A body found dumped near the West Side Highway in Manhattan Tuesday morning was identified late yesterday as that of Nelson G. Gross, the owner of the Dark Horse Farm in Bridgehampton. The New Jersey resident, a developer and fallen political power broker, disappeared on Sept. 17.

Three New York City teenagers, one of whom is believed to have worked at a New Jersey restaurant owned by the victim, have been charged with a Federal offense, although it was unclear at press time whether the charge was kidnapping.

The body, with multiple stab wounds, was discovered 25 blocks from where Mr. Gross's silver BMW sedan had been found three days before in upper Manhattan, with a shatter ed window and one tire up on the curb.

Wife Waited At Farm

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is handling the case. A $100,000 reward had been offered for information leading to Mr. Gross's safe return.

The names of the three suspects, all male juveniles, were not released because of their ages. Federal statute defines a juvenile as under 18.

Elias Villeda, the barn manager at Dark Horse Farm, said Mr. Gross's wife, Noel, who is chairwoman of the New Jersey Racing Commission, stayed at the Mitchell Lane farm from the day of her husband's disappearance until Friday. F.B.I. agents visited the farm more than once, according to Mr. Villeda.

The family reported Mr. Gross missing late on Sept. 17 after he failed to show up there.

Two Passengers

Mr. Gross, 65, was last seen alive just after 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 17 driving the BMW away from his restaurant, the Binghamton Ferryboat, on the Hudson in Edgewater, N.J. There reportedly were two men in the car with him when he stopped at the Bank of New York just 100 yards away and withdrew $20,000.

A news report in The Record of Hackensack, which has been widely cited, quoted Michael Gross, his brother, as saying one of the two went into the bank with Mr. Gross, and was videotaped by a security camera. No member of the family could identify him.

The Record also reported that Neil Gross, Nelson Gross's son, waved as his father drove away from the floating restaurant but was ignored. Neil Gross told police he spoke to his father on a cellular phone a short time later, and was told whatever was going on was "just business."

Car Discovered

The elder Mr. Gross was to have met his wife about two hours later. The car was found on Riverside Drive near 160th Street. Reports say it may have been there for two days. Michael Gross told the press that authorities had been looking in upper Manhattan for the car but declined to say why.

It was found near a fire hydrant with one wheel up on the curb, leading authorities to speculate that whoever dumped it wanted it to be located quickly.

Mr. Gross, a political kingpin in New Jersey during the 1960s and '70s before a Federal conviction for illegal fund raising, had in recent years lived quietly, dividing his time among his restaurant in New Jersey, the Bridgehampton horse farm and the nearby Atlantic Golf Club, and a winter house in Palm Beach, Fla.

Managers at the Atlantic, which is not far from the farm, declined to comment, though one, who would not give his full name, said Mr. Gross, who was semi-retired, played often at the exclusive club. He did not have a regular foursome, the man said.

In his heyday as a political kingpin, Mr. Gross was the Republican leader in Bergen County and later for the entire state. He was a major fund-raiser for President Richard M. Nixon and an adviser to the Nixon Administration on international drug control.

Served Five Months

In 1970, Mr. Gross was among the targets of a Federal investigation into suspected mob activity in a union, but the investigation was dropped. His bid that year for a seat in the United States Senate failed.

In 1973, while fund raising for New Jersey Governor William Cahill, Mr. Gross was indicted on Federal fraud charges. He was convicted the next year of channeling illegal contributions to Governor Cahill's 1969 campaign, and served five months of a two-year sentence in a Federal prison.

A lawyer, he was disbarred after the conviction but was readmitted in 1984.

Real Estate Developer

After his release from prison, Mr. Gross did not return to politics but made a fortune in real estate.

In addition to being a partner in the Binghamton Ferryboat, he owned 12 riverside acres there that also house a catering business operating on a rebuilt barge. His other properties include a Paramus shopping mall and an office building in Hackensack.

A dinner theater at the Ferryboat called the Sidewheeler has been showing since March a mystery production of "Murdered by the Mob."

