to a svelte, fit population.

Scientists and nutritionists discount the center's many outrageous scare reports because the foods studied aren't placed in the context of how they are consumed. For example, a dish of Kung Pao chicken shared with three other people and eaten with vegetable dishes and plenty of rice does not constitute a threat to health.

Olestra Ordeal

Nor does even a whole bag of popcorn, since most people don't make a steady diet of it. The C.S.P.I. did accomplish one of its objectives though: It's almost impossible to get a bag of popcorn in any movie theater that isn't salt free and totally tasteless. Of course, the center's other objective - abolishing soda pop - will be defeated, as it's necessary to wash down this dry, cottony popcorn with oceans of Coke, Sprite, or whatever.

Knowing how Jacobson and his acolytes hate fat, Proctor & Gamble reasonably expected a hearty endorsement from the center for their new fake fat, Olestra. This product, approved (after 17 years of testing) by the Food and Drug Admistration as a fat substitute for frying things like potato chips, is not digested in the human system, but merely passes through (I've never tried Olestra myself, so can give no opinion on its gastronomic qualities).

However, people who ate large quantities of it - I suppose the sort of "snackers" that crave a bushel basket of potato chips or Cheese Doodles in the middle of the night - suffered temporary diarrhea. This is not exactly a life-threatening condition and one that could easily be duplicated by heeding the current California prune growers ad campaign to snack on dried prunes.

With A Vengeance

What next, I wonder? A huge anti-prune campaign? A skull and crossbones on every bottle of wine or liquor, box of sugared cereal, bag of popcorn, Olestra-tainted potato chips, or french fries? Carrie Nation-style pickax attacks on all the Chinese and Mexican restaurants in America?

Jacobson is known to grill waiters on the ingredients in every dish he orders in a restaurant and pours off, or blots off, all sauces or traces of fat, onto satellite plates he demands to mix up his own noxious "everything free" concoctions.

Enough already! It's small wonder the American public is diving into their buckets of honey-fried chicken and triple "whoppers" with renewed zest. At a Christmas party a young single man told me he cooked mostly out of the books of the 400-pound Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme. Knowing what Prudhomme's notion of "a serving" is, I asked what he did with the leftovers. "I eat them for three nights running" was the answer.

Now that, food fans, is the sort of thing that can lead to nutritional disaster! Not a bag of popcorn or the occasional hush puppy or helping of fried chicken.

Load Up The Larder

I thought the Cajun craze had petered out several years ago, but apparently not: Last night I saw, on a very chic menu, a pecan-crusted sauteed chicken breast that would have Jacobson and his food police picketing the place.

And another friend of mine, whose roots are decidedly European, confessed a newfound love affair with gumbo and beans and rice dishes. The Paradise in Sag Harbor has a nothing if not eclectic menu that features those items as well as a delicious soup made with kale, white beans, and spicy, Cajun andouille sausage.

As the East End heads into the deeps of winter, it might be a good time to lay in supplies of dried beans, root vegetables, canned plum tomatoes, and other nonperishables to face the snowstorms and northeasters with equanimity. Check your oil lamps, candles, batteries, wood pile, and, if you have one, generator too - despite the flawless performance of LILCO, every Long Islander's favorite hometown team.

Acorn Squash And Wild Rice Soup

There can scarcely be anything more American than squash and wild rice and we had this soup to begin Christmas dinner. Acorn, hubbard, or butternut will serve equally well and are plentiful and long-keeping at this time of year.

Makes about three quarts.

2 cups cooked wild rice

2 lbs. acorn squash

Pinch of salt

2 Tbsp. duck fat or butter

1 large onion, sliced thin

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/8 tsp. mace

1 tsp. cardamom, ground

1 tsp. dried coriander, ground

6 cups de-fatted chicken or strong veal stock

Salt and cayenne pepper to taste

1/4 cup creme fraiche or heavy cream (approximate)

Wash, then cook the wild rice in plenty of water and a pinch of salt until it is very soft - much softer than it would be served as a vegetable - at least an hour. Prick the acorn squash and microwave it for three minutes, which will make it much easier to cut in half - peeling these tough squashes raw is nearly impossible.

