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Point of View: Bountiful Harvest

I felt a bit self-righteous — well, a lot self-righteous — the other night when I heard a woman say on the “NewsHour” that Facebook was nothing more than “a surveillance machine.”

Apr 19, 2018
The Mast-Head: Here’s the Blame

Tuesday morning awoke with a snarl. Two raccoons had gotten into the chicken run and were squabbling over something or other, making an indescribable clamor, kind of a blend of exercised chatter, hisses, and a predator’s growl. That roused the dogs, which roused me, and together we ran out to see what was going on.

Apr 19, 2018
Connections: Sing, Sing, Sing

For four days last week I was immersed in beautiful music with the Choral Society of the Hamptons. At concerts held at the East Hampton Presbyterian Church and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Manhattan, we were privileged to take part in a rare and rousing work — Rossini’s “Petite Messe Solennelle” — alongside virtuoso soloists, a visiting choral director, and gifted musicians at the piano and organ. It was an extraordinary experience.

Apr 11, 2018
Point of View: Winners All

Walk-off home runs, leadoff grand slams, great pitching, Elroy Face throwing out the first forkball of the season. . . . Is there to be no respite from excellence?

Apr 11, 2018
The Mast-Head: The Trash Brigade

It had not been hard to gather up the thin strips that remained of the receipt, despite the fact that the garbage from the two bags had been strewn by sea gulls across the beach access.

Apr 11, 2018
Connections: Rites of Spring

If it’s spring — and we know it doesn’t feel like spring, but it is — it must be time for spring cleaning. In my house that means, at lazy minimum, an examination of closets and drawers.

Apr 4, 2018
Point of View: Eloquence in D.C.

What struck me most at the March For Our Lives in Washington, D.C., was how eloquent all the speakers, who ranged in age from 11 to 18, were.

Apr 4, 2018
Relay: Postcard From Mumbai

Pedestrians in Mumbai have no zebra crossings, no rights, and, by the law of averages, not a long life expectancy. There are barely any traffic lights to give a moment’s grace to those who have to get to the other side. Unencumbered by rules, training, or insurance, Indians drive with an ethereal airbag of reincarnation. They follow no laws of the road, only some eternal and unwritten commandments of existence. Stopping for pedestrians isn’t one of them.

Apr 4, 2018
The Mast-Head: On Town Pond

Town Pond was not always a pond, and I have long been fascinated by this bit of historical trivia.

Apr 4, 2018
Connections: You’re Kidding Me

Does a person really revert to childhood in old age? Clearly, that can be true in extremes, as when dementia sets in. But what about ordinary aging, the kind that I and many of my friends now testify to? Our bodies give evidence of our having grown older, sure, but have our minds inevitably followed suit? No way.

Mar 28, 2018
Point of View: Ever Thus

The vernal equinox has come and gone, the Northern Hemisphere is tilting toward the sun, and we local sportswriters are not yet saved. Snow on the sodden fields, snow on the tennis courts, snow on the track. . . .

Mar 28, 2018
The Mast-Head: Icons and Personages

A bald eagle was circling not far above the cupola on George Washington’s Mount Vernon when we visited this week. From the driveway at the end of the house tour, a sharp call could be heard, something like an osprey’s. It was a cold, early spring day, toward closing time, and most of the guests were ready to move on. A federal security guard standing by a wrought-iron stanchion did not look up. Nor did anyone else, as the national bird wheeled around several times and headed down river, still calling.

Mar 28, 2018
Connections: Fair Verona

If you haven’t seen Guild Hall’s “Romeo and Juliet” yet, let me recommend it.

Mar 21, 2018
Point of View: No Problem

Ulf Nilsson, the Swedish Paralympics’ sled hockey team’s 53-year-old goalie, said, when questioned by a Times sportswriter, Ben Shpigel, that “the best would be to combine the speed I had when I was young and the knowledge I have now . . . that’s the problem with everything.”

