A couple of professional historians cut through the agenda-driven amateurism that’s crippling civic discourse.

Margaret M. Johnson, author of 13 cookbooks, including "Teatime in Ireland," will talk about teacups at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor on Friday from 2 to 3:30 p.m. 

John Haubrich successfully juggles careers as a painter with a long exhibition resume, an art director at Fordham University, and, most recently, running a pop-up gallery in his studio.

A real-life drowning inspired Sam Wagner's screenplay about a haunted house on East Hampton's Middle Lane.