Classic Champion

The barn at the 12-acre Dark Horse Farm is home to Left Field, a thoroughbred who was the local grand hunter champion at the Hampton Classic last month, and four other horses.

Mrs. Gross, whose job it is to oversee horse racing and parimutuel betting in New Jersey, has in the past been a winning rider in the adult hunter class but did not ride in the 1997 Classic.

She trains with Charles Weaver, a noted trainer who owns the Old Salem Farm upstate. His farm has a separate number listed at Dark Horse but Brian Simonson, who works there and answered that phone yesterday, declined to say anything about the case.

The John Jermain Library has received its single largest gift since Margaret Olivia Sage, the second wife of the millionaire philanthropist Russell Sage, donated the money to build it in 1910. A longtime supporter of the John Jermain, Jeanette Wagner of Glover Street, Sag Harbor, and New York, gave the library a check for $100,000 during a marathon reading Saturday of John Steinbeck's "Travels With Charley." The donation, a gift on behalf of the 80th birthday of her husband, Paul Wagner, is to be used for children's books and programs.

"One hundred thousand dollars is a lot of books," Jim Ashe, director of the library, said yesterday. He expects the money will be used not only for books, but also to redo the entrance to the children's room and provide air conditioning.

Checking For Details

Tucson, Ariz.

September 19, 1997

Greetings,

To my great pleasure, I was snooping around on-line last night and I found your site!

I don't get back home much anymore but I often think about East Hampton and wonder what's going on there. Of course, my mother fills me in on most of the news, but I'll be checking in here for the rest of details in the future.

I've lived in Tucson since 1988 and now work as an editorial photographer, but I'll never forget where my photos were first published.

Thanks for the start!

Hope all is well and best wishes,

BRION MCCARTHY

Glowing Like A Dial

East Hampton

September 23, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray,

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. My Great Aunt Filomina Tutti-lini of Sicily went for a casual dip in the Peconic River.

Upon exiting the river she was glowing like a dial on an old radium watch.

Thinking her luminescence was a blessing from the Madonna, she crossed herself and plunged into her pilgrimage. To swim around Long Island with one hand tied behind her back was Zia's holy goal.

Starting at Fishers Island, Zia was about 10 miles from land when, lo and behold, Filomina "the Sicilian Fish" Tutti-lini got snagged in a U.S. Navy scow's net. Thinking Zia was a Brookhaven National Laboratory carp, they unceremoniously dumped her along with oodles of toxin-laden sludge.

Utilizing Zen breathing techniques, Zia Filomina was able to hold her breath for seven hours. Fortunately for her, a six-headed lobster named Rocky assisted Zia to the surface.

Almost immediately she was gaffed and hauled aboard a Starship by a Viking named Bugsy the Seagull. At this point in Zia's story I got so excited I jumped two feet into the air and shouted, "Wowie, Zia Filomina, what happened next?"

Jutting her jaw at me she said, "Calm a down, Gooey, keep ona you pants. Ima tell you, Ima likea the Starship; gambling, music. Ah ha! Cha cha cha."

"Nice dancing, Zia, cha, cha, cha, but I hope this doesn't mean Coney Hampton in the future."

"Hey, Chooch, a little action, people having fun, people making moohlah. Thatza what bothers you! Stupido, if any foreign power poisoned your country's food supply, you Americans would consider it an act of war. Stopa the ferry anda stopa this anda stopa that isa nice, but next to your own Navy, poisoning your own waters, itza chicken shit."

"Zia, they're dumping chicken poop!"

"No, Guiseppe, thatza what some American ranchers are using as cattle feed, but thatza another story. Ciao."

Sincerely yours,

JOSEPH TOTO

Please address correspondence to [email protected]

Please include your full name, address and daytime telephone number for purposes of verification.

Location, location, location. On the South Fork, where there is ever-increasing competition among restaurants for the diner's dollar, the old real estate cliche rings as true as ever. If your restaurant overlooks the water, the battle is already half won; if it is in some obscure back street, you're going to have to work a lot harder.

