Salem witch trials. During the dark days of the Red Scare, in the 1950s, Arthur Miller wrote his fictionalized account, “The Crucible,” about them, and the city of Salem, in Massachusetts, recounts the terrible story in museums and in a “Witch Village.” The Salem trials took place in 1692. Nineteen people were hanged, one pressed to death, and four died in prison. You can’t visit Salem without being confronted by what the law-abiding citizens thought and did.

Not everyone who lives in or visits East Hampton, however, knows that we had our own accused witch. After a trial in Connecticut — which was the colonial-government seat for the settlers of eastern Long Island, much closer by water than New York City — she was acquitted of having caused a death by witchcraft and advised to return home and live peaceably. 

Her name was Elizabeth Garlick, and three East Hampton residents want to make sure her travails are not forgotten. Hugh King, Loretta Orion, and Aimee Webb, who hope to write a book about Goody Garlick, were the moving forces behind a conference about her, which the East Hampton Historical Society held on Saturday. 

Of course, in my line of work and because I’ve lived here as long as I have, I had heard of Goody Garlick. I even named a dog Goody in her honor. But I was intrigued by what might come out at the conference and decided to attend.

Goody Garlick was tried in 1657, 35 years before the Salem hysteria. The conference presenters, in addition to Mr. King and Ms. Webb, were Daniel Cohen of East Hampton, who seems to have read the entire first volume of the town records, which cover the years between 1639 and 1679–80, and Walter Woodward, a professor at the University of Connecticut, the state historian, and the author of a book about John Winthrop Jr. It was Winthrop who sagely ruled there was not enough evidence to convict East Hampton’s supposed witch.

It’s hard to imagine that everyone in the Old and New Worlds in the 17th century believed in magic, but a mix of science, religion, and magic was the prevailing way of explaining the world. Even Winthrop, an educated and compassionate man who was actually asked by the people of Connecticut to be governor, was an alchemist. Think of that!  

Daniel Cohen hasn’t lived in East Hampton all that long, but no one can accuse him of being a know-nothing “from away.” I dare say Mr. Cohen is as knowlegable as any bona fide Bonacker about East Hampton’s earliest days. He was the first to speak at the conference, describing what set the stage for an innocent woman to be accused of witchcraft. He summarized East Hampton society as “disciplined, exclusive, and male-dominated” — no surprise, but, of course, the devil is in the details.

 The town meetings in those days had what might be called universal jurisdiction. Women were outside the circle of men, who decided everything. (They even legislated against cutting grass on the dunes.)

Mr. Woodward’s talk was centered on the philosophy of the time, describing the culture’s misogyny, which made it easy for elderly, poor women to be tried as witches. Even highly educated men were terrified, he said, of powers they could not see, powers attributed to Satanic magic. 

Goody Garlick was the first accused witch to be spared death in Connecticut, and no one was executed in that state after 1662. Salem, on the other hand, suffered from what Mr. Woodward called community pathology. Presumably, it didn’t have a John Winthrop on hand to impose some measure of reason.  

At one point in the program, Mr. Woodward showed slides of horrific torture devices, including one, a chair, for primitive waterboarding. One could make a comparison to more recent uses of waterboarding, and modern-day circles of exclusion and power, but I will leave it to readers to flesh out that analogy.

October is here, and instead of framing Goody Garlick in the context of American traditions of torture, it would be much more fun to remember her come Halloween time. Perhaps we’ll see a few Goody Garlicks trick-or-treating along Cooper Lane this year. Halloween, after all, is about assimilating and making palatable things that otherwise would be pure horror.

The film festival opens here tonight with a screening and party. Lenny Gail, an old college friend, and his family will arrive tomorrow to take in an impressive number of films with a little lunch and dinner squeezed in somehow.

Lenny is the organized type. His list of what the family is seeing and when is something to admire. I’m more the type who waits for recommendations then tries to find the time.

Last year, I was asked to be on the documentary jury, which meant watching something on the order of 20 short and longer films. Armed with an all-access pass, I saw the ones I was supposed to, and darted in and out of another half-dozen as well. What with a houseful of kids and work and everything else, I am not much of a moviegoer, so the festival allowed me to get in a year’s worth in the space of a few days.

