AMAGANSETT

N.P. Funding II L.P. to Annabel Means and William Taussig, Montauk Highway, $192,500.

Borghi to John and Mark Kraus, Edwards Close, $885,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Second Narrow Lane Corp. to Jeffrey and Jacqueline Chernov, Narrow Lane, $452,500.

Siwicki to Robert Savoia, Montauk Highway, $200,000.

Hildreth to George Dandridge and Marcos Tychbrojcher, Halsey Lane, $295,000.

Ganna Realty Corp. to Anne Hearst, Butter Lane, $485,000.

Walsh to Koral Dev. L.L.C., Scuttlehole Road $150,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Palmer to Nan Dillon, Osborne Lane, $215,000.

Bergsma to Lawrence Rich and Seymour Levy, Chestnut Way, $162,000.

Munson to Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Mervis, Mill Hill Lane, $430,000.

Malcomson to Thomas Dwyer, Morrell Boulevard, $203,000.

MONTAUK

Haft to Philip and Melanie Arfman, Otis Road, $178,000.

NORTHWEST

Esposito to Bruce Karp and Stephen Goldstone, High Point Road, $225,000.

Cipriano to Bruce and Phyllis Jaeger, Cobblers Court, $446,000.

NOYAC

Grillo to William Pratt and Diane Malanowski, Harbor Watch Court, $292,000.

SAG HARBOR

Daszewski estate to Kenneth and Wendy Bichel, Bayview Drive, $180,000.

Whitehead to Vincent and Ann Moore, Terry Drive, $160,500.

SAGAPONACK

Mumford to Robert Hurst, Bridge Lane (34.7 acres, vacant), $5,000,000.

North to David and Karen Schoenthal, Parsonage Lane, $900,000.

Sarlin to Emily Youssouf, Surfside Drive, $645,000.

Jones (trustee) to Mary Vassel, Sagg Road, $1,037,500.

SPRINGS

Cataletto estate to Edward Herbst and Barbara Close, King's Point Road, $260,000.

Lucchese to Albert and Natasha Dombrowski, Bay Inlet Road, $300,000.

WATER MILL

Foster to C. Paul and Marciana Verba, Hayground Road, $270,000.

Conrad to Kenneth and Ann Bialkin, Bay Lane, $2,225,000.

Ellenhorn to Howard Smiley, Seven Pond-Towd Road, $355,000.

Data provided by Long Island Profiles Publishing Co. Inc. of Babylon.

Many people know that some coffees carry a fair-trade label to indicate that the beans come from places where workers are well treated. It is not as well known that some of the largest chocolate suppliers in the world are suspected of dealing with cocoa farms that have abusive child-labor practices.

I can't remember why I found myself reading about cocoa farms recently on the Web, but, as with eating chocolate, it was hard to stop after one bite. An industry group has been working with communities in West Africa to eliminate forced child labor and unsafe practices. But advocates for fair trade insist the major suppliers aren't doing enough quickly enough. They argue that in the interest of corporate profits the price of cocoa beans is set too low to allow farmers to upgrade their farms and have decent lives.

Ivory Coast is the largest producer of cocoa beans in the world. According to one account, the industry has "said it will have a monitoring system in place to cover at least 50 percent of the [600,000] cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana by the middle of 2008." Does that sound good enough to you, especially when the accusations about child labor include not only making them carry heavy loads, use machetes, and apply chemicals, but slavery?

The most egregious accusations come from Global Exchange, a human rights organization that focuses on the global economy and fair trade. It claims that "approximately 286,000 children between the ages of 9 and 12 have been reported on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast alone with as many as 12,000 likely to have arrived in their situation as the result of child trafficking. . . .West African parents living in poverty often sell their kids to cocoa farmers for $50 to $100 in hopes that the children will make some money on their own."

The article goes on to allege that "these children work 80 to 100 hours per week . . . frequently make little or no money, and are regularly beaten, starved, and exhausted. Most of these children will never even taste the final product that results from their suffering."

I sincerely hope that these claims are exaggerated, but who am I to judge the agency's researchers?

In July 2005, Nestle, Archer Daniels Midland, and Cargill were sued on behalf of a number of young men from Mali, who say they were held as slave laborers on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast in the 1990s, when they were teenagers. As far as I can tell the suit is pending in federal court in California. A.D.M. and Cargill have built positive reputations as PBS sponsors.

These corporations say they are committed to eliminating abusive labor practices and that they cut off farms that practice them.

Global Exchange supports standards that can be certified and wants consumers to buy chocolate, like coffee, that has a fair-trade label. It believes that farmers deserve higher incomes so they can better provide for the health of their families and the education of their children. Hershey's, which apparently buys cocoa from the major suppliers, says it is already providing families with money to educate their children and playing a leadership role in West Africa by helping farmers grow cocoa sustainably.