That Mirko's, a small restaurant buried behind the Water Mill shopping plaza, has thrived for so many years in what might be called dining Siberia is a sign that it must be doing something right.

A call on a hot, muggy day last weekend revealed that the restaurant was fully booked at 8 p.m., but there was room for us on the covered patio. Thinking that it might be a last chance to eat outside, we jumped at the suggestion.

The Rains Came

But no sooner had we sat down at a table by the open door of the patio than, as if at the command of some celestial stage manager, there was a clap of thunder and rain crashed onto the plastic roof and the outer patio with the force of the opening of the Hoover Dam.

The water rose; our spirits sank. Eileen Zabar, the dynamic ball of energy who manages the front of the house while her husband cooks, summed up the situation in a glance and immediately found us a table inside. We were so grateful we would have eaten straw for the rest of the evening and enjoyed it.

But straw was luckily not on the menu.

Robust Beginning

A robust onion soup, homemade from scratch, was one of the soups of the day, the other being carrot and fennel. The crab cakes, which were exceptionally good, were served with yellow tomato coulis and red tomato oil that set off the crisp golden disks of peppery and moist crab quintessence to perfection.

The Caesar salad is listed on the menu as being for two people, but when one of our party asked if it was possible to have a single serving, the waiter agreed without hesitation. And a fine salad it was, only failing to get a perfect 10 rating from our Caesar salad maven because the leaves were chopped and not served whole.

An interesting dish - portobello mushroom "pizza" with caramelized onion, fresh tomato, prosciutto, and pecorino Romano cheese - could have been served hotter.

Simple, But Flawless

As to prices, Mirko's is toward the high end of the scale but, it was agreed, it gives you your money's worth. Appetizers range from $9.25 to $12.50 (salads and soups are less) and entrees are from $18.95 for pasta dishes to $31.95 for a grilled veal chop.

The decor is simple and attractive and manages to convey a sense of the restaurant's personality without hitting you over the head with it. The dining room is small but you do not feel crowded and you don't have to shout to make yourself heard. The service was flawless and invisible - Mrs. Zabar, a warm and welcoming presence, runs a tight ship.

The wine list is impressive, with a wide range and abundance of choice, from the modest to the very expensive. A fresh, crisp Gristina chardonnay is recommended at about $26.

Exceptional Dishes

The entrees we tried could not be faulted. It's hard to pick one as being better than another, but the Moroccan spiced grilled salmon, which came with charred tomato compote, curry oil, and wonderful basil mashed potatoes, was exceptional.

You can tell from the accompaniments that this is labor-intensive cooking. No corners are cut here.

The perfect rack of lamb in an herb crust, for instance, came with little sealed envelopes of caraway mashed potato and mustard and mint vinaigrettes, and the meltingly tender pork tenderloin, also herb-roasted, was served with a green apple compote, sweet and sour shallots, and a balsamic sage sauce.

Painstakingly Made

All the sauces and vinaigrettes and chutneys must be painstakingly made and the vegetables are not repeated in any two dishes.

Veal scaloppini is a dish that carries with it high expectations, which are more often than not dashed to the ground upon the first bite. Mirko's, served with gruyere cheese, prosciutto hash, spinach, beefsteak tomato, and a reduced veal broth, more than hit the mark.

We had with us on this occasion a professional New York City pastry chef, and he judged the desserts a little more stringently than the rest of us.

Right Up There

He was critical of the creme brulee, saying that, being done under the broiler, the crust was too thick and not caramelized enough and the custard, though perfect in itself, was too warm.

In the old days, an iron tool was heated in the fire and held close to the surface of fine sugar until it caramelized. This resulted in a hot, paper-thin crust of sugar on top of custard that remained cold. Today, believe it or not, most New York City restaurants use a blowtorch. One has visions of harried chefs burning down the whole kitchen, but maybe perfection calls for drastic measures.

Caramelized oranges in Grand Marnier also disappointed. Although they tasted great, their caramel had melted. It's the crunch that makes them special.

But then there was a lovely peach crisp (though our critic said it should have been juicier) and a rich chocolate cake with an intense flavor.