A couple of friends and people we know casually here have films they were involved with in the festival this year. This adds to the complications, obviously, as Lenny and company have their own itinerary. Then there is my own preference for serious foreign-language films, which is a little at odds with my wife’s, Lisa’s, taste.

Some advice: With so many films to choose from, not all seats at all screenings will have filled up. The Star of Sept. 24 included a printed festival program, which can be picked up in shops around town and in Southampton or downloaded from our website. The box office is on Main Street, more or less across from the movie theater, and is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

A “rush” line forms 45 minutes before screenings, and remaining seats will be sold, one per customer, as they are available.

Hope to see you there.

Most of us who live and work out here often find ourselves in close proximity to celebrities. They dine in our restaurants, shop in our stores, and even run lemonade stands with their children.

Over the summer we had Jimmy Fallon, Bono, Julianne Moore, Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Schumer, multiple newscasters, Liev Schreiber, Chelsea Clinton, Chris Martin of Coldplay surfing at Ditch, and Scarlett Johansson. I know this because my three college-educated children work in local restaurants.

Seeing them off the glossy pages of magazines and the big screen makes you realize that they really are just like us, only a bit more uncomfortable in public. I often wonder if making the big bucks is worth it. Scarlett Johansson was so uncomfortable walking into a restaurant that she held her head down and kept trying to cover her face with her hair, which is really too short these days to accomplish that.

I’m not much of a celebrity worshipper but I would like to meet Dominic West and Ruth Wilson, who play Noah and Alison in “The Affair” on Showtime, which is supposedly set in Montauk. I gave it my best try as we were working on a piece about it, but their public relations people ignored my requests for a picture. And when they filmed out here earlier this summer, the security around the set was so tight that you would have thought the president was in town.

Before the series began its first season last fall, television critics from several publications wrote that Montauk was the real star of the series. Problem with that is that most of it wasn’t even filmed in Montauk. It made me realize that editing is an amazing thing. In the series, the Montauk Lighthouse would show up in the weirdest of places, and the house that Alison lived in, which she said was just over the dune at Ditch Plain, was actually in Amagansett.

I’m not being politically biased here, but my favorite brush with celebrity was when I met Hillary Clinton. She was in Montauk to meet with fishermen and discuss federal regulations that they felt were unfair. She visited the Montauk Lighthouse and the Coast Guard Station on Star Island, and everywhere she went crowds formed.

Later that day I was dining at Gosman’s with my family, including my 89year-old mother, who enjoyed a good martini before dinner. Mrs. Clinton was also eating there with the fishermen, all of whom I knew. An owner of Gosman’s asked her if I could take a picture for the paper, and she agreed. But it was her departure that caused a stir among other diners, who surrounded her to shake her hand and ask to take photos with her, which she graciously agreed to.

Our table was nearby, so when I said goodbye to her I asked if she wouldn’t mind just saying hello to my mom, who was too old to walk over to her. Her aides and Secret Service people went into a tizzy, but she ignored them and followed me to our table. She held both my mother’s hands in hers, said how nice it was too meet her, and then posed for a picture.

My mother was nice to everyone we introduced her to, so she smiled and exchanged a few words with her before Hillary’s people shuffled her away. After they left the restaurant, the rest of us were saying how cool it was that she did that. Sensing something exciting had just happened, my mother, already on her second martini, lipstick a bit smeared, her ever-present wiglet slightly askew, turned to me and said, “Who was that, Jan?”

Janis Hewitt is a senior writer for The East Hampton Star.

I’ve heard it be said that the secret of life is the passage of time. What you do with that time is where the secrets are kept and it’s up to us to find them. For those of us who live here year round, our time will soon be ours again.

And what better time to celebrate that than autumn; the word alone fills me with joy. I don’t like to call it fall because fall or falling indicates something bad. Autumn is that sweet time of the year when our place of home becomes quieter, cooler, and cozier. “A good thing,” to quote Martha.

