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Relay: Staring at Stephen King

The back of the hardcover of “Christine” that my 13-year-old daughter is reading is taken up entirely by a photo from 1982 showing Stephen King sitting on the hood of a vintage Plymouth in the mouth of what looks like a service bay.

Jul 7, 2016
The Mast-Head: Going No Place Fast

The East Hampton Town Police Department’s official Twitter account reported Monday night that traffic was tied up and creeping westbound out of downtown Montauk following the Fourth of July fireworks. No surprise — people tend to get up and go right after the show ends, no matter that their hurry gains them only a place in a slow queue.

Jul 7, 2016
Connections: Souvenirs of Japan

Shotaro Mori, a bassoonist who joined the South Fork Chamber Orchestra for the Choral Society of the Hamptons concert at the Old Whalers Church in Sag Harbor last weekend, was among the freelance musicians for whom choristers played host. Mr. Shotaro and a young cellist spent two nights with us between rehearsals, and he became an overwhelmingly welcome guest.

Jun 30, 2016
Point of View: Forget It

I’ve been accommodating myself to death for a while now, but today I was actually wishing for it when I read that they’re not only to play the U.S. Open at Shinnecock in 2018, but also in 2026.

Jun 30, 2016
Relay: The Wig That Hid the Hair

It wasn’t a hairpiece. Or a toupee. It was a full-blown wig, a helmet of synthetic hair that I kept on a Styrofoam wig stand in a corner of my loft where nobody but my wife would see it.

Jun 30, 2016
The Mast-Head: Can’t Beat ’Em? Cook ’Em

A recipe in The New York Times for shrimp broiled with honey and hot pepper caught my eye the other day, and as I read it, it occurred to me that the approach would be worth trying on sea robin. Yes, sea robin.

Jun 30, 2016
Connections: In the Backyard

Three generations of Rattrays have enjoyed the old house I live in, which, as you might guess, is both awfully nice and, at least on occasion, headache-inducing. I like to say that this or that treasure “came with the house” when someone asks about a vase or a chair, but I also find myself worrying about who has saved what and whose responsibility it is to do something about repairs and storage and suchlike.

Jun 23, 2016
Point of View: Nirvana on East Front Street

I told our eldest daughter that she was living in northwestern Ohio the Suburban Dream, which she knows.

Jun 23, 2016
Relay: No Show Tunes? No Disney Songs?

I’ll admit it: I enjoy show tunes. Listening gives me great joy, and I particularly like breaking out into song with a selection from a favorite musical. Be it Broadway hits like “Rent,” “Chicago,” or “Wicked,” I’ve been known to belt out a number or two. But only when appropriate, for instance when I’m alone, like in my car or in the shower, or when it’s clearly okay to make a ridiculous spectacle of yourself, like at a karaoke night at a bar. Since when is that a crime?

Jun 23, 2016
The Mast-Head: Going, Going, Gone

It is strawberry time again, which means time to think about putting up some preserves from the local crop. But the way things go, South Fork strawberries are usually gone by the time I get around to pulling out the canning kettle.

Jun 23, 2016
Connections: Shatter the Silence

Louise W. Knight, a historian who is the author of two books on Jane Addams — the 19th-century activist and founder of one of the country’s first settlement houses, in Chicago — keeps in touch with my husband, whom she has known for many years. After the heinous massacre in Orlando this week, she sent him an email in which she took issue with the media’s calling it “the worst mass killing” in United States history.

Jun 16, 2016
Point of View: Long May He Rave

I had finished reading of the last linotype machine operator at The New York Times, who’d quietly taken his leave last week at the age of 78, declining to be interviewed on his way out, and dreamed of the days when unions held some sway.

Jun 16, 2016
Relay: Beware Of Maya

“Watch out now, take care, beware of soft shoe shufflers / Dancing down the sidewalks, as each unconscious sufferer wanders aimlessly / Beware of Maya.”

Jun 16, 2016
The Mast-Head: Harvey’s Mower

The old $50 lawn mower that I bought quite a few years ago from Harvey Bennett may have mowed its last lawn. At this point, I don’t remember if I had spotted it in the Star classifieds or if Harvey had mentioned that he had one to sell. But for $50, how bad could it be?