Looking back at a summer of weekly restaurant meals, from Montauk to Shelter Island, from the merely okay to the excellent, Mirko's is up there with the very best.

The sculptor William King, the playwright Wendy Wasserstein, and the Piano Man, Billy Joel, will share the spotlight at Guild Hall's Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Awards dinner in December.

The three were chosen by members of the cultural center's Academy of the Arts, an impressive group of artists, patrons of the arts, and past award recipients, all of whom have ties to the East End, to receive the honor this year.

To the general public Mr. Joel may be the best known of the honorees. He may also be the first pop musician to win the award. The singer and composer grew up farther west on Long Island, but now lives in Amagansett and does some of his composing at an office in Montauk.

He has raised money for a number of local charities, most notably the East Hampton Baymen's Association, of which he is an honorary member. Mr. Joel has been nominated for almost two dozen Grammy Awards and won six. His albums include "River of Dreams," "Storm Front," "An Innocent Man," "Piano Man," "The Stranger," and "Glass Houses."

Mr. King, a sculptor and East Hampton resident active not only in the arts but in local politics as well, had his first gallery exhibit in the 1950s. He is known for his distinctive wood figures, very tall and thin, many of which bear a slight resemblance to their tall, thin creator.

His figures, which also incorporate metals, fabric, plaster, and clay, have been displayed around the country as public art works.

Ms. Wasserstein won a Pulitzer Prize for her play "The Heidi Chronicles," but all of her plays, including "The Sisters Rosenzweig" and the recent "An American Daughter," have been well received in the theater world. She has a house in Bridgehampton.

The awards dinner will be held at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on Dec. 2. Tickets have not yet gone on sale.

The museum is taking reservations for a two-day trip to Washington on Nov. 11 and 12 to see the Thomas Moran retrospective at the National Gallery of Art.

This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. . . . I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. George Bernard Shaw

Uta Hagen quotes Shaw's credo in "A Challenge for the Actor," her second book on the techniques of her craft. It defines, she says, the "lofty but not unrealistic goals" she has pursued through a long, illustrious life as a leading lady of the American theater, and one of its most distinguished acting teachers.

When a recent visitor blundered up to the wrong house on her cul-de-sac on the Montauk cliffs, she appeared in a turquoise pantsuit at the top of her steps across the street.

"Over here!" she shouted. "At first I thought you were one of those bold surfers, but now I see you're a lady."

Deep Gossip

After verifying identities, the ebullient actress showed her guest into a modern living room with a breathtaking view of the heath and the cobalt ocean beyond.

"Have a Seabreeze," she said heartily, "I'm having one. Pink grapefruit juice, cranberry juice, and vodka." Along with her drink she set a plate of crackers and delectable little mousses on the table and, as the interviewer sipped an occupational water, launched into a four-star performance that was as entertaining and, yes, ennobling, as a great evening in the theater.

There were side-splitting imitations of other actors (Madeline Renaud shuffling onstage at age 91), ringing statements of belief ("We must battle the money-lenders and take Broadway back from businessmen looking only for a product!"), and nuggets of deep gossip ("Edward Albee and I never sat down and read 'Virginia Woolf' together - that's a complete fabrication.")

Throw Away 'Respect'!

Since Ms. Hagen had recently returned from teaching a series of master classes out West, for openers the interviewer proudly produced a copy of "Respect for Acting," her acclaimed 1973 textbook, just bought at Book Hampton.

"Throw that away," said its horrified author. "I totally reject that book. It's superficial, mechanical, theoretically false, and everything's in the wrong place. I only finished it because I'd accepted a commission from Macmillan 15 years earlier."

The reviled volume does have redeeming social value, however. Not only still in print but, she maintained, outselling "Gone With the Wind" as a perennial classic, it will at least provide her daughter, Letty, and granddaughter, Teresa, with an annuity.

Ms. Hagen's more than 20 Broadway starring roles include the lead in "Key Largo," Desdemona opposite Paul Robeson in "Othello," Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Saint Joan," Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," and, most recently, a two-year Off-Broadway run as the psychoanalyst Melanie Kline in "Mrs. Kline."

