Columnists

The other night on the “NewsHour,” our source for horror on weeknights, they showed the light that could not until recently be seen in what was heretofore thought to be vast outer blackness.

“You have to write the piece that goes with this rap: ‘No Conca, no movie theater, no diner, no Black Buoy. (Variety Store? You’re right, it’s still there.)’ ”

It would be great publicity for all involved, if anyone reads it. That was part of my thinking this week on a story about a portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis whose ownership is disputed in a federal lawsuit.

I’ve been known to complain that those who bought second homes here in the last few years are not like those who arrived earlier, in, say, the 20th century — who, I liked to insist, made an effort to learn East Hampton history, meet remarkable locals, and discover native flora and sometimes even fauna. Lately, however, I’m beginning to think I’ve been wrong.

I recently read Neil deGrasse Tyson’s little book on astrophysics, probably the smallest book ever written about such a vast and ever-fascinating subject.

One cold winter’s night about 26 years ago, two friends and I shivered on West Third Street, craning our necks and peering in the large window of the Blue Note Jazz Club, straining for a glimpse of Ray Charles. We were barely employed musicians then, sharing a small apartment in Hoboken and busking in the subway when times were especially tough (they usually were).

Lost long ago, a high school ID found on the beach in Montauk and still legible will be returned to the woman who owned it, now 63.

I gather there are some dogs — huskies and Newfoundlands and such — who love nothing better than a good romp in the snow, but my dog, Sweet Pea, who came to the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons after the hurricanes in Puerto Rico, clearly isn’t a fan of ice and blizzards. I would be curious to hear if other ARF dogs who come from warmer climes are as indignant about the snow as mine is.

Isabel was talking about the Donner party and I said that it was our family’s only claim to fame, according to my father, who, when I once told him I had no ambition, said I was upholding the family tradition, which made me feel better.

I am always looking for cool stuff. I have what you call the acquisition gene. To spin on the Latin: Veni, vidi, Visa. Lucky for me, my acquisition gene is nurtured through an additional kind of “shopping”: taking pictures for The Star. Veni, vidi . . . voro? It’s not the same kind of shopping, but it’s easier on the pocketbook and that hungry gene can be fooled.

Weekday mornings, after I drop off my son, Ellis, at school, I stop by the coffee shop in Bridgehampton. It’s more of a habit, I guess, than a ritual, but it has become part of my routine. So, too, is it for a handful of other morning regulars who linger, sitting and talking across the floor with one another about politics as customers in more of a hurry come and go.

It’s a cliché of personal-essay writing to complain about how everyday items disappear from the home — socks, for instance, and the bizarre frequency with which they are eaten by washing machines. Well, let me begin by assuring you that I never lose socks in the washing machine. Never! And I’ll tell you why. A woman named Susie gave my husband a helpful tip: All you have to do is safety pin the pairs together. We actually do this.

The president says he doesn’t want anyone from “shithole countries,” and then I thought about the people I’ve most admired: Gandhi, Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Tutu, Martin Luther King Jr. . . . Shithole countries can produce some great men.

Sorry to say, I did not get the name of the reader who stopped by The Star last week with a small skein of darning thread.

You wouldn’t think that going away for only a weekend, two days and two nights, would change what might be called your mental metabolism, but it did for me.

It’s all the same eff-in day, man, Janis Joplin used to say, though some, as Mary would readily agree, are colder than others, such as this week’s were, but I could hardly contain myself this morning as I read that in the coming week the temperature will soar into the 30s, and perhaps even flirt with 40!

There is no darning yarn at the Sag Harbor Variety Store, as I discovered the other day after making a trip there from Amagansett. I had found a hole in one of my gray wool mittens while shoveling the driveway during the last big snow, and, knowing I had only beige yarn in my sewing box, had planned my day around getting to Sag Harbor for the right stuff. Some time ago, though I can’t say how long, the shop stocked a good supply. No longer.

The words “celebration of life” are used rather over-optimistically sometimes, when plans are being made for a funeral or other memorial observance. To be sure, the phrase always conveys an honest desire of the bereaved to commemorate the person who is gone, but these “celebrations” are rarely what you could really call a party.

A well-wisher asked me a while ago if we were ready for Christmas.

There’s something about living in the woods that brings out the stockpiler in me, and my husband couldn’t be happier.

Driving along Long Lane before the freeze broke a few days ago and looking out of the left side of my truck over the corn stubble, I noticed a large number of crows in among the Canada geese.

We (the editorial we, that is) began the year with trepidation. To begin with, we no longer think we can count on The New York Times as an exemplar of proper English and, adding insult to injury, we have to face the fact that language is changing faster and faster.

In rugby it would have been a try, a score, but no, in football, it seems, if you catch the ball and then put it over the line with your hands — as in touch it down — it doesn’t count as a touchdown.

The title, a quip from the filmmaker Michael Moore in his 2002 documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” came to mind again, this time as the bus rolled past the East Hampton Presbyterian Church late on the morning of New Year’s Eve.

Until this year, I had never taken part in the annual Polar Bear Plunge at Main Beach, thinking, as a year-round surfer, that going into the ocean without a wetsuit in January was a bad idea.

Knowing I am Jewish, some people look at me askance when they see or hear me going overboard at Christmastime.

A large sculpture across the street from my window reminds me of a pork chop, and pork chops remind me of foodstuffs which, while tasty, aren’t necessarily good for me.

In the early days of the East Hampton settlement, then known as Maidstone, no fence surrounded the South End Burying Ground.

Children are taught to control their impulses, to think before they do or say something adults might consider bad. In my case, I certainly have learned over the years not to act as impulsively as I did when I was 3 or 4.

They’re always saying everybody dies peacefully or comfortably surrounded by their families. But I don’t believe it. Why? Because if you’re surrounded by your family, there’s precious little air left to breathe.