Place the squash, cut side down, in a glass pie plate with about a quarter cup of water and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Microwave on high for 12 minutes and let stand five minutes. If not tender, microwave a bit longer. With a spoon, scoop out the seeds and pith, then the flesh, and discard the skin.

Melt the duck fat or butter in a deep, heavy soup pot and add the onion, garlic, and spices. Cook over gentle heat about five minutes, stirring often. Add the rice and its cooking water and the squash, the stock, and a little salt and pepper. Simmer it all, covered, for about 20 minutes, then taste and add more salt and cayenne as preferred. Puree the soup in a blender or food processor when it has cooled a bit, then return it to the soup pot to re-warm. To serve - this is enough for eight - ladle the hot soup into individual bowls and trickle a little creme fraiche or heavy cream over the back of a spoon to float swirls on the surface of each.

Kale, White Bean And Andouille Soup

A comforting supper on a cold winter's night, rounded out with a piece of ripe Brie, a whole wheat baguette, and a wicked glass of red wine. And for the truly daring, perhaps a baked pear with frozen yogurt and caramel sauce topping! Leftover soup keeps well for several days in the fridge and can be frozen. Cromer's Market sells andouille, a spicy Cajun dry sausage.

Makes about four quarts.

1 lb. dried Great Northern or white cannelini beans

3 qts. water

2 tsp. coarse salt

2 qts. washed, stemmed kale leaves

2 Tbsp. duck or goose fat, butter, or oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp. concentrated chicken demiglace or bouillon cubes

1 whole andouille sausage, peeled

Cayenne and black pepper to taste

Wash and soak the dried beans overnight in cold water away from the stove or use the quick soak method described on the package. Simmer the beans in the water about one and a half hours, depending on the age of the beans (this timing can be markedly shortened with a pressure cooker - to about 15 minutes), until just tender but not mushy. Then, and only then, add salt. Salt toughens all dried beans and should never be added until they are almost done.

Toss in the kale leaves and simmer until they are tender - about 15 minutes. Melt the fat or oil in a skillet and saute the onion and garlic; add to the soup along with the chicken bouillon. Andouille has a tough natural casing that should be peeled off before eating or cooking with it. Slice it in quarter-inch rounds and add to the soup.

Heat through and season to taste with cayenne and black pepper - they have different flavors - as Cajun cooking uses them together. Taste and add more salt if necessary. If you can't find any andouille, you might substitute pepperoni.

Tired? Creatively blocked? Unmotivated? Perhaps your surroundings are stifling the positive flow of your ch'i. Maybe what you need is a feng shui overhaul.

Feng shui (pronounced fung-SHWAY) is an ancient Eastern system of placing objects and molding one's surroundings to enhance well-being. Applied in the home, office, or even the garden, it is meant to foster creativity, create better relationships, bring luck, and generally harmonize one's existence with the metaphysical realm.

With the help of the East Hampton architect Eva Growney, feng shui has found a home in homes along the South Fork. Ms. Growney has incorporated its precepts into her house designs and interior designs for some 15 years, and she even makes house calls for consultations and blessings. Her clients have included a famous diet doctor, an Amagansett actress, assorted musicians, and all types in between.

Tweak The Forces

"Everything in the universe is made of energy," Ms. Growney explained. "On the simplest level, we have the powers of positive and negative energy, which can also be male and female, black and white. . . . One of the key components of feng shui has to do with the balance of both energies."

Basically, the architect said, the goal is to "tweak the positive forces" of a space.

That can be as practical as placing a lamp on the right table or as involved as an hour-and-a-half ritual blessing. It can involve an area as small as a study or as large as an entire property.