Born in Germany in 1919, she knew at age 6 that she wanted to be an actress - but what would it take? Talent, of course, which she defines as a heightened sensitivity and responsiveness, a need to express feelings in concrete terms on stage, and a soaring imagination with its feet planted firmly on the ground.

An actor, according to Ms. Hagen, must also have an unshakable desire to be an actor, an insatiable curiosity about the human condition, a sound body, a trained voice, discipline, tenacity, and a broad education.

Training By Osmosis

With a father who was himself an actor, as well as an art historian and a musician, and a mother who was a singer, Ms. Hagen got much of her education and training by osmosis, she said.

Acting also requires back-breaking effort, and her family's strong German work ethic helped her, she said, to structure her talent and dreams.

In 1925 the Hagens moved to Madison, Wisc., where her father taught at the university. "Isn't that an awful place to grow up?" she asked. "I hated the Middle West, and only felt at home in Europe or New York."

In 1936 the family spent six months in England, where she attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. "I loved London but hated the academy's very mechanical training. They'd line 30 of us up against the wall and make us do Rosalind from 'As You Like It' in unison."

Back in Wisconsin, she loathed the University even more, and in desperation wrote Eva Le Gallienne a starry-eyed letter asking if she could join her company and only play Shakespeare and Chekhov. The actress invited her to audition when she came East.

At age 16 Ms. Hagen auditioned at the Westport Playhouse in Connecticut, and went home to wait. Silence from Ms. Le Gallienne. Then the breakthrough letter arrived, asking her to read for Ophelia in a summer production of "Hamlet."

After working on the part for a few weeks, she made her professional debut in Dennis, Mass., on Cape Cod, and stayed on with the troupe for six more plays. When the company collapsed while she was understudying the role of Maya in Ibsen's "When We Dead Awaken," it felt, she said, like the death of art and the end of the world combined. She slunk home.

Fairy-Tale Audition

A Christmas gift of $250 from her father allowed her to give acting one more try in New York, however. By walking everywhere and living with her brother she made the money last two months, at the end of which she miraculously found herself auditioning for Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne one night in the theater where they were performing "The Sea Gull."

She did a scene from the play that impressed Ms. Fontanne and, after working until 1 a.m., was able to send her parents the dream telegram of a lifetime:

"Playing Nina in 'The Sea Gull' for the Lunts on Broadway."

"Like all my early career, it was unbelievable, flukish, a fairy tale," said Ms. Hagen.

Robeson And Ferrer

Her preferred role is always the one she's working on or has just finished, she said, although Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," Saint Joan, and Natalia in Turgenev's "A Month in the Country" have been enduring favorites. Among playwrights, she cherishes Shaw for his language.

Playing opposite Paul Robeson was also quite a thrill. "He's the only person I know who represents the word charisma. He was a brilliant, exciting man, but not a good actor, and he knew it, too. We had a big affair for about three years that was like a strange interlude; I was obsessed by him."

Around that time a 10-year marriage to Jose Ferrer was breaking up even as her professional pride, and joy, was deserting her onstage.

Turning Point

"My acting had gotten to the point where what I had learned was convenient Broadway-pro garbage: how to get a hand on exit, how to hush the audience by lowering your voice, how to time a laugh."

"I'd mastered all the external mechanics and I wasn't enjoying it. It got so I really would rather stay home than act."

Then she did a production with the great director Harold Clurman, who turned her whole technique around, and when Herbert Berghof joined the cast as a replacement, he changed her life.

They would be together for the next 44 years, 30 of them as man and wife, and she would begin teaching at his HB Studio in Greenwich Village, a thriving establishment she runs today.

"Through teaching, I did nothing but learn, basing my work on a whole different concept of watching and listening that constituted my real training, a technique that sustained me."

As laid out in the above-mentioned "A Challenge for the Actor," published in 1991, what she came to emphasize most was destination: where you are now, how you got there, and where you expect you're heading.