It’s time for us to regroup, clean up our own houses, our town, and start making plans for next year, which I think should include a big gate near Town Pond in East Hampton that will be staffed by us old fuddy-duds to keep the riffraff out. Oh my God, I don’t sound like my mother; I sound like my father!

It’s been a rough summer for those of us who live out here in Montauk. If the people who visited us this summer are anyindication of what our world is turning into, we’re in trouble — big trouble! Twenty-somethings acted like 4-year-old children on alcohol. Now picture that: drunken 4-year-olds. It might seem funny to some, but it’s not; it’s downright ugly.

Some, the younger people in our community, loved the action. You know, more hookups, easy access. “I don’t know why people are complaining so much. I love it,” said a 23-year-old I know, which is my point exactly. Consider the source.

They were running wild in the street, urinating on our lawns, pulling flowers from pots that had been carefully tended, and had no qualms about tossing garbage out their car windows, and peeing in our pond. The effects on the pond of diluted beer are not yet known, but we’ll soon know and that will help make the case for the gate.

When we open the gate in spring, we will have to be very careful whom we allow to enter our glass house. Those with no shirts and shoes will be kept out, as will those with coolers. Camping equipment should be suspect. I learned that several weeks ago when three young men parked on the grass near my driveway and exited their vehicle with backpacks, something that looked like a tent but could have been covering shotguns, and other bulky items.

They may have just been planning a night under the stars near the Montauk Lighthouse, which is a mile through the woods from our home, but strangers don’t and can’t park on my block. It’s too small with only three houses on each side and just enough open space for us and our neighbors to park our own vehicles. So when three guys have the audacity to park there and get out with equipment that is similar to what has been used by terrorists to house bombs, it raises a red flag.

It was a Sunday evening and my husband and I had just sat down in the living room after eating dinner. He saw them first and turned all vigilante on me. When he flung open our front door to chase them, I yelled for him to mind his business. He started spouting words about it being private property and all that, as if this was something I didn’t know already. But he did sit back down. I usually wear the pants in this family, and rightly so, as I’m more level-headed and not prone to a wine-soaked dinner.

But after he went to bed I started thinking: Maybe they were up to no good. My dilemma then became whether or not to call the authorities. After imagining my beloved Lighthouse blown to pieces, I made the necessary call. I had to. I saw something and if I hadn’t said something it would have haunted me for the rest of my life.

Nothing ever came of it, but it gave me one more reason to be glad summer’s over. The kids have returned to school and the Montauk Chamber is already planning a Tumbleweed Tuesday party, so we can dance in the streets. The time is now for us to share our secrets.

Janis Hewitt is a senior writer for The Star.

There are no political controversies that stir as much personal anguish than those that involve Israel, or perhaps to be more precise, those that are the result of that nation’s policies and actions. My generation of American Jews, who are old enough to have been alive during the Holocaust, were brought up hearing the not-so-ludicrous question about matters of national and international consequence: “But is it good for the Jews?”

It follows therefore that although I was excited about the prospects for Middle East peace as a result of the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran achieved by the Obama administration and a host of other nations, I became alarmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s effort to convince the world — and the United States Congress — that the agreement was a colossal mistake that would lead to war.

It was in that context that “Off the Radar,” a memoir by Cyrus M. Copeland published in the spring, drew my attention. Mr. Copeland is a former advertising executive, born in this country to an Iranian mother and American father, whose formative years were spent in Shiraz. His family was living in Tehran in 1979, when the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah and changed the course of history. As Mr. Copeland puts it, his father then came to represent the Great Satan and his mother, the Axis of Evil.

The story Mr. Copeland tells gives the lie to such black-versus-white simplifications. The daughter of a prominent family loyal to the monarchy, Shahin Maleki Copeland was able to attend and graduatefrom Georgetown University. In Washington, she not only met Max Copeland, whom she married, but Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, an Iranian student with whom she had a brief flirtation and who, years later, as the minister of justice under Ayatollah Khomeini, saved her husband’s life.