But Global Exchange claims that Hershey's and M&M/Mars are "almost certainly" using chocolate "produced partly by slaves." I suppose they can both be telling the truth, which, I am sorry to admit, leaves the consumer, you and me, with an opportunity to continue taking the easy way out.

A book on Marla Ruzicka is coming out soon, and it occurs to me that she was a real martyr, an energetic young woman who worked for peace in Iraq, helping the war's victims amid the chaos we created. Death overtook her in the form of a bomb on the airport road as she was driving to help someone. Her body fatally burned, she opened her eyes before dying, and exclaimed, with the joy that was typical of her, "I'm alive!"

She, not the suicide bombers, is someone to think of when you're thinking about genuine martyrdom. Her aim was to assuage suffering, not to increase it.

If there is a merciful God, and I am not sure that there is, it is reasonable to assume - in fact, even without the existence of such a deity - that we are in our time here to enjoy the beauty that surrounds us and to nurture it in whatever ways we can. It seems only natural.

While her singular courage, which came naturally to her, is hard for most of us to fathom, she, this saint in a war zone, would probably have agreed that there are many worthy ways to participate in the dance of life.

I don't know if she was religious in the formal sense. It seems that the major religions, while much that they teach is worthy, can through their codifying narrow the mind and spirit.

Today, everybody claims to have God on their side. One God says destroy the infidel. One God says defend our way of life, through offensive acts if need be. I would like to think I am in thrall to neither. I do not understand suicide bombing, why it would be thought that God would reward such a fanatical, nihilistic act. I also do not think God is for carpet bombing.

I know it's not a perfect world, and that even a thousand Marla Ruzickas won't be able to save it. I know, even thinking of her shining example, that it can be argued persuasively that suffering will only be mitigated through taking up arms. I know that at times people need to defend themselves.

I know, too, because of Marla Ruzicka's brief life - the name of the book, by the way, is "Sweet Relief: The Marla Ruzicka Story," by Jennifer Abrahamson (Simon & Schuster) and you can get it through www.civicworldwide.org - that we must bend our efforts toward finding a different way.

Is art with a message less art and more message? Is it posssible for people with bad character or odious practices to make great art? Can we use art to promote peace? Is art made by folks who preach love and high ideals superior to that of aggressive people?

These are some of the timely, post-Sept. 11 questions we face at a group show of some 30 Islamic artists, half of them women, at the AE Gallery opposite East Hampton's train station. It was conceived by Alex Echo on Sept. 12, when the spirited painter and gallery dealer contacted a friend, the Moroccan-born painter Selimah Raoui, now living in Westhampton Beach, to help curate a show of Sufi and Muslim artists. Joining their mission, to "create understanding through art and music," was an American Sufi, Melody Shekinah Winnig.

Together, they organized a varied and diverse show of painters, sculptors, printmakers, photographers, videographers, and filmmakers with Muslim connections. With many of them originally having come to this country from the Mideast, the exhibitors now live mostly on Long Island and in New York and New England, with roots in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and North Africa.

Certainly, the curators succeeded in making a multicultural ambience for a world in which wars are not begun or waged by artists. Each piece in the exhibit seems to be saying, if the world were peopled by artists there would be human interaction on only the most life-enriching levels.

While abstract and calligraphic works in this selection are the strongest artistically, figurative works in all media outnumber the others. Generally speaking, this show is a mixed bag, running the gamut from distinguished, dandy, and dreamy to downright dreck.

At times you may feel as though you are looking at the dregs of a yard sale. Yet that's what's refreshing about it. There is no pressure to follow the rules as there is in the cultures from which most of the exhibitors originally came. The challenge here is to pursue the personal, to let the struggle to make art show, to let it all hang out. For many of the artists in this presentation, the experience of individuality and allowing process - discoveries and mistakes as well as successes - to be a part of the finished piece is new.

Since Islamic tradition forbids iconic art, the show will, undoubtedly, receive a thumbs down from fundamentalists for the presence of figurative paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs. Clearly, the artists in this exhibit are showing their divergence from the Islamic anti-figural tradition as well as their rupture from the Taliban, which, last March, destroyed two 1,500-year-old giant Buddhas in their sandstone niches in the Valley of Bamiyan of central Afghanistan.

These exhibitors are letting us know that, while they came from Islamic countries, they are western artists, members of an international culture that emphasizes the freedom of artistic expression, with its values and variety emanating from the individual rather than communally prescribed practices as in the "old country."

The exhibit, in all its mixture of values, celebrates the right of the artist to fail in the pursuit of his own image - with or without figuration. The freedom of the artist to fail is, perhaps, the most treasured value of contemporary culture in contrast to the old Islamic conventions.

