We hold the following truths to be self-evident and the following rights, for the residents of the South Fork, to be inalienable.

The photorealistic swimmer serenely swanning on our red, white, and blue cover is by Elise Remender, an artist who shows her sunshine-soaked paintings — with an old-school-Hollywood Technicolor filter — at the White Room Gallery in East Hampton.

The images from Nat Ward's four-summer informal residency at Ditch Plain resulted not just in a recent exhibition at Second House Museum, but also in a book of photographs, both titled DITCH: MONTAUK, NY 11954.

On the 50th anniversary of her father's famous novel, Caroline Doctorow has put together a multimedia event that illuminates her father, the novel, and how its themes resonate today more than ever.