"I stress expectation. What you think will happen next is the clue to being alive when you're on stage. If you know what's coming, your performance will be mechanical and go dead in a matter of weeks."

Herbert Berghof

Her marriage to Mr. Berghof was unique, she said. He was intellectually stimulating, and they did everything together without competition. "My 10 years with Joe Ferrer were full of rivalry. If I got a bigger salary, there was a family crisis - another reason I didn't want to act. He's the only man I ever fought with physically."

"In Herbert, I'd suddenly met someone who, if I didn't want to go onstage, would get mad and say I was a good artist and it was my responsibility to go out there. Perhaps he was so supportive because he was a refugee from Nazi Austria, where he'd been a great star, and had to start all over in a new country with a new language."

She gazed out over the ocean. "I thought my life was over when he died, in 1990. No one could understand why I was so sad."

Tears came to her eyes. "I'm sorry. I think I'll make myself another drink."

Real Theater

Back at the table, "There's something rotten in the theater today," she said. "The old Broadway doesn't exist any more. Why? Because there's no call for it. Real theater-goers aren't on expense accounts, and can't afford a $100 ticket."

"Only the humanism of the actor can redeem it," she went on. "Audiences are starved to see something human on stage. Those crappy directors like Robert Wilson, the criminals of the theater, the destroyers of art, make it impossible for an actor to function. Who's on stage, anyhow? The actor, not the director."

"I think this will turn around," Ms. Hagen added. "Look what happened to 'A Doll's House' with Janet McTeer recently. An unknown actress in a revival of a 100-year-old play that everybody's seen, and you couldn't buy a ticket! Sold out! Standing room only! The 1,100 seat Belasco theater jam-packed!"

"Actors have to take responsibility for their destinies," she concluded, "and find producers who'll put on plays worth looking at. Real theater is not hi-tech entertainment. It is an emotional experience where a human event takes place on stage that opens your eyes and blows your mind."

Lately, I've been thinking about the late artist Alfonso Ossorio, whose "Congregations" exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum is so extraordinarily beautiful. I knew Ossorio, and was fortunate to have had the opportunity to collaborate with him on a work for a Guild Hall exhibition some 15 years ago.

In 1980 the painter Jimmy Ernst suggested to Guild Hall's director, Enez Whipple, that the museum present a show of collaborations between poets and artists. Mr. Ernst felt that poets were underacknowledged on the arts scene out here, as true today as it was then, since poems have no financial value and poets don't make any money at what they do, while artists sometimes do.

Collaborations

Over the next couple of years Lillian Braude, along with several others, took on the project, inviting three dozen poets and three dozen artists to work on projects together, one-on-one.

The show that resulted included collaborations between Willem de Kooning and Harold Rosenberg, James Schuyler and Darragh Park, Robert Dash and Doug Crase, and many more, including a kind of wooden phone booth made by Hans Hokanson; when you stepped inside the booth, you could hear Ron Padgett recite a poem.

The committee in charge of the exhibit asked me to pick an artist with whom I would like to be paired. I asked for Ossorio, and, to my surprise, he agreed. Although I'd published some by then - I'd had a couple of chapbooks and a good string of magazine publications, including The New Yorker - I wasn't exactly a household name nor was I cozily connected to the artsy Hamptons community. Mainly, I knew a lot of other poets, none of us particularly glamorous. I guess I was 25.

Like Disneyland

I'd first heard of Alfonso Ossorio through my friend the painter Josh Dayton. Josh and I had gone to high school together, and, as kids who wanted to be artists, we did what such kids do - told each other what to read, what paintings to look at, what music to listen to.

Josh had a connection with Ossorio through his family's business, and he took me over to the Creeks - this was some years later, I guess when we were about 20, in the early 1970s - to meet the man. It was like going to Disneyland. The collection was spectacular, the house was unbelievable, the studio was breathtaking, and Alfonso himself was enormously gracious and kind.

He was very supportive of young artists, and he liked the idea of artists working together - the last time I saw him, in fact, he was encouraging me to collaborate with Josh on some new works, and he also had asked me to give him some poems so that he could try to do something with them; I only wish there had been more time, and that something had come of that project.