In turn, what an American gets from the Islamic culture is equally inspiring, as in the work of Michael Green, an American Sufi, who renders the poems of the Sufi poet Rumi in the calligraphic tradition. In its spirit of abstraction, it appears to have as much in common with the expressionist energy of Jackson Pollock as with Islamic visual practice. Mr. Echo also takes a poem by Rumi and paints it, layer on layer, with a twisting calligraphic scribble of his own, turning the words of the poem into a verbal vortex as well as a painting.

With the rise of interest in Islamic culture, other shows like this one are popping up throughout the country. There is, furthermore, a dramatic increase in conversions to the Islamic faith, according to the Islamic Center of Westbury, with approximately 20,000 Muslims now living in Suffolk County alone.

The exhibiting artists are Ahmed Abdalla, Amal Alwan, Hala Awach, Pat Martin Bates, Taher Behzadi, Kaoutar Bel Bacha, Hayette Boutiba, Anissa Bouziane, Yamina Bouziane, Sabina Haque, Mitch Kaman, Sajed Kamal, Khalid Kodi, Yasmin Pyarali Karmin, Roseline Koerner, Deirdre Lapenna, Shafie Mohamed, Zohair Naghmi, Papa Nurun Nahar, Feridun Ozgoren, Hafeez Shaikh, Bekir Sulunhat, Shekaiba Wakili, Manajee Zarghamee, Emna Zghal, and Lora Zorian.

The exhibit concludes Dec. 31.

Ask anyone. Vito Sisti is an art lover. He is not an artist. He is not an art historian. He is the self-appointed curator/impressario who has organized and presented the weeklong group show of painting and sculpture at Ashawagh Hall following the Labor Day weekend for the last six years.

The artists who work with him swear by him and, from time to time, at him. The fact that he works as a car mechanic in real life, having started at age 12 in his father's service station, means that one day, when he starts the little art gallery he's been dreaming about, there will be a small service station in the back.

He'll call the whole place "the Vito Gallery of Fine Arts & Car Parts."

Preparatory Chaos

The night before the sixth annual opening of "Vito Sisti Presents," during the installation madness at the historic hall, with the artists hammering the walls, climbing stepladders, measuring floors, I stop in to talk with The Man himself.

There is David Slater hanging his major new painting "Self Portrait at Hubert's Flea Circus," with its conglomeration of images, collaged elements of labels, stamps, cigar rings, nudes and panels of scenes, people, and action, including the one of Hubert and his fleas in the miniature circus amphitheatre. It's a scene actually seen by the artist in Times Square, where Hubert was a fixture and a feature for tourists to New York City some 20 years ago.

No Mercy

"Look at Napoleon," says Mr. Slater, one in the group of seven selected by Mr. Sisti this year, and we observe Mr. Sisti standing in front of the kitchen entrance, his arms folded in front of him, glowering at everybody.

A small, intense fistful of a man, he bends his head forward as if he were getting ready to charge the space Superman style, fly around, and get it done already. There is a mean glare on his gaunt, bony face, prominent broken nose, and steady steel eyes, with no mercy in them now, that at other times have a way of lighting with laughter.

Tonight, he has the look of a man ready for a fight. "Hey, Vito," I say, trying for a note of cheer in what appears to be doleful chaos the night before the big opening. "Looks like it's all coming together."

"Coming together, coming together," he rasps, his Brooklyn voice as if etched by the car fumes at Dennis Kromer's service station in the Springs, where he works.

"Coming apart is more like it," he says. "There's always someone to aggravate you, someone who's not going to show up on time and who keeps you on the edge. Somehow you never know how it's going to look until it's all up. Why do I need this aggravation? I got a good job and I make a living. Don't answer, don't tell me," he sputters, looking as if he were about to explode.

Opening Night . . .

Twenty-four hours later, Saturday night, Mr. Sisti is beaming. All painting and sculpture are in their places. Not only is the show installed, but some 700 people have attended the opening since 4 o'clock that afternoon. Mr. Sisti is a happy man, all five feet, one inch, 110 pounds of him, about to be 35 years of age.

He offers the statistics with no self-consciousness, laughing at what he considers laughable, without defensiveness or apology. Rather, he enjoys his unique stature, appreciating the absurdities of the human condition, especially his own.

Tim Tibus already has sold a landscape, a narrow scenic horizon, while Elaine Grove has sold one of her welded sculptures of machine and tool parts, some of them functioning as chairs, benches, and tables.

. . . Success!