The thread Cyrus Copeland weaves in “Off the Radar” is a quest to learn whether his father was, as charged, guilty of espionage as an operative of a Central Intelligence Agency, but the book is much more than a spy novel.  Set amid the hostage crisis, and including a critique of the Oscar-winning film “Argo,” the book is a deeply personal account of the author’s coming of age as well as his parents’ lives. It is also a portrayal of an extraordinary woman whose passion, intelligence, and belief in the principles of the Quran allowed her to represent her husband in a revolutionary court, the first woman ever to do so.

In an author’s note, Mr. Copeland describes the research necessary to write what he calls an admittedly idiosyncratic book, and admits that he was reliant on his mother, an “exquisite storyteller.” He acknowledges that “dialogue and details have been reconstructed” to help create a strong narrative, and that “names and identifying details” were changed for protection.

“Off the Radar” is a powerful book because it also provides an intimate look at the minds and hearts of the Iranian people. What could be more timely? To the extent that a wide readership of it might help sway American opinion in favor of the accord with Iran — and damp down the prospect of military escalation — I would also allege that it is “good for the Jews.”

“Jack, you’ve got to see this,” Mary called out from her perch on the porch.

“Yo vengo, yo vengo,” I said, moving sluggishly from the couch.

And there, on the chimney, by the side of the little porch, it was.

“It’s a slug,” she said.

“No, two of them,” I said, noticing the one moving up toward the one above. “I think. . . . I think . . . they’re doing it.”

She, ever curious, remained, keeping watch, as I, squeamish when it comes to some slimy things, oysters and clams excepted, retreated to the dry, crisp pages of my book.

A few minutes later, she related in somewhat transported fashion what had transpired, the nibbling on the tail and the subsequent slow curling round and round, positing that the one above had been the female.

I got up and went out and saw only one still on the chimney, and the other, I thought, below, in the pachysandra. “He must have dropped off, exhausted,” I said. “It makes sense.”

But, as I learned the next day, from a David Attenborough video that had come up after I’d Googled “the love lives of slugs,” we were wrong. Slugs are hermaphroditic — each possesses male and female organs — and their lovemaking is far more fascinating than I had imagined.

“It’s f—kin’ amazing!” I said later to Mary. “You have to see this!”

Together, then, we watched, with bated breath, the “balletic” (Attenborough’s apt descriptive word) probing and ever more encircling movements of the creatures’ bodies as they dangled from an overhang on a cord of slime, movements that were then repeated, ever so slowly, with their male organs, which had sprouted, if I heard him correctly, from behind their heads, and created in the process a flowering blue sphere in which sperm was exchanged.

“Now that’s lovemaking!” I said.

“The masters of sex!” she said.

And so we stopped, and looked, and learned.

Two quote-unquote wo­men’s events took place here last weekend. The first was sponsored by the East End Women’s Alliance, which was active between 1971 and 1992 and staged annual Women’s Equality Day programs in August. The second was a fund-raiser for Eleanor’s Legacy, which encourages and helps, in its own words, “progressive, pro-choice women” to run for political office in New York State.

I was the first of five speakers at the first event, on Saturday, and when I went to the podium in the East Hampton High School auditorium, I saw just what I had expected. The audience was comprised of former members of the group and friends, family, or admirers. Those attending, like those taking part, were white, middle class, and gray-haired, at least metaphorically. You could count those under, say, 50 on one hand.

Many of us who considered ourselves feminists in the 20th century understood that our daughters had either found fault with it or found it unnecessary. Speaking, I hinted at why even younger women seem bored with do-good umbrella groups and more likely to be involved in more specific fights for justice. I cited statistics to show that many fewer women than might be expected are in the media.

The others on the dais Saturday were Marilyn Fitterman, the past president of the New York State Na tional Organization for Women, Judith Lerner, a Bella Abzug and United Nations peace activist, Phyllis Chesler, a psychology professor and author of 16 books, and Bill Baird, whose battles for more than 50 years were responsible for the legalization of contraception regardless of a woman’s marital status. Ms. Chesler, as is her modus operandi, expressed controversial opinions about Israel and Islam and argued against “multicultural relativists.” Mr. Baird hopes that a biography written about him will find a publisher.

