Columnists

There is, as you may know, homelessness in East Hampton Town.

A friend called a single flower that emerged from a thin cosmos plant on my office window this week the “miracle on Main Street.”

On Sunday at dinner time, the evening before All Hallows Eve, my son, who just turned 13, decided he wanted to wear a costume for the first time since he was small.

Any trip I make west, at some point past the cultural demarcation of the Shirley-Mastic area, I head back to the future with 90.7 FM, WFUV out of Fordham.

“You’re wondering why no honking, where are the a-holes? Why is it so peaceful?”

My father leased the Sail Inn for about a decade in the last century, and in doing so drove himself to an early death for ignoring Rule #1 of bar ownership: You can’t be the best customer in your own saloon.

On Main Street in East Hampton Village, it never stops.

Once more unto the gravel trails of Van Cortlandt Park.

That compound-fractured tennis racket I have had as a reminder in my office may actually be a thing of the past.

Estimates are that close to half of all insect species are falling and that a third are in danger of extinction.

My grandparents had a passion for steamships that, as these family inclinations do, has somehow trickled down to me.

Andre Dubus’s essay “Giving Up the Gun” has renewed relevance in this political moment and with New York State’s struggles with concealed carry laws.

In the end, we only have each other, and in the end, disembodied, it’s the extent to which we’ve nourished the creative spirit, of mankind, of our country, of our town, of our village, that lives on.

This is the time of the year that deer are killed by vehicles here in great numbers.

Everyone and their sister is selling their own lifestyle these days, attempting to be an influencer. Everyone thinks their own taste is good taste, and almost everyone is wrong.

The glories and mysteries of Mount Morris.

There’s a place for everything and everything’s not in its place is more or less the maxim I have lived by.

A favorite tree behind the Star office will soon be no more, thanks to a disease affecting beeches that is spread by a newly discovered nematode.

“Annotating is garbage,” my son said. “Annotating is how you ruin a book.”

Thoughts on Joe Flacco, the hard-luck Jets, and team loyalty.

I don’t know why the sculpture of a bull was put up in Herrick Park. Is it to remind us of Wall Street, which also has one?

My son, Ellis’s, first game as a member of the East Hampton Middle School football team comes up this week, and it has gotten me thinking about when I was his age and switched schools, too.

Sometimes a smell is more than just a smell, and we need to lift up the rug and see what's festering.

A 5K in Sag Harbor joins road racing with historical sightseeing and live music.

Autumn has its music too, Keats said, though it’s not all that melancholic at the moment to my mind because, with 11 high school teams to cover, I must be nimble.

Everything is a scam. That is what I tell my friends, family, and co-workers about basically anything that comes in from an unfamiliar number or email address. “Never answer the phone,” I say to them.

No one says “doggie bag” anymore. And who thought we’d have an opportunity to use the word “catafalque” in 2022? Also on my imaginary list of trendy words of the year, I nominate the phrase “out of pocket.” Everyone is saying “out of pocket” right now, but everyone is using it to mean something different.

So what’s it gonna be, college-wise, core curriculum lockdown or pick and choose your classes as you see fit?

The very day that Peter Spacek’s chigger cartoon appeared in our paper two weeks ago I got them.

For all the boats kept around here, most are idle most of the time.