David Gochenour's alabaster carving has a hold on it and someone has been back to see Dennis Lawrence's major oil on canvas three times. Even if it sells to the same person after the show, the proceeds of 20 percent of the sale price go to help Mr. Sisti's costs. This year, for a change, he will get $700 by the time the show comes down, so he will break even.

Not that it would have stopped him had he, as usual, lost money. "It's fun. I love the laughs, the friendships, the learning. When it stops being fun and, hopefully it never will, I'll stop. It's not the money, making it, losing it, although I'd rather make it."

There's a lot of excitement, and Nick Tarr, whose boxes contain mirrored worlds of optic mysteries, offers that he has been invited to participate in a New York show, while the sculptor Steve Loschen's painted cutout steel sheets and balls have elicited the interest of an architect with a possible commission.

The opening party is, as Ms. Sisti says, "a blast." The crowd, largely friends and co-workers of the artists who mostly support themselves by doing construction, carpentry, landscaping, or bartending, are themselves blue-collar workers, a contrast to the chic mavens of the gallery scene in East Hampton and in New York.

Anti-Celebrity

Mr. Sisti and his artists insist on the community aspect of the show, claiming that it is a Springs event and a tribute to the continuity of the Springs art tradition- Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem de Kooning, John Little, Wilfred Zogbaum, Ibram Lassaw, James Brooks, and others.

"Let's face it," says Mr. Slater, "the town has sold out to money and celebrity. Its metaphor is its new Parthenon with columns and everything, a jewelry store with all its gold and diamonds, right in the middle of town, all lit up day and night, with people constantly milling around the steps that lead up into it."

"Our Ashawagh Hall Springs group show is about art and community. Vito Sisti is our leader -anti-celebrity, anti the Julian Schnabel fame script."

At the end of the opening party at midnight, Mr. Sisti gets into his rusted, white, two-door 1968 Nova. The interior of the car is cracked and torn, as it is on the outside. But under the hood, that's another story, another metaphor, as he says. While the Nova doesn't have much style, Mr. Sisti points out, it is all class rather than the other way - all style and no class.

Lots Of Books

On Sunday, the last day of the eight-day show, at his house off Springs-Fireplace Road, he notes that so far $2,800 worth of art has been sold, and it's all paid for. Mr. Sisti can relax.

The house is jammed with books and bookshelves, with paintings and objects of every description - bookends, small figurines, African carvings, dice, coins, plants, many rocks.

"I've read all these books," Mr. Sisti wants me to know first thing. There must be about 500 books. "Except one book. I still haven't read 'Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.' Go figure." The cat meows as if to emphasize and confirm his comments. The telephone rings constantly and we talk disjointedly between interruptions.

Early Influences

"We read a lot. I read at least two books a week. I'm in the middle of Winston Churchill's history of World War II. I just finished his first book, 'The Gathering Storm.' It's fascinating. I've had those books for about 10 years and I kept looking at them. I couldn't get started. Then I started the first book and I couldn't put it down. That's an eight-volume set. I'm into World War II and the history of the Holocaust."

"I read Karl Marx. Did you know he was anti-Semitic? And I've read Hitler's 'Mein Kampf.' He said exactly what he was going to do and he did it."

"My father was my first influence. I did not want to be like him - alcoholic and angry at his life and his family. He taught me everything about cars, but I was not going to be like him. My mother, on the other hand, became a success when my brother and I got old enough for her to leave him. She became an athletic referee in a high school, a tennis instructor, and a black belt karate champ."

East Houston . . .

"I used to hang out with my friend the painter Chris Riccardi, and a lot of artists, on East Houston Street in New York in the late '70s and early '80s. We put on lots of shows all over the neighborhood and that's how I first learned about the business of putting on a show and the fun of it."

"I love it, no matter how mad I get, and I love working with the artists," Mr. Sisti said.

"The way I wound up here was when I joined the Coast Guard and got transferred to Montauk. One night I found myself in the Springs at Wolfie's bar and I met Nick Tarr, Dennis Lawrence, and Dane Dixon, who had the Art Store right nearby. And that was it. Dane, by the way, was a friend of Bill de Kooning."

. . . To East Hampton

"Then I saw Ashawagh Hall and I called my friend Chris. He came out from New York and he said, 'Wow, let's do it.' We opened the same day as Hurricane Bob in September 1990, so it was a total washout in more ways than one. The electricity went and everyone started bringing food and beer and wine and it turned into a big party."

"So the next year people asked me if I was going to do it again. In 1991, Nick Tarr, Dennis Lawrence, and Steve Loschen joined us. It just kept growing."

"The thing that struck me the most is that artists are so dedicated. The art comes first and everything else is secondary. They take any job they can to earn a living. Nick does landscaping. Dennis tends bar at the Talkhouse. Tim Tibus is a house painter. Dave Slater works as a framer. Dave Gochenour is a carpenter, and so on."

