“I don’t like art that is like somebody else’s stuff,” said Candace Hill Montgomery during a conversation in her Bridgehampton backyard. “I have a real hatred of things that are not original. Does it reference somebody else’s work? That’s fine. But not when it’s basically a copy.”

The dead adult humpback whale towed to the Montauk ocean beach last week is just one of several humpbacks that we have been reading about this year in the local newspapers. There have been many sightings offshore and even in Great South Bay and other estuarine water bodies.

On the drive east to Montauk early Friday morning, pale pink hues of the developing sunrise could be seen over the sand dunes alongside the Napeague stretch. Would the fish be on the chew? Only time would tell.