Meaningful Spaces

Feng shui traces back 4,000 years to when ancient Easterners carefully sited burial plots and their crops and farm sites to promote harmony with their geographic surroundings. It soon developed into a system for everyday life, one that incorporates fundamentals of Taoism and Buddhism - things like rituals, meditation, the I Ching, the yin yang.

"It has so much to do with the human psyche," said Ms. Growney, who practices what is known as Black Hat Sect Tantric Buddhist feng shui. "It addresses things that we need physically as well as psychically."

Besides spatial orientations, colors, and objects such as crystals and flutes are also thought to have enhancing effects.

Eight Aspects Of Life

So, then, how do all these metaphysical concepts apply themselves to a seemingly mundane concept like interior design? Feng shui actually provides a relatively tangible tool. It's called the ba-gua, an octagonal diagram whose points represent eight aspects of life: family, knowledge, fame, offspring, helpful people, career, marriage, and wealth.

Superimposed over a room plan, floor plan, or map, the ba-gua provides a guide for orienting the space with those life aspects in mind.

Ms. Growney's own office on Toilsome Lane was arranged with the ba-gua in mind. A lush painting of fish is placed in what the ba-gua dictates as the wealth or "abundance" corner, for example. Paintings of faroff places are grouped in the helpful people/ travel corner and examples of her better house designs are displayed in the career corner.

Other ideas were applied to the space, including the painting of the walls in black, green, and yellow tones - "colors of abundance and growth," the architect said. "If this is a room of knowledge, there should be fresh knowledge sprouting."

Earth's Emporium

Ms. Growney has designed entire houses using feng shui, including two in Springs and one in the estate section of Southampton Village. She has also incorporated its precepts into other, more traditional designs in Water Mill and on Shelter Island. Some businesses, like the metaphysical bookstores in Sag Harbor and Southampton, have called on Ms. Growney's talent.

In fact, the best example of the architect's work and the one most solidly based on feng shui is the interior design of Anne Harper's Earth's Emporium in Amagansett. From the carpet leading in from the front door to the massive yin yang in the center of the floor, the store is a breathing example of feng shui design.

Ms. Growney remembers when Ms. Harper, who is a friend of hers, called her in for a consultation. "It was horrible, and I think she will kind of admit it," said the architect. "When you went in, it was a mess. The arrangement of everything kept blocking the energy everywhere."

Out Came The Ba-Gua

The task turned to rearranging the entire layout of the store. Out came the ba-gua. In the knowledge corner went the store's collection of spiritual and health-oriented books, in the fame corner (directly opposite the entrance) Ms. Growney placed a large mirror and a space for displaying the merchandise Ms. Harper chooses to highlight.

The register and sales desk were moved toward the center of the floor, being the heart of business. Behind it, in the offspring corner, the vitamins and supplements Ms. Harper has recently incorporated were placed - "a child of her interests," said Ms. Growney.

Directly across the room items in the store's health food selection were chosen to occupy the family/health corner.

Writer Unblocked

One of Ms. Growney's most recent clients was an actress, whom she chose not to name, who divides her time between an apartment in Los Angeles and an oceanfront house in Amagansett.

"She was having trouble writing a book she is working on," Ms. Growney said. "She had been having writer's block for months and months - she was starting to panic."

The architect visited the Amagansett house, performed a ritual blessing, and suggested only a few general changes, such as covering a mirror in front of the bed and breaking up a long hallway with a cloth halfway down and a crystal to disperse energy. But it was what Ms. Growney did for the actress's work space in L.A. that did wonders for her troubles.

"She faxed me a layout of her work room," said the architect, who sent back a long list of suggestions. "She did all the things I told her, and a day later she called me crying. As soon as she put the chair up to the desk again she said it all flowed. She wrote for a couple days straight."

Trump And Johnson

Ms. Growney has also designed gardens for notables such as Chuck Scarborough and the famous diet doctor Bob Atkins, who has a house in Water Mill. With the Far Eastern version of a doctor's bag, the architect also makes house calls. She will visit for a consultation or perform a house blessing, complete with an altar, offerings, and participation by the whole family.