Soaks Up The Energy

Mr. Sisti spends time going to the studios to encourage the artists and give them feedback during the winter and spring when not much is happening.

"I love going to the studios and being directly in touch with the energy. I'd like to see more recognition from the community for the artists. No matter what I do, no matter how much time I spend, you can never really tell what's going to happen."

"The artist himself has to believe in his own work no matter how good you believe it to be. For instance, I won't tell you who this was, but I kept going back to tell him the painting he was working on was great. And one day I come in after all these weeks and he has painted all over it, all white. It's gone." He sighs and shrugs.

"A Blast"

"I love David Slater and Dennis Lawrence. I love the old masters. At the Metropolitan, I spent the whole day looking at Monet. I stare and stare at Van Gogh for hours, every brushstroke. I can't identify the feeling. It's a blast, a blast. I don't know what to call it, the feeling, I don't have the words."

"It's hard to do more than one of these exhibitions a year in the time I have off from my job at Kromer's. For instance, for the poster," he said of the picture used to publicize the show. "Getting seven people together in one spot for the same photo at one time - that in itself is a job. Then getting the stuff to the printers, picking it up, writing press releases, putting ads in the papers, all the stuff you don't see. A lot of work."

"I collect a piece from each of the artists in the show every year. We usually trade. I'm a firm believer in the barter system," Mr. Sisti said.

Enthusiastic Student

"My wife, Colleen, thought I was nuts at first but now she's as enthusiastic as I am. She works as housekeeper for one of the rock stars out here, and she's back at school part time studying geology big time. She's really into geology and she collects rocks. I always got my head down looking for rocks for her. She also studies Japanese because she had to take a language and she picked it up just like that. She's really amazing." Clearly, he is proud of her.

"Colleen brings home ARTnews from her job where they subscribe to it, so I read that, but to tell you the truth, I'm better off reading the art column in The East Hampton Star," he says, with a sidelong look and a laugh.

"Besides, I'm really focused on this community and the art that's made and shown here. And the great history of this area. I look at Jackson Pollock - the painting at the Metropolitan Museum. I never studied art but that painting gets to me with all its lines and the drips."

Interests Aplenty

He knows who he is and that's all he knows, Ms. Sisti says. "I've got a lot of different interests and I aim to do it all. Maybe I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way. Even though it's a different action, you are the same person - you are the common denominator and what it's all about in terms of you, the process of creating your life. I'm Vito the mechanic and Vito the art curator and maybe a few other things."

He is involved in political philosophy as well as literature and also, as he says, with bugs and bridges, tunnels and highways. He reads constantly.

"The perfect day off for me is to read. I read to get away and I read to be here. I've been working on a novel for the last 15 years. It changes every year, it started out as a murder mystery, and now it's about a punk rocker in New York. You see, secretly, I also want to be a writer, and I went to Wagner College of Staten Island to study creative writing."

The Mechanic's Art

The green 1967 Mustang he has been working on for almost two years, to restore it to its original state, is sitting outside. Is it like making art?

"All Mustangs have a special look," he responds. "I have an obsession with this Mustang. I realize I have to get it done. I have to restore it. Make it like new."

"Cars are a big pain. They're complicated. It's sink or swim. You have to get it right and there's always something new. It's like being a doctor, you have to keep up, sometimes go back to school. You could go nuts working on a car. So, in that way, it's the same as making art."

"I can do it with my eyes closed. Second nature takes over. Still, a lot of times I can't solve it even though all I did was to take it apart and put it back together the same way. Sometimes, you have to feel your way into it and work with the blind side. So, in that way, it's like making art."

"The Mustang when I'm done with it will be an accomplishment. President Clinton has a 1967 Mustang," he concluded.

Once in a while I read a quote in the local news that strikes me as part of an ongoing epitaph for the East End.

One such appeared some years back in a report on a planning board meeting. A subdivision designer was declaring that his clients, the developers, did not intend to "develop Wainscott." They only wanted "to build more of it."

There was another in The Southampton Press a couple of weeks ago, under the headline "147 Acres in 33 Lots Hit Real Estate Market."

The reporter interviewed two brokers who have an exclusive on the Bridgehampton farmland, listed at a total asking price of $23.5 million, and photographed one of them grinning at the edge of an open field.

"There is very little property with those kind of beautiful farm views," the other was quoted as saying. "This is the property we have all been waiting for."

Now, the planning consultant who worked on the Wainscott subdivision had a fine reputation in his line of work, and it's clear what he meant. He was talking about building something in character with the neighborhood. And you can see the result today. It's less discordant than most of the developments in nearby Sagaponack, for instance - but still, the result was not more of Wainscott, it was less of it.

