Eating out is lovely on a summer evening. But it has also created a potential mess by possibly almost doubling the number of patrons on site at any one time.

We have been here many times before. Officials and citizens vow to take a fresh look at building rules in the face of overdevelopment, but, in the end, little changes.

Our climate reality has shifted from a sense that it could happen here to it actually is happening here already.

In the party department, where has all the fun gone?

It’s preferable when your kids come to appreciate your old favorite tunes on their own. But sometimes a nudge is in order.

I was impressed when several on the Sag Harbor Whalers collegiate baseball team told me they were majoring in scientific subjects.

Jerry Herman, the musical man, was more than just underrated.

A plea for cleaner beaches, and much, much more in our latest batch of letters.

When Shep Frood scored from second for the local nine, and more from the good old days.

Seven million here, 13 million there — it’s the week in Hamptons real estate.

Women’s increasing numbers in and influence over American journalism is explored in “Undaunted” by Brooke Kroeger, a veteran correspondent and professor.

"Flower Power" is the theme of Saturday's family fair at the Children's Museum of the East End in Bridgehampton.

The takeaways from a live recording of a podcast featuring Bobbi Brown at The Church in Sag Harbor are that sometimes even successful people, like a cosmetics mogul, can benefit from a change of direction, and that living a normal life well can be the greatest success of all.

During a time of crisis, Priscilla Rattazzi, a successful photographer, focused her creative energies on three ancient linden trees on her East Hampton property, which resulted in a book and exhibition of the images by the Peter Marino Art Foundation.

The Church in Sag Harbor will host a reading and book signing by its writer-in-residence, an open mic night of poetry, prose, fiction, and more, and a jazz concert by a noted Punjabi musician.

“Creative Exchanges” at the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs uses the artists’ address books to tell the story of their wide circle of friends through artworks and ephemera by noteworthy cultural figures.

The Southampton Art Center's “Change Agents: Women Collectors Shaping the Art World” features more than 60 artworks by both established and emerging artists from the holdings of 14 intrepid women.

Large-scale monochromatic drawings by Tara Geer and repurposed slides from 1960s Antarctica by William Eric Brown are coming to the Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs.

Benefits for the Watermill Center, Wings Over Haiti, and the Perlman Music Program, film fest in Montauk, rock at the East Hampton Library, film program at Southampton Arts Center, choral singing workshop at Southampton Cultural Center.

Fireplace Project turns 19, Clothesline Art Sale back at Guild Hall, solo shows at Madoo, the Ranch, and Depot Gallery, artists panel at the Parrish, group show at Hesse Flatow in Amagansett.