It used to be called Liar's Saloon. Now it's called Marlena's Pack Out, and nothing’s really changed, except last call’s a lot earlier now. 

The Star photo archive is an anachronistic system, a holdover, unchanged since the days when images were not digital collections of pixels traveling on ether, but material things printed on paper in a basement darkroom. And, to the delight of any reporter or editor who finds an excuse to wade, hip-deep, into the archive, there are — wedged in among the many mundane black-and-white photographs (too many mildly “arty” snapshots of ducks and decoys, wood fences and weathered barns) and among the treasures (rare glass-plate negatives of Amagansett whalers and candid shots of major literary lions) — lots of truly wacky souvenirs of days gone by.

As September approaches, we should be heaving a wistful sigh and shopping for pencil sharpeners and argyle socks, but . . . this isn’t what happens to most of us out here, is it? Things are different when you live in a beachside resort town. We are overcome with a curious but unmistakable fillip of extra buoyancy. This issue we are celebrating that feeling of being unbound.

Incrementally over the past few years, Scott Bluedorn has — somehow, by silent mutual agreement among the gallery-going public — become acknowledged as the artist who is able to distill the quintessence of East Hampton and echo it back in watercolor, graphite drawing, etching, and sculpture.