The brokers, too, work for a well-regarded firm, and their words and grins were those of professionals anticipating a prestigious, rewarding assignment. Yet there is such a sad irony in their point of view. There is indeed so little land left with such beautiful farmland views. And there will be so much less for the people who buy it to view after they have all finished building on it. So much less of the sense of place for which such a large expanse, farmed for centuries, is central.

The brokers spoke admiringly of the "insight" displayed by the land's late owner, a retired New York City developer who lived in a 28,000-square-foot mansion on 60 nearby acres with a private golf course in the front yard. It was his insight to figure out that farmland north of the highway would soar in value after the land south of the highway was gone, and to corner the market on a big piece of it. As a result, his heirs are in line for $23.5 million in addition to the mansion and 60 acres and whatever else he may have owned, after taxes.

I'm not familiar with the reputation of the late owner, who for all I know may have been a supporter of worthy causes (as some of the other local developers have been). He had every right to hold the land as an investment, and to rebuff, as he did, the approaches of the private land trust that sought to negotiate its preservation.

And yet, for what?

A different kind of insight could have made it a farmland preserve, while there was still time, something for a wider posterity to cherish, something for which his name would have been honored - instead of yet another lost vista full of houses built by people who thought they were buying beautiful farm views, and who end up with views of each other.

If I were a technician on the $6 million man project, he would be running around with a garbage can for a leg and a tennis racket for an arm.

Since I was young everything I came in contact with was taken apart. It was not, however, put back together; that would be like asking the family doctor to perform brain surgery. (Maybe that's when I started saying, "What am I, a doctor?")

It was the insides of VCRs, computers, record players, and so on that intrigued me. Of course I knew nothing about the parts or how they were supposed to be taken out, so they were ripped out, broken, smashed, eventually to wind up in my hands for observation.

The trickiest part of the whole process was avoiding getting caught. I was good at not getting caught in the act, but what I was not good at was hiding the evidence. I would always try to weasel my way out.

My grandfather was always the victim; he was an electronics guru, but not in the mechanical sense: He just liked to buy the stuff. He always wanted the newest equipment so he could just look at it; he never used it. This drove me crazy, seeing all of those shiny, new, elaborate machines just waiting to be taken apart.

"Don't touch it, you're gonna break it!" he would always say to me, but I did anyway.

Eventually VCRs and record players were not of interest to me. I moved on to bigger things: car stereos. This was a whole new world of fiddling. Unlimited discovery and use of the imagination, what with the different-colored wires, trial and error, and, of course, the satisfaction of watching the stereo light up and hearing music emanate from speakers that were wired backwards.

It was a new approach for me. I was not only taking things apart but now I was doing the unthinkable: putting them back together. You always have to start somewhere, and I started on my first car, a 1988 Volkswagen Golf.

I ripped everything out of it. Wires were everywhere. When I started I told myself to take it slow and remember where each wire came from, but I was lost. The next thing I knew, the dash lights, headlights, interior light, and fuses all went.

So there I was, stuck with a rat's nest of wires and no idea where to go next. I didn't know what a constant or switched power wire was (which would cause some serious issues later on). Should have been a lesson learned for me, but it wasn't. After hours of cursing, screaming, and kicking I got the stereo in (though it did need to be manually disconnected every time you turned the car off), and the speakers hooked up, but the dash lights never returned.

Every morning I would wake up and try to undo my mistakes, try to make it better than it was, and every time I would make more of a mess than when I started. I tried hooking up house speakers in the car. Imagine driving around with floor speakers shoved in the back seat; what was I thinking?

I thought I had it down. Nothing could stop me and every car would be a walk in the park. When a friend asked me to help him put in a stereo for him it was Armageddon. I couldn't find the constant and switched power wires, and when I thought I did, sparks would fly. All cars are not the same, as I soon found out, and his car would never be the same.

But fear not! I have indeed become good at installing car stereos, and wires are now my good friends. I have learned that patience and will power can complete any job, no problem. Unfortunately, frustration is a hard thing to overcome.

I realize that my sister will eventually read or hear about this and finally find out what happened to her two record players. So I will take the time to say I'm sorry (although I think she always knew).

Everyone in the family has fallen victim to my destruction of their beloved electronics, but because of that I now know more than ever, and with each passing day I strive to do as little damage as possible in reconstruction. You will still, of course, have to sign a waiver if I do any work on your vehicle.

Luke Goodstein works in The Star's front office.

Inch by inch, from fragments of metal wreckage and human remains, investigators are working around the clock to solve the dreadful mystery of TWA Flight 800. All of us need to know what happened, almost as much as the grieving relatives and friends of the victims.