The architect, who also lectures and writes articles on feng shui, recently lectured to design students at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute. The fact that a by-the-books art school like Pratt would be interested in a metaphysical system like feng shui is just one indication that the practice is becoming more widely embraced, the architect said.

Even the megadeveloper Donald Trump and the well-known architect Philip Johnson are said to have called in a feng shui consultant to advise on Trump's new luxury tower going up by Columbus Circle.

"Here is a proponent of strict modernism and the glitziest developer on earth, who is completely on the Earth plane, more in the mundane world, both using a feng shui expert," Ms. Growney said.

"Now it's being taught in mainstream universities," she added. "It's not just an esoteric, holistic, hoopla thing. It's being embraced because it's sound."

The New Year opens with unexpected good news. Brooklyn Union Gas, a utility considered one of the nation's best-run, is merging with one of the worst, the Long Island Lighting Company. The advantages for LILCO's ratepayers should be many.

Long Island's high electric rates, second only to Hawaii's, not only are promised to come down but may even become competitive with what is paid elsewhere for the same service. Equally important, natural gas will be extended all over the Island, including the faraway East End. This clean alternative to oil and electric heat will be welcome.

Envisioned in the future are computer-run "neutral fuel" programs which will select the cheapest source for lighting, cooling, and heating businesses and houses. When the price of oil soars, as it has this winter, natural gas will be piped in instead.

Those who will be part of the management of New York Energy, as the new entity probably will be known, have announced that there will be no layoffs. Instead, the company will rely on attrition to help achieve cost-cutting.

In business, one plus one occasionally equals three. When that happens, financial analysts call it synergy. This deal is synergistic - for LILCO, for Brooklyn Union, and for the people of Long Island.

For all those postal patrons whose mail goes into post office boxes rather than being delivered to street addresses, what a happy new year it would be if the United States Postal Service were to figure out a way to insure that all letters get where they are meant to go.

A few years ago an edict came down from Washington that no matter how small the community or well known the recipient, post office employees were not to place mail in a box unless it bore the proper box number. Not only that, but they were no longer to give out box numbers if asked.

Here on Long Island's East End, where many of us know each other, the rule is sometimes honored in the breach, for which residents are grateful. But ever since the rule went into effect things have gone from good to worse.

From the sender's point of view, the telephone book has become obsolete as a means of finding an address. Who has not sent off a birthday card to a friend who has lived in the same place for years only to have it returned for the lack of a box number? Who has not wondered why so-and-so failed to show at a party, only to have their invitation bounce back a week or two later?

Once upon a time, our local postmasters made sure a letter got where it was meant to go as a matter of course and sometimes with no more direction than "Jane Smith, Amagansett" on the envelope. Now, they have to balance the motto of the Postal Service - against counterproductive Postal Service rules.

Those who pick up their mail at post offices ought to be treated with respect: They are saving it the expense of delivery. Besides, if you are going to inconvenience the public, you ought at least try to mitigate the inconvenience. The Federal Government has an obligation to disseminate box numbers if it is going to insist they be used.

In small towns, post offices could keep up-to-date lists and give out numbers when requested. Where volume makes that inconvenient, post offices (or direct mail or telephone book companies authorized by the Postal Service) could publish directories for distribution to all residents. The method doesn't matter as long as the information is freely available.

But do it, and do it in 1997. At a time when the Government is worried about the proliferation of alternatives to the U.S. Mail, it would make good business sense for the Postal Service to be as accommodating as possible.

At its last meeting of the year, terming it a "motherhood and apple-pie issue," the Suffolk Legislature overwhelmingly passed a measure banning body-piercing by anyone under 18 who could not show signed and notarized permission from a parent. Only one exception was made, for piercing ears.