The dedicated Eleanor’s Legacy crowd at the North Haven fund-raiser the next day showed a sprinkling of young women and offered a look at some of today’s adult women who are running for political office. But the focus was on Julie Ratner, the dynamic East Hampton woman responsible for elevating women’s breast health services at Southampton Hospital from mediocre (or worse) to what is now considered excellent.

The Ellen Hermanson Foundation, of which she is president, raises money for Southampton Hospital through events like Ellen’s Run, which was 20 years old this summer. Today, the hospital has a distinct Breast Health Center, which takes advantage of top diagnostic techniques, computer-assisted mammography, ultrasound, and a sophisticated biopsy system.

In receiving the Eleanor Roosevelt Woman of Accomplishment Award, Ms. Ratner answered her own rhetorical question about why breast cancer was political by enumerating policy decisions at all levels of government, one after another, that affect treatment and care.

 Others who spoke were Representative Grace Meng of Queens and Suzan Johnson Cook, a former State Department ambassador for international religious freedom who is expected to run in a primary for the Democratic nomination to replace Representative Charles Rangel, who is retiring.

Extending the political thrust were Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, who faces a primary to run for Congress, Southampton Councilwoman Bridget Fleming, who is running for the County Legislature, and the three East Hampton Town Democrats running for re-election in November, Supervisor Larry Cantwell, Sylvia Overby, and Peter Van Scoyoc.

The East End Women’s Alliance has always tried to be nonpartisan, but the causes it supported over the years made that difficult. As for Eleanor’s Legacy, it was founded in recognition of Eleanor Roosevelt’s profound contributions to humanity, and on the belief that it was going to take Democratic women in office to fight for what she believed in. Hillary Rodham Clinton was on the South Fork last weekend and I am sure she was on the minds of many, but her campaign for the presidency was not mentioned.

On the eve of my father’s birthday my son arrived with two daughters exceedingly lively and between Pepperoni’s and Sam’s we sported free at the edge of the sea.

Their energy is gale-force a shock to the system and if your pulse tends to run slower you will be shaken up. No time for commas.

“That was ‘Ode to Joy’ you just played Zora . . . ? No? ‘Ode to a Rather Pleasant Feeling’ then?”

We sip tea as instructed from cups they’ve somehow brought down without incident from a dresser twice their height and Maya plays Etude in B minor — a major achievement I think. It’s great to know that the Lighthouse is to give her a grand piano.

Then hip-hop. Zora leading the way one hand shading her mouth the other flung out then elbows and legs alternately flying.

On to the General Store and Ping-Pong and then to the sea — Cebra Maya Zora and me.

Where I read that Maia was Atlas’s daughter and of Tithonus whose mother in asking for immortality from Zeus forgot to ask at the same time for perpetual youth as in Endymion’s case thus rendering him daily older grayer more shrunken and shrill till he became a cicada.

It would be fun to live long enough to see my granddaughters metamorphose.

Then they were gone — by way of a conga line that Zora led to the car from Sam’s — and then the commas, yes, the commas, began asking if they could not come back in.

Whenever I call my mom at our home in Portland, Ore., she always gives me the latest news happening on our block, which for the last several years has included a controversy after a permanent unisex bathroom (the cleverly designed “Portland Loo”) was installed in the neighboring public square. The metal stall has drawn drug addicts and campers at night. The Loo advocates argued that the city needed to install a public restroom because so many visitors come to the park — which is really just a city block filled with a grassy patch and a chlorinated fountain that attracts a crowd of toddler-size bathers on hot summer days. To try and appease the anti-Loo residents, a lock system was put in place for after-dark hours. This didn’t stop the irate neighbors though from complaining and trying to get the bathroom dismantled. The Loo is still there.

Much of my love for Portland lies in these hyper-local gripes, issues that only people living in the surrounding area would even notice. I hardly think the parents and children who frequent the fountain realize a whole uproar has been caused by the bathroom they, probably thankfully, stand in line to use throughout the summer months.