The more time that passes, the likelier it seems that the explosion was the result of a deliberate act of terrorism. For all Americans, and certainly for those of us who live on eastern Long Island, hard by the roar of the same ocean that covers so much of the plane and so many of the bodies, this is particularly horrifying.

Over and over, even in what ought to be a post-Star Wars era, the events of history and the accident of geography make many of us believe ours is a fortress nation. When the destruction of Flight 800 struck the national consciousness it hit a deep psychic nerve, and dispelled, or should have, the myth of invulnerability once and for all.

Everyone's security has been violated, everyone's trust shaken. The still-smoldering memory of the ValuJet plane that crashed two months ago in the Everglades, also in a watery grave, sharpens the pain. But in that tragedy, at least, the cause was soon learned: a cargo of oxygen tanks had been put on board, and they exploded.

As for the Lockerbie crash in Scotland eight years ago, which is being recalled in sorrow this week, we know it to have been the work of zealots, who, protected by other zealots, have not been brought to justice.

Whether Flight 800 proves to have been destroyed by an onboard explosion, a missile attack, or as the result of another remote possibility, it would assuage the public to have airlines acknowledge the reality, and the fear, of sabotage.

4 The families of those TWA victims who are still in the sea want their loved ones back; they will think of nothing else until the bodies are recovered, or officially declared lost. The rest of us, though, may find it helpful to consider the political divisions and hatreds that make life so vulnerable.

TWA, in the aftermath of the crash, has stopped advertising and is said to be thinking of diverting part of the millions it usually spends on ads to beefing up security at its terminals. That would be reassuring, even if this tragedy did not involve a failure in airport security.

Meanwhile, many agencies, from the Federal level down, are taking part in the investigation. They are not always moving as fast as the families would like, or even perhaps as fast as they might. But those who know say there are very good reasons for a slow pace.

Like everyone else in the country, we on the East End hope these officials will work together smoothly in the weeks ahead, and find us some answers, if not real explanations. Perhaps what they learn will lead to the development of planes that are less flammable and more impregnable.

We hope, too, that they will display the kind of professionalism and grit shown by the Coast Guard teams, commercial fishermen, and private boaters who raced to the scene when fire was seen in the sky and gave all they had, all night long, for the strangers in the sea.

    Duck and Weave, a specialized clothing boutique in Sag Harbor, is like a bright closet filled with dozens of copies of the same shirt in an array of colors and patterns.

    “We make shirts,” said its owner, Robert Saidman, “and they are without comparison.”

    The shop, tucked in the sun-filled Shopping Cove off Main Street, offers men’s and women’s button-down shirts — the Murph’s shirt for him, the Sagaponack for her — in a crinkled, lightweight, 97-percent cotton fabric imported from Japan, with pewter buttons. They are made in New York.

    The shirts, which sell for $185, come with or without a pocket in plaid, solids, stripes, or checks. They are sold wholesale, online, and elsewhere locally at Gloria Jewel’s in Bridgehampton, Amagansett, or Westhampton Beach, and at Rube in Amagansett Square. Mr. Saidman said they can be worn wide open or buttoned and with sleeves rolled up or rolled down, but should never be tucked in.

    The former photojournalist traveled internationally, which inspired not only his love of shirting, but an Organic Philosophy line, sewn by those in indigenous communities in Africa and Asia, with organic cotton, natural dyes, and eco-friendly practices. Pictures of the project are displayed on the shop’s walls.

    He funds projects in Mali and Senegal, where organic cotton is grown in villages, but the quality of the material is suitable only for home decor and cushions at this time, he said.

    Shoulder bags, a new arrival in the boutique, may be made in Senegal next year, he said. The unisex bags can fit an iPad, cellphone, writing instruments, and wallet. Banana Republic has been ordering them 500 at a time, he said.

    Duck and Weave is also expanding its merchandise slightly to offer short, cotton boxers, made by a designer friend of his with a high-quality Italian fabric, as well as shimmery skinny jeans, yoga pants, jewelry, and belts.

Published Nov. 24, 2005

"It has not necessarily been a flamboyant past, but for me, it has been very rewarding," Cathy Lester wrote in a 1983 letter to the East Hampton Town Democratic screening committee.

Ms. Lester would eventually become East Hampton Town Supervisor, but at the time she was seeking the Democrats' nomination for town trustee, her first foray into town politics. She won the nomination and served for two terms before becoming a member of the town planning board for three years, then a town board member, and finally, in 1995, winning election as town supervisor. Ms. Lester, who was 60, died on Monday. The family did not know the cause of death as of press time.

A baywoman from the age of 16, she was passionate about the town's harbors and bays and determined to protect the natural environment and a way of life she loved. "That led her to a political career that she never envisioned," said Lynn Ryan, Ms. Lester's executive assistant during her second term as supervisor.