Most Americans older than Generation X probably agree that making holes in your body and stabbing bits of metal into them is pretty weird, although, when you stop to think about it, body-piercing isn't much weirder than sticking bunches of burning vegetation in your mouth and inhaling the fumes. Kids should be discouraged from both practices.

But can anyone explain why drilling through an ear is acceptable while drilling through a nostril or belly button isn't? Shouldn't it be a case of no holes barred or all holes barred?

The difference, of course, is that earrings have been culturally acceptable in the Western world since recorded time began. In some parts of Africa it is the other way round. In India certain women wear a red spot on their foreheads, but wearing one in the cleavage probably would be frowned upon. Tribal cultures throughout the world have elaborate and ancient styles of personal decoration, including neck rings and lip plates. Our own teenaged culture follows dress codes that are as rigid while they last as they are trendy.

There continues to be debate about whether government should forbid the free use of substances that are mentally or physically harmful. It is totally out of order for it to prohibit cultural practices that are not.

The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society celebrated the end of its 20th anniversary year with dramatically increased membership, a total of 94 guided hikes, new trails, a higher political profile, and plans for the completion of East Hampton's share of the Paumanok Path two years early.

High on the society's list of priorities in 1997 is the accelerated completion of East Hampton's portion of the Paumanok Path, the 100-mile system of connected trails stretching from Rocky Point in Brookhaven to Montauk Point. This year the society took a big step with the creation of the Point Woods Trail, a 1.5-mile section from the Camp Hero housing complex to the bluffs.

Designed by Mike Bottini, a society member, the section is part of a double-loop trail that one day will connect Camp Hero with Montauk Point. Elsewhere in Montauk, short links were added along the Talkhouse, or Coastal, Trail, which winds along the north coast of Hither Hills State Park. The state has asked the society to help name the trails within the park, as part of a $12,000 effort to place trail signs throughout the woods.

New Link

Another link in the Paumanok Path was recently completed in the Devon area just east of the George Sid Miller Jr. Path.

Richard Lupoletti, president of the society, said that next year's goal was to finish designing and preparing trails between Cranberry Hole Road on Napeague and the Point, the last section of the Paumanok Path in East Hampton. This would mean the entire 30-mile trail system within the borders of the town would be created in time for the 350th anniversary of the town in 1998. The entire trail is not expected to be completed until 2000.

"It's no longer just a walk in the woods for ladies and gentlemen," Mr. Lupoletti said of the society. He said the 120 members added this year brought the membership to 200 hikers dedicated to the cause of open space preservation.

Political Role

"We had become a quiet, private walking club, but we broke open this year by nearly tripling our membership. There were 20 guided hikes in 1995, 94 this year. We had approximately 1,000 hikers during the season, and we learned that we could be a political as well as recreational organization," Mr. Lupoletti said.

The society's president said that at the start of each hike, the cause of preserving open space was talked up. And, prior to the November elections, members handed out 1,500 brochures advocating the state's Clean Water, Clean Air Bond Act to pay for land acquisition. It passed, and Mr. Lupoletti said he liked to think the society played a role. Two members of the organization now serve on the town's open space advisory committee.

Also in 1997, the society intends to "adopt" Montauk County Park and organize a "March of Parks" on Earth Day to raise money to be used for maintaining trails within the park. The society has also undertaken the revision of trails maps for East Hampton.

"Movable Feasts"

On Jan. 5, the society will begin the first of its winter hikes with a trek through Hither Hills. There will be some different kinds of hikes offered in the near future. The society is about to kick off its "movable feast" hikes. After each, hikers will repair to a member's house or a nearby bistro for a little socializing. "Guest speaker" hikes are also planned.

Mr. Lupoletti described the society's most dramatic project for the coming year: getting an Army helicopter to lift junked cars out of Hither Hills. A society member, John Benedict, conceived of the idea, which will involve lifting old heaps and carrying them to a junk dealer's truck at the Montauk landfill.