Before coming to East Hampton as a seasonal reporter, I had not spent time on the East End other than a few weekends with my parents in Montauk, which included enjoying the beach, shopping, and eating in other hamlets. I picked up The Star before Memorial Day this year and read through the Letters to the Editor section. It is my favorite part of the newspaper because the letters often entail the kind of tales, objections, and applause that only come from attentive residents in a small town.

One I remember in particular rehashed a conversation the writer had with a woman standing in a designated nonsmoking area by the train station. She asked the woman why she was smoking, and she replied, “Because I want to.” The letter writer then wrote, “Sums up the summer attitude neatly, no?” I found it a precise illustration of the difference between locals and out-of-towners.

After only two months here, it is obvious how much the locals care about the East End. I’ve seen uproars around overwhelming partying in Montauk and the withdrawal of Uber, among other smaller, more personal issues that my sources have been just as passionate to expound upon. These are the types of stories that make news many places, including metropolises like New York City. But I feel there’s a greater sense of importance here somehow, a need to protect something precious that is in danger of destruction or change by outsiders, which is also a perceived threat in Portland as more people find out about its attractions and flock there.

One reason I became a journalist was to understand from the inside communities and the people who inhabit them. Each day, I see more through the eyes of locals than when I first arrived. I’ve started to understand problems, like share houses, that I probably wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. My time here has turned me into a local, however brief my stay, and whenever I return next I will see the East End for the people who live here and the place they’re constantly striving to make better.

Now when I call my mom, I’m the one telling her about the neighborhood gripes. I talk about the people who disagree with what I write, and how I’ve learned that they usually have a point. I talk about the people who stop by the office grumbling about or praising an article. And much of my love for the East End has blossomed from these experiences. Affection for a city or town, like Portland and the South Fork, is revealed through the people who persevere to put pressure on officials or show up at board meetings to voice their concerns.

Had I not called this place home for the past two months, I probably would have never realized the kind of pains and efforts locals go through to defend their home. I would have been like those people obliviously standing in line for the Loo in Portland, unaware that the luxury they enjoy is a result from many hard-fought compromises by the community.

Britta Lokting, a seasonal reporter at The Star, will be moving on to report on a different community after Labor Day.

We first learned there was a problem with our home address earlier this year when a guest was noticeably late for one of our kids’ birthday parties.

“Your address doesn’t come up on Cranberry Hole Road! It says Promised Land Road on my G.P.S.,” the guest’s mother said when she finally phoned for directions.

Thank the new, connected world for this problem. And it’s hardly the first time that tradition has come up against faceless tech in our neighborhood.

In 2008 I had had enough with the body of water outside the house I grew up in being identified online and in real estate advertising and the like as Napeague Bay. It had always been Gardiner’s Bay, as far as I was concerned, and since my great-great-grandfather had bought much of the land along the beach there in the 19th century from the East Hampton Town Trustees, and my family had never not called it Gardiner’s Bay, I figured I was on pretty good ground.

Reading somewhere about a federal board that deals with such things, I sent off a letter. Some time later, I heard back; Steve Boerner, an archivist at the East Hampton Library, was assigned by the United States Committee on Geographic Place Names to look into the matter. It took a while, but we are in the closing phase of this effort to correct the maps. The committee has asked Steve and me to recommend where to draw the line where Gardiner’s Bay ends and Napeague Bay begins.

According to the East Hampton Town Trustees’ own records, Hicks Island, just to the east of Lazy Point, was described as fronting on Gardiner’s Bay in an 1865 trespassing lawsuit. Steve and I have proposed that nothing west of a line between Goff Point and Cartwright Island be referred to as Napeague Bay, and that the maps and digital databases be clarified on this point.

I have strong support in a number of documents, including the Devon Yacht Club charter and some lovely old print advertisements from The Star for a store that used to be at Promised Land at the eastern side of our U-shaped embayment.

To its credit, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration navigation charts have always reflected the correct name for this portion of Gardiner’s Bay, something that should be obvious to anyone who has ever passed over the waters there anyway, as the depth changes somewhere off to the north of Hicks Island, the sea life changes, and just the feel of the water is somehow, if ineffably, different.

We will see what the committee’s reaction is. As to Promised Land Road, I guess it is time for another letter.