Alfonso took Josh and me on the grand tour. Believe me when I say that experiencing the Creeks for the first time was something you simply don't forget. For years I'd seen the big crazy pile of what looked like space junk but which was, of course, a sculpture, painted in the characteristic red, white, blue, and black of many of Ossorio's outdoor works, on Montauk Highway, at the east gate to the Creeks.

But actually driving beyond it and down the driveway into the acres of carefully planted trees and shrubs, to end up at the main house, was marvelous. It was like entering a parallel universe.

But what really devastated me was the pair of Clyfford Still pictures - and they were big, very good Clyfford Stills - that hung in the entry hall, so that as one entered the house there was a Still on your left and a Still on your right. These were pictures that could have had their own room at the Museum of Modern Art.

The Collection

The collection was eclectic and wonderful - the big Pollock was gone by the time I first saw the place ("Lavender Mist," now at the National Gallery in Washington), but there were other Pollocks, and de Koonings, and Dubuffets, and works by dozens of other artists, many of whom were not familiar to me. I remember that in one upstairs area, there was a group of works by British Pop artists, some well-known and some relatively obscure.

But beyond the collection of works by these artists were Ossorio's own works. The most spectacular, on a first visit, was "INIXIT," a piece mounted flush with a wall of the house, which had a door built into it.

I can't remember if Alfonso kept the door of that piece open, or if he opened it to show us what was inside (great slabs of mirror and various iconographic objects), but I thought, and still do, that it was pure magic. Everywhere there were surprising objects.

Picking The Poem

But back to the 1980s. I'd visited the Creeks to bring Alfonso a chapbook of my poems, and he called a week or so later to say that he liked a couple of poems, one called "Puer Viatur," whose title seemed to fit with his fondness for Latin, and which is a pun on homo viatur, or "man on the road," the literary term for the genre of writing that extends from "The Odyssey" to Kerouac's "On the Road" and beyond. "Puer Viatur" means "boy on the road."

The other, which is a much better poem, is just called "Poem," and it's a dark piece of writing, with death in it, and Alfonso found all kinds of images that extended on the theme of the poem by the time he'd finished the congregation: This is the magic of the piece.

Stupefied

I played only a small role in the making of the work. My job was to write out my poem in ink on a sheet of watercolor paper. Alfonso had decided he liked my handwriting, and he instructed me to get some permanent black ink and go to it, so I wrote out the poem a few times, picked the one that looked the best, and drove it over to the Creeks. Subsequently, he mounted the text on a wooden disk and placed it near the center of the congregation.

I should mention here that I was so stupefied by the place that just about every time I went to visit - and he encouraged me to visit as often as I liked, to check on the progress of the piece - I brought a friend, because Alfonso and the Creeks were simply too much for one person; I needed to share the whole experience with someone else.

Once I brought a writing student of mine who also made outdoor sculptural pieces, and Alfonso spent time poring over photos of his pieces, and praised his work and encouraged him to continue.

The Tortoise

I believe that this may have been the afternoon when, as the three of us were sitting in a small room filled with an assortment of extremely interesting objects, I suddenly be came aware that there was something large and unusual at my feet; looking down, I saw that there was an enormous sea tortoise placed on the bottom part of the table before which I was sitting.

It took me aback, and to this day I can't remember what else may have been in the room; I think that the tortoise was the single greatest piece of interior design I've ever seen.

So I visited six or eight times over the course of many months - I can't recall exactly how long it took for him to complete the work, but it was not the only piece he was working on; I believe he liked to have a few projects going at once, and of course he also had his hands full with the Creeks' landscaping, an enormous work of art in its own right.

The Ironing Board

The studio was huge, with walls completely covered with, oh, let's say antlers, over here, neatly arranged in rows by size. There were boxes full of all manner of things - glass eyeballs, for example. There were lots of books, and work tables, and works-in-progress.

