Guestwords

Let’s speculate on which of the surplus population of filmed versions of his immortal classic “A Christmas Carol” Charles Dickens might have liked best. So, take my hand and you will be upheld in more than this!

The holiday season in a war zone, 50 years ago this month. We were separated from those we loved and detached from the daily events in American life that would make 1968 the most tumultuous year in recent American history.

With the recent election delivering control of the U.S. House of Representatives to the Democrats, it’s time to explore a solution to climate change that appeals to conservatives and deserves support from progressives.

I overnighted my 109-page script, hoping to hear from the model and actress in a month, but I wasn’t holding my breath. Turned out she loved everything about it — and wanted to direct the movie.

Herstory writers and advocates will gather at Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor this Thanksgiving weekend to hear stories from young East End immigrants and renew commitments to collaboration, to sharing a dream.

Legacy is both an elusive idea and an evocative reminder of human transience. We welcome its gift and we grieve the loss it signals.

Is there something special about a place that can be captured through its symbols and stories? That is the question I set about trying to answer by researching Oxford’s coats of arms.

When a tragedy like that at the Pittsburgh synagogue occurs, we don’t see an increase in hatred, rather we witness the opposite. In the wake of the shooting, the Jewish community has welcomed an outpouring of support.

As I got older and J.F.K. stood frozen in time after the assassination, Eisenhower and I were becoming closer in age, and he looked better and better. Then I saw the Ike pin in the antiques shop. I had to have it.

The Expanded In-Home Services for the Elderly Program now limits my homemaker aide’s trips to shop for my food to supermarkets only. And for no good reason.

At the Brett Kavanaugh hearings there was more at stake for many victims of sexual assault than whether or not a seat on the Supreme Court would be filled.

Why the hell isn't Mick Jagger ever thought of as a great lyricist? Another singer-songwriter makes the case.

So much good can be found online in a flash, yet there is a fundamental virtue being damaged. Patience.

A 1946 photograph triggers a flood of happy memories of summer days at a former East Hampton Village mayor’s camp on Three Mile Harbor.

When women began to vent in print and in public about their not seeing themselves in Roth’s women, I wondered why they thought they should. Then I was asked to respond to the attack.

One night after a day walking the Napeague dunes, I stumbled across a rerun of the first episode of “The Affair,” which opens, lo and behold, at Napeague’s landmark Lobster Roll, where I ate my first lobster roll and met my first lover.

Having never hosted raccoons, I do what any logical man would do — slowly back out of the kitchen, locate my smartphone, and ask Google: “How do I get rid of raccoons?”

Late summer is gazpacho season at our house, which gets me thinking about one hot summer night in 1970 at the Bridgehampton home of Hal and Flo Williams, pioneers of organic gardening on the East End in the 1960s.

After decades of being invisible, all of a sudden I was seen again. The sense of emitting an electromagnetic force beyond my control recalled my first experience with the male gaze.

About half of the nation’s distressingly high number of suicides each year are accomplished with all too easily available firearms.

What is it about a banjo that invites such popular enthusiasm, musical intimacy, and political engagement? Béla Fleck has some answers.

One of the great but unknown authors of recent times will be celebrated at Guild Hall by actors including Bruce Willis.

In their grandest form, paid obituaries in The New York Times can occupy entire columns of pricey newspaper real estate, as loving family members or well-compensated publicity agents recount every instance back to that fifth-grade service award.

Prominent Montaukers of long tenure recall Richard Nixon’s fondness for the place, as “Frost/Nixon” successfully conjures the ex-president onstage at Bay Street Theater.

In 1987 I became the keeper of the Montauk Light Station when the Coast Guard left, and for 31 years I’ve ridden out every squall, hurricane, blizzard, and even Superstorm Sandy alone at the light.

The Star welcomes submissions of essays for its “Guestwords” column of between 700 and 1,200 words. Submissions can be sent for review by email, in text or Word format, to [email protected].

A local group has come together for a Walk for Interdependence, to keep families together, at the windmill in Sag Harbor on the Fourth of July at 11 a.m.

The Shinnecocks take no glee in the public disasters that have befallen Shinnecock Hills since the tribe was excommunicated, the indigenous people removed as caretakers of their own land. But you could call it karma.

If the essence of the church meant being a field hospital, reaching the margins, loving the poor in spirit — as Pope Francis had told his flock — then there was the promise of compassion, understanding, and justice.

In the current political environment, I am frightened enough to feel that I have to be more involved. But how? Deciding isn’t easy, and neither is choosing among Representative Lee Zeldin's primary challengers.