Jun 16, 2016
Connections: Good Press

Perhaps you were among those who saw the feature about The Star in The New York Times on Memorial Day. Such positive publicity, and the subsequent rally of support from readers and the advertisers upon whom we depend, is no small thing. It’s not every day that reporters and publishers get a pat on the back and, for this, we are truly grateful.

Jun 9, 2016
Point of View: To Play Is to Be

I read a review of two sports books in The New Yorker recently and there was not once the mention of joy, though, admittedly, it was the business of sport — the money in it — that was the subject, not the headiness of play per se.

Jun 9, 2016
The Mast-Head: On the Road

I should apologize at the outset to the man my kids and I call Wrong-Way Guy, but we’re kind of obsessed.

Jun 9, 2016
Connections: What’s Up, Doc?

Trying to determine if the East End is medically underserved isn’t very hard to do, but it might have been foolish to try to answer the question the day after a crowded holiday weekend.

Jun 1, 2016
Point of View: Unleashed

It’s Friday and it’s almost as if a show’s begun: There were 12 instead of the usual five or six servers behind the counter at Starbucks this morning. Main Street traffic was very, very slow. Noses were pressed up against the doors at BookHampton, which was to reopen the next afternoon.

Jun 1, 2016
Relay: The Rain Made Sense

Rain is fitting on Memorial Day, the solemnity of the occasion not totally forgotten amid sunny beach outings and start-of-summer barbecues.

Jun 1, 2016
The Mast-Head: Taken to Heart

Nine American war veterans lie buried in a modest farm cemetery off Jericho Road in East Hampton. I had driven by their resting place from time to time on my way to Georgica Beach from the highway, but had never given it much thought until John Phillips, who lives next door, filled me in.

Jun 1, 2016
Connections: Wonders at St. Luke’s

East Hamptoners revere the heritage of this place and are proud that so many ancient objects have been preserved. The house that has remained in continuous use as a residence the longest dates to 1680 (and The Star is pleased to provide a look at it in today’s Habitat section). That certainly sounds like a very long time . . . but as historically significant as our treasures may seem, an exhibition now at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church puts them in perspective.

May 25, 2016
Point of View: Just One More Game

We took delivery of a Ping-Pong table the other evening, and it is sitting handsomely in the newly painted, well-lit basement.

May 25, 2016
Relay: Here, Puss, Here, Puss

We were having dinner at the home of friends when the conversation segued from the relatively safe subject of politics to the unfailingly dangerous one of cats.

May 25, 2016
The Mast-Head: Well-Fed and Happy

Memorial Day weekend is when the seals abandon the South Fork beaches, turning them over to the summer crowd. But, well-fed and happy, they remain in the area, just slinking off to remote places to relax. Kind of like the locals.

May 25, 2016
Connections: Make ’Em Laugh

Mine was called the Silent Generation. We probably didn’t have the collective energy of today’s millennials, but take a look at some of those, like me, born in the generation between the early 1920s and 1944: Martin Luther King Jr., Elvis Presley, Malcolm X, Andy Warhol, Robert F. Kennedy, Ray Charles, Che Guevara, the Beatles, and, get this, Bernie Sanders. Maybe we weren’t so quiet after all.

May 19, 2016
Point of View: Sharing the Wealth

Knowing that my brother-in-law was going to the Kentucky Derby this year, thus forgoing his annual party where he persuades attendees to part with significant sums of money as he, as auctioneer, hypes the virtues of seeming — and, in the end, certifiable — also-rans, I said to Mary, “The good news is we’ll save $300 this week.”

May 19, 2016
Relay: Circling Round To the Truth

I’m only, so far — ahem — a certain middle age, but sometimes it seems like many of the things I’ve done and places I’ve been are part of a long-ago dream, a narrative of memory threaded with story, and I can’t always pick apart which is which.

May 19, 2016
The Mast-Head: No Time Under Heaven

It’s fishing season once again, but for one reason or another I have yet to give it a try. Such is the state of things in the spring; pre-high season work demands a lot of attention, and with a house renovation under way, weekends seem to be taken up with arguing about tile choices and the like.

May 19, 2016
Connections: My Grandparents’ Farm

“Summertime and the living is easy.” Not. At least it’s not if you live here and find it a pain to have to adjust your daily life to the influx. Pretty soon it’s going to be time to limit our forays to the market, or anywhere else that requires driving, to midweek.

May 12, 2016