Born on March 4, 1945, in Southampton and raised in Tuckahoe, Ms. Lester was a daughter of the former Helen Dix and Ruben Shaffer. Her father was a boatbuilder and the co-owner and manager of a boatyard. Growing up, Ms. Lester spent most of her free time with her father at the yard and worked there in the summers. "I seem to have a compelling urge to be near the water," she wrote in that 1983 letter.

She left high school after her sophomore year, and on Sept. 7, 1961, was married to Thomas Lester, an East Hampton bayman. The couple worked together on the bay until the following year, when their daughter, Della Ann, was born. After a few years at home with her daughter, Ms. Lester returned to fishing.

"I think she was as proud of being a baywoman as anything else in the world," said Brad Loewen, her nephew by marriage.

With her husband, Ms. Lester became active in the East Hampton Town Baymen's Association and later was a founding member and president of the Northwest Alliance, a group that led the successful drive for the preservation of the Grace Estate in Northwest Woods and Barcelona Neck.

Both organizations believed that developing the Grace Estate on the banks of Northwest Harbor would harm the harbor's pristine quality and its value as a shellfish resource.

Her involvement in that cause was the beginning of her public life. By example, she encouraged others to become more active in preservation and town politics. "She was kind of the groundbreaker for so many of us that came behind her," Mr. Loewen said. It was largely because of her that Mr. Loewen, the outgoing president of the East Hampton Town Baymen's Association, became a member of the town planning board 16 years ago. This month, Mr. Loewen was elected to the town board.

"Cathy, with her husband, Tom, represented one of the strongest, best traditions in the baymen's community - living with the environment and from the environment. She was an outstanding, insightful person," Arnold Leo, the secretary of the baymen's association and a longtime friend, said Tuesday.

As a town trustee, Ms. Lester became involved in efforts to supplement the town's natural population of clams. She opposed the "relay" of clams from areas close to New York City to town waters because they were found to be contaminated with heavy metals.

Instead, she worked with the baymen's association and Democratic Supervisor Judith Hope's administration on ways to raise shellfish here. She supported the idea of allowing baymen to create small aquaculture projects, a departure from the association's strict opposition to aquaculture on public bottomland.

In 1985, shellfish populations were destroyed by the first in a series of brown algae blooms. Two years later, and in large part due to Ms. Lester's work, the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery was established on Fort Pond Bay in Montauk with the help of a $164,000 grant from Gov. Mario M. Cuomo's administration.

In 1987, Ms. Lester won a seat on the town board and continued to champion the preservation of open space, public access to the water, and protection of the town's harbors and bays. After two terms as councilwoman, she won the top position in town government in 1995.

Lisa Liquori, a former town planning director, who became friends with her at Town Hall, recalled that Ms. Lester was set to attend a conference upstate for new town supervisors when a snowstorm hit the East End and kept her in East Hampton. "She just had to learn the job as she was going, and she did," Ms. Liquori said Tuesday.

"I was always struck by Cathy. She would be in a room with a group of 'experts' and . . . she would ask the most relevant questions," Ms. Liquori said. Ms. Lester never graduated from high school, but earned her high school equivalency diploma in 1977. "She was a very bright woman, and would just put her knowledge together in a way that I was constantly impressed," Ms. Liquori said.

"She has truly left her mark," said Town Councilwoman Debra Foster, a friend. "If it weren't for Cathy Lester we wouldn't recognize our Northwest Woods in East Hampton. They would be totally developed."

"People always said, 'She knows what's below the surface and what's above it,' " Ms. Ryan said Tuesday. Yet, despite having attained the highest elected office in town, Ms. Lester considered herself neither a leader nor a politician, Ms. Ryan said.

In 1999, Ms. Lester lost a third bid for town supervisor. She had served in public office for 15 years and said at the time that she had no intention of returning to government work. Instead, she earned her real estate license, began working for Allan M. Schneider Associates, and became a Democratic committeewoman.

Ms. Lester battled liver cancer in 2004, but it was rare for her to talk about her health, Ms. Liquori said. "She was just so strong that we forgot she was sick."

Ms. Lester is survived by her daughter, Della Bennett of Southampton, and two sisters, Dorothy Giacoia of South Carolina and Gail Wienclawski of Southampton. Her husband died in 1992.

The family will receive visitors at Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 23, and from 2 to 4 p.m. on Friday. A service will be held at the funeral home on Friday from 7 to 9 p.m. Ms. Lester is to be cremated.

Memorial contributions have been suggested to the East Hampton Trails Presevation Society, The Baymen's Association, or the Springs Fire Department.

With Reporting by Russell Drumm