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Columnists

Gristmill: Monktini Dreaming

A divine stay at a monastery turned hotel in Pittsburgh.

Dec 12, 2024
The Shipwreck Rose: Epiphany

The music room in my house is what “the parlor” was to Americans in the mid-20th century: the room that time forgot.

Dec 12, 2024
Relay: Six Months in the Newsroom

Coming full circle in a job that’s as important as ever.

Dec 12, 2024
The Mast-Head: Kings of the Bay

Boating season came to an end with a whimper, though in my imagination the year was not going to be like this.

Dec 12, 2024
The Shipwreck Rose: Evergreen

Christmas tree follies.

Dec 5, 2024
The Mast-Head: A Tariffs Christmas

The era of cheap goods made in China exchanged during the holiday gift season could be ending.

Dec 5, 2024
Gristmill: A Fan’s Notes

Thoughts on team loyalty formation after the Thanksgiving football smorgasbord.

Dec 5, 2024
The Shipwreck Rose: Wicked

Dinner at Sam’s Bar and Restaurant with both my children followed by a brand-new Ridley Scott movie: Life probably won’t get much better than that.

Nov 27, 2024
The Mast-Head: The First Land Flip

At Thanksgiving it seems appropriate to think about eastern Long Island’s very first land flip, which began 383 years ago when the Manhanset Indians were robbed of the place we know today as Shelter Island.

Nov 27, 2024
Gristmill: Cross-Country Town, U.S.A.

Coming to you from the D-III national championships in Terre Haute, Indiana . . .

Nov 27, 2024
The Shipwreck Rose: Window Shopping

We are swimming upstream against the mighty current of all-consuming consumerism as Black Friday approaches.

Nov 21, 2024
The Mast-Head: The Resilience

I heard a liberal podcaster the other day lamenting the corniness of the term “the Resistance,” which brings to mind some dystopian movie.

Nov 21, 2024
Gristmill: Backyard Bestiary

May all your feeders be full.

Nov 21, 2024
The Mast-Head: Ghost in the House

Recalling then-Representative Lee Zeldin’s strange town hall in Amagansett.

Nov 14, 2024
Gristmill: A Yankee Repast

It was as welcome as it was toothsome when Brian Collins, pitmaster, served up a colonial meal, history lesson on the side, at the Nathaniel Rogers House.

Nov 14, 2024
The Shipwreck Rose: Circus Maximus

The movies are my lexicon.

Nov 14, 2024
The Mast-Head: Not Sailing

A number of people I’ve run into in the past couple of weeks have asked about my sailboat and what the status of its motor retrofit is. Perhaps it was because of the unseasonably mild weather that some minds turned to sailing.

Nov 7, 2024
Gristmill: Ghosts of Shinnecock Hills

Casting an early ballot in the old Southampton College gym brings on the hoop dreams.

Nov 7, 2024
The Shipwreck Rose: In the Dark

Many, many years — and many shattered illusions — ago, during the presidential election year of 2004, when I was a magazine editor in Manhattan, I volunteered during the Republican National Convention as an “election observer.”

Nov 7, 2024
The Mast-Head: Audience of One

I have a problem with genius jerks who have a great idea in a garage somewhere and then see themselves as gods.

Oct 31, 2024
Gristmill: The Bulging Billfold

Paging George Costanza? My college-age son has a wallet beyond his years.

Oct 31, 2024
The Shipwreck Rose: Society News

I am overawed by previous generations of Rattray women who managed to file their weekly Star columns without a break over the span of four and five decades.

Oct 31, 2024
The Mast-Head: Beware the Zombie Deer

Deer are rapidly adapting to their new reality and doing things they never did before.

Oct 24, 2024
Gristmill: Up, Up, and Away

The National Warplane Museum in Geneseo triggers (in a good way) one non-pilot.

Oct 24, 2024
The Shipwreck Rose: The Groucho Vote

I’m a believer in the veil of distraction. It seems to me blatantly obvious that Karl Marx was correct on that score, anyway.

Oct 24, 2024
The Mast-Head: An Enemy Within

The phrase “fifth column” came into common use during the Spanish Civil War.

Oct 17, 2024
Gristmill: On Steinbeck Point

That’s funny, he doesn’t seem like a Nobel winner. (A trip to John Steinbeck’s water-encircled Sag Harbor compound.)

Oct 17, 2024
The Shipwreck Rose: Milkshake Duck

Is the vocabulary of the average American contracting?

Oct 17, 2024
The Mast-Head: Easy Riders

Thoughts on the popularity of e-bikes.

Oct 10, 2024
Gristmill: Real Recycling

Adventures in scrap metal.

Oct 10, 2024