Skip to main content

Columnists

Point of View: Sweet Dreams

Steep slated parapets with sheer drops into penumbral darkness, cars speeding in reverse downhill that I cannot stop, paddling up a creek on a skinny oar, and running through rooms in other people’s houses or apartments have been the stuff of my dreams of late.

Jun 25, 2015
Relay: Close Attention, Good Care

I threw my dad’s golf clubs out the other day. I pulled his old golf bag, with the red and white umbrella strapped to the side and a couple of wooden tees rattling around in the bottom, out the broken-down side wall of the shed, where it has been moldering.

Jun 25, 2015
The Mast-Head: Unintended Consequences

High season in East Hampton is nothing like it was even five years ago. There are too many people, too many cars on the roads, too few places to park, too many lines, and not enough peace and quiet.

Jun 25, 2015
Connections: Phone Home

Shall I tell you about the day my cellphone had a bath? What happened was that I put a bottle of Honest Tea into my handbag without making sure that the top was screwed on tight. Picking up the bag again hours later, after my yoga class, I found everything inside completely soaked.

Jun 18, 2015
Point of View: Wait, Don’t Tell Me

And so it was! On June 9, in the year of our Lord 1791, in New York City. His grandfather’s house, where he spent his early years, has been preserved as Home, Sweet Home, a landmark down the street from this one.

Jun 18, 2015
Relay: ‘Baywatch Gone Bonacker,’ The Movie

It is no longer a secret. Nicknamed Lip, he’s involved. Man knows some moneyed types. The mayor and town supervisor won’t say — they have guaranteed use of the old rescue boats stashed at undisclosed locations.

Jun 18, 2015
The Mast-Head: World Cup

By chance, my son, Ellis, and I became East Hampton 7-on-7 soccer fans last week.

Jun 18, 2015
Connections: Brotherly Love

The menorah on the lawn of Chabad Lubavitch in East Hampton looks like a Han­uk­kah menorah because it has eight rather than seven branches.

Jun 11, 2015
Point of View: At Play at Pantigo

“He’s going to Little League?” our daughter asked somewhat incredulously, as if, I suppose, there were more important things to write about and photograph than that.

Jun 11, 2015
Relay: Not Smart Then But Smarter Now

In the spring of 2012, desperate for a change of scene, I lined up a bartending job in East Hampton and place to stay, but as moving day drew near I had still not addressed transportation. Money was tight, and I wondered if a scooter would do.

Jun 11, 2015
The Mast-Head: No Room at the Inn

BookHampton sent around an email this week asking if anyone knew of any smart college students who might enjoy working in a bookstore for the summer. The Main Street stalwart is hardly alone in looking for seasonal staff.

Jun 11, 2015
Relay: What’s So Bad About a Fedora?

To listen to some, men in fedoras in the Town of East Hampton are a sure sign that civilization as we know it has come to an end.

Jun 4, 2015
The Mast-Head: Happy Anniversary, Ivy

Perhaps you have wondered while making your way around why there appears to be next to no poison ivy in our fair village. That is not likely to be an accident, as this marks the 68th anniversary of the first annual Poison Ivy Eradication Week.

Jun 4, 2015
Point of View Honk If You . . .

“All of a sudden, it got more exciting — don’t you feel that too?” I said the Friday of Memorial Day weekend to Jen Landes, our arts editor.

Jun 3, 2015
Connections: Just Breathe

What to do with the sunny Sunday of a long holiday weekend?  Well, for starters, I had to coordinate with the workers who arrived bright and early to fix our dilapidated old picket fence and plant some privet to hide the back neighbors’ pool from view.

May 28, 2015
Point of View: Grillin’ Tonight

I am dying, Egypt, dying — of the pollen and the ticks — but life, at least as I find it today, is wonderful, now that the sun is out and we’re in the trees’ embrace.

May 28, 2015
Relay: The Thing With Faye

About two years after my mother died, at the unfair age of 58, my dad, who was in his early 60s, found himself pursued by a phalanx of age-appropriate widows.

May 28, 2015
The Mast-Head: East End Encounter

Post-Memorial Day, it is a little difficult to decide what to write about. There are so many choices: traffic, noise, events missed, yard work.

May 28, 2015
Connections: Roots

My cousin Harriet tries to keep her father’s side of the family together even though she lives in Dallas and most of the relatives live on the East Coast.

May 21, 2015
Point of View: Marvelous Activity

It is time to talk of the outdoor shower, that blessed sanctuary among the trees and birds and light in which one can revel six months long before driven inside to the fire, a pleasure of a different kind.

May 21, 2015
Relay: In Tom’s Basement

I feel like I spent most of the month of April in Tom Field’s basement. This may sound like an odd statement, I realize, but if you have any connection to the network of emergency medical providers on the South Fork, you get it.

May 21, 2015
The Mast-Head: Another’s Housing Crisis

It was surprising at the beginning of the week to find myself in an art gallery in a small town in Northern California looking at photographs calling attention to that community’s housing crisis.

May 21, 2015
Connections: Bravo, Montauk

Although the jokey nickname is often used, calling Montauk “The End” doesn’t really catch the spirit of the buzzing community at the tip of Long Island. It has always felt like a place apart —

May 14, 2015
Point of View: Only Connect

My brother-in-law, presider over an annual Kentucky Derby party, couldn’t pronounce the horse’s name, and so, of course, I went for it — Mubtaahij.

May 14, 2015
Relay: Being A Cheesemonger

One of the first questions I’m always asked is, “How can you stand the smell?” I invariably answer, “What smell?”

May 14, 2015
The Mast-Head: His and Hers

My own collecting has no particular form, unlike, say, people who scour the markets for cast-iron tractor seats or frog figurines. Still, I am fascinated by those who develop passions for whatever it is and pursue them.

May 14, 2015
Connections: The Printer’s Devil

This old house, pardon me, I mean office building, is full of surprises; you never know what will be unearthed in the archives, or a filing cabinet, or an old desk. What we need here is a resident historian.

May 6, 2015
Point of View: Just Sit

My son said recently he thought I’d live to 100, submitting an article that found a link between longevity and vigorous exercise, though if there’s a danger point beyond which you shouldn’t go they haven’t ascertained it yet, nor have I.

May 6, 2015
Relay: The Quiet Zone

Since my son is working on Sunday and one of my daughters lives quite far away, I don’t expect much for Mother’s Day. So I’ve given myself a gift — the gift of meditation.

May 6, 2015
The Mast-Head: Trying for Scones

Had I known that scones were relatively easy to make, I would have begun baking them years ago. I like to cook and consider myself pretty good in the kitchen, but that said, like almost any simple art, scones take work to get right.

May 6, 2015