The Village of East Hampton has punctuated its year-end official business with yet another development in the Harry Macklowe-Martha Stewart melee.

At its regular monthly meeting Friday, the Village Board hired the law firm of Pachman, Pachman, Brown & Farneti of Commack to represent the municipality in a not-unexpected lawsuit involving a Zoning Board of Appeals determination in the long-term dispute between Harry and Linda Macklowe and their neighbor, Ms. Stewart.

The Macklowes filed an Article 78 lawsuit on Dec. 9 against the Z.B.A. seeking to overturn its decision allowing Ms. Stewart to clear a grove of trees and some electrical fixtures from the border of their Georgica Close Road properties.

The Macklowes also filed a show-cause order on Dec. 12, seeking to prohibit any further clearing at Ms. Stewart's property. The court had issued a temporary restraining order to Ms. Stewart minutes after the Z.B.A. voted on Nov. 8 to allow her to clear the land.

Congratulations

The board also tied up some year-end business, though not before taking time out for a little nostalgia and recognizing two longtime volunteers.

Board members were treated to a presentation by Hugh King, the town crier, about "another December," a quarter-century ago, notable for the reopening after a fire at Dreesen's Market, where steak was selling for 38 cents a pound, and when local merchants were giving away holiday coupons "for all purchases over 25 cents."

Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. then congratulated Mae Bushman and Ralph George for their 20 years of service with the East Hampton Ambulance Association. Mrs. Bushman was one of the first women to serve with the association.

Mr. George will be its captain next year. Other incoming officers, elected last month, are Richard Mamay, chief; Mary Mott, assistant chief; Daniel Reichl, lieutenant; Peter Hillick, secretary, and James McCourt, treasurer.

The Village Board accepted two new association members, Robert L. Schider and Paul J. DePalma, and the Mayor thanked all the volunteers for the "tremendous job" they do.

Resignations

Board members then held a public hearing and approved an addition to the Village Code allowing electrical inspectors besides the New York Board of Fire Underwriters to inspect installations in the village's commercial and residential buildings.

The board accepted the resignation of James H. Loper Jr. from the Highway Department, effective Jan. 31. Villagers will remember Mr. Loper riding atop the street sweeper in the early mornings.

The resignations of Bruce Collins as Superintendent of Public Works and John R. Cataletto from the Design Review Board will be effective as of Tuesday. Mayor Rickenbach said the village was "deeply in debt to Mr. Collins for his years of service," and he thanked Mr. Cataletto for his "ability and wisdom."

Bruce Fithian, now the acting Superintendent of Public Works, will be formally appointed in January to a newly created civil service position of Village Superintendent of Public Works. Stuyvesant Wainwright Jr. has taken over for Mr. Cataletto on the D.R.B.

The board acknowledged receipt of a letter of credit from Hedgerow Associates, owners of the former Christie Estate subdivision between David's and Pondview Lanes, but tabled acceptance of it, as a lawsuit is under way concerning that property as well. The village is constrained from taking any action until a judgment has been made.

End-Of-Year Business

In other action, the board:

Approved a request from the Long Island Lighting Company to erect a new pole in the Schenck parking lot.

Adopted a bond resolution of $575,000 for improvements to Lily Pond Lane.

Created a new sergeant's position in the Village Police Department in anticipation of a promotion. The action brings to six the number of sergeants on the force, but does not increase its total personnel.

Hired Dawn M. Mahanna as a part-time dispatcher at the Emergency Services Center, at $9.75 per hour.

Agreed to refund $921.05 in 1994-95 taxes to Palm Management Corporation, as stipulated by the East Hampton Town Board of Assessment Review.

Phone Upgrade

The board also:

Agreed to pay Lucent Technologies $15,089 to upgrade the telephone system at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street.

Approved several personnel changes and one new hire at the Department of Public Works.

Finally, the Mayor wished for the people of East Hampton Village and its neighbors that "1997 be everything you want it to be."