Mar 21, 2018
Relay: Day at the Races

My son had already begun sketching out his Pinewood Derby car when word came that the Shelter Island Cub Scouts had invited the Girl Scouts — his older sister among them — to take part this year.

Mar 21, 2018
The Mast-Head: Encounter With Jared Kushner

Some years ago now, I took a call at The Star from Jared Kushner, then the dewy-fresh owner of The New York Observer. Mr. Kushner had the idea that during the summer he might somehow bundle his paper with ours as a way to reach Manhattanites whom he might convert come fall to regular Observer readers.

Mar 21, 2018
Connections: Lost in the Supermarket

We were expecting guests for dinner the other night when I decided the spread needed a little something more: bread, in particular. Carissa’s Breads, a first-rate bakery off Newtown Lane in the village, was closed, and I wasn’t confident about the choices I was likely to find in a hurry at Stop & Shop (although Nature’s Promise Jewish rye is darn good). So I headed over to Citarella.

Mar 14, 2018
Point of View: Back to Reality

Not long ago, during an idyll in Palm Desert, Calif., I was doing the crossword puzzle and the first clue I came across was: “ ‘Serial’ podcast host Sarah.”

Mar 14, 2018
The Mast-Head: Snow Day

Midafternoon on Tuesday, as the snow seemed to be tapering off in East Hampton, I headed out from the Star office to have a look around.

Mar 14, 2018
Connections: Ink-Stained Memories

Copies of The Star’s 100th anniversary edition were dug out recently for the edification of several new staff members, and we found ourselves reminiscing about people who worked here over the years.

Mar 7, 2018
Point of View: Worm in the Apple

“It’s sooo nice,” the young woman behind the counter at Trish Franey’s liquor store said last Wednesday evening.

Mar 7, 2018
Relay: Images of Vietnam

It was strange, walking around an upscale Bangkok shopping mall, to happen upon the horrifying images captured by Nick Ut.

Mar 7, 2018
The Mast-Head: The New Normal

I am old enough and have lived in the same spot long enough to have a sense of how things should and should not be. The bay has been at odds with what should be, but scientists tell us this is the new normal.

Mar 7, 2018
Connections: Sidewalk Society

As far as I recall, our little ARFan is the first dog I’ve ever taken on walks. In the old days, whether we were living in Amagansett or here in the village, we simply opened the door and let our dogs roam free. This was the common practice well into the 1990s.

Feb 28, 2018
Point of View: Not Even Close

An Idaho lawmaker uncomfortable with climate change being taught in the state’s schools — or perhaps simply uncomfortable with education itself — said kids ought to be able to determine on their own, for instance, whether the globe upon which we live is flat or spherical.

Feb 28, 2018
Connections: The Sunshine State

I am old enough to remember going to the cinema to watch the 1945 movie musical “State Fair,” starring Jeanne Crain, whom my mother adored. With music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, how could it be anything less than terrific?

Feb 21, 2018
Point of View: Tumbleweed’s Passe

The animals and birds at the Living Desert Zoo/Gardens in Palm Desert were not all that lively the day we went to see them. Aside from the birds, who drew our greatest sympathy, they didn’t appear to be cramped, they had some room, though you wondered if they wouldn’t be happier freed from us.

Feb 21, 2018
Relay: Digital Nomading

Thirty-two years after the fact, they’ve come up with a name for what I have been doing since the winter of 1986: Digital Nomading.

Feb 21, 2018
The Mast-Head: Into the Woods

One of the big surprises about the woods on the East End is that they are full of nearly invisible life among the leaf litter despite so much development and other changes. The deer have opened up the understory vegetation, sending certain birds species elsewhere, but the amphibians persist.

Feb 21, 2018
Connections: Flavor of the Month

Even though I don’t consider myself particularly susceptible to trends in the kitchen — I never did get into sriracha, for example — I am, like all of us, susceptible to flavor fads. I’ve cooked my way through the great goat cheese glut of the 1980s, and the mania for sun-dried tomatoes. I can remember the days before balsamic vinegar, and the decades when we all called it just plain old coriander instead of cilantro.

Feb 14, 2018