In the case of "Poem," Alfonso began with a panel, which he painted, and to which he gradually began affixing the many objects that make up the work. It's not quite as dense over all as many of the earlier congregations; although there are all sorts of objects in it, Ossorio used several larger shapes to structure the whole, the most obvious of which is a human skeleton.

He also used a large-shaded light, a big, black-faced clock from Hammacher-Schlemmer, a number of hat forms, a wooden wheel, and so on. And he descended to the Creeks' laundry room one night, stole an ironing board, stripped it, and mounted it toward the bottom of the piece, because he wanted a large diagonal form there. Whatever worked, he used.

Chained

The light was meant to remain on while the work was on view at Guild Hall. An alternate plan was to turn the light on at half-hour intervals. He also suggested that I might be chained to the congregation for a certain period of time each day - say, three hours - and would then have to read my poem aloud, while chained to this thing, every half-hour. He had all sorts of ideas.

In the end, "Poem" was just hung on a gallery wall; it spoke for itself. Keep in mind that the piece is 108 inches by 54 inches - that's 9 feet high and 4.5 feet wide. I didn't think to ask him why the clock was stopped at 11:30, so he volunteered the information - "That's the time when you either go to bed or you go out all night." He meant "you" in the general sense, although now that I think about it, that pretty much summed up my own style of living at the time.

So I continued to check on the work throughout the process of its creation, and when the show went up at Guild Hall, I visited it frequently.

Emotion In Objects

Others have commented on Alfonso's great erudition, and I can only echo what they've said - he was certainly brilliant, one of the most curious men I've ever known, interested in just about everything. He could quote Gerard Manley Hopkins by the yard and was rather disappointed that I couldn't.

There's a literary reference in the work that reflects on the imagery of the congregation and also extends the meaning of the poem - a series of letters mounted near the center of the piece spelled out, backwards (of course), lacrimae sunt rerum, a quote from Virgil that, literally translated, means "tears are things."

Commonly it's rendered as "tears are in things," but the direct metaphor is more powerful - that is to say, emotion is contained in objects. That is, the artist objectifies emotions, and certain physical objects can trigger specific feelings in us, just as when certain songs come on the car radio, you will be reminded of certain people, places, feelings.

The "Poets and Artists" show got a lot of publicity. A photo of Alfonso and me standing next to the work made the cover of Newsday's Sunday magazine - up in the corner - with a full-page photo inside. Documentary filmmakers made a good little movie about the show, interviewing a number of the participants, including Alfonso and me.

I saw Alfonso again some eight years later, in 1990, when I was writing a catalogue essay for the "III Generations" exhibit at the Arlene Bujese Gallery, when it was up on County Road 39 in Southampton.

Arlene had one or two other writers in mind for that catalogue, but Alfonso insisted that I write the essay - this of course was extremely flattering, but I mention it because it's just another instance of his interest in and support of younger artists and writers, from Jackson Pollock to Josh Dayton - he was the first major collector of Josh's work, seeing there, as he did in the case of Pollock, something that hardly anyone else had the eyes to see.

"Congestion Is Good!"

In the process of writing the catalogue, I interviewed all three artists - Alfonso, Elizabeth de Cuevas, and Dayton. I wish I'd taped my talk with Alfonso; I probably have my notes somewhere in my extremely disorganized archives. But that was the day he encouraged me to collaborate with other artists, and expressed interest in working with me again.

I saw him again on the day that the installation of the exhibition was almost complete. All three artists were there. I recall saying something to Alfonso about how crowded his part of the exhibit looked - putting it not that way, of course, but saying something like "There's so much stuff in here!" to which he immediately responded, "But you want congestion. Congestion is good!"

The Final Time

I saw him once more, on Main Street in East Hampton, before he entered the hospital for the final time, and he looked well although his voice had become somewhat raspy following surgery. His kindness and encouragement, and his manner of talking to you on your own level - I was about 25 or 26 when he made the congregation, and now that I'm 42 I realize how little I knew - meant a lot to me. I've always felt particularly gratified that I had the opportunity to see something of mine become part of one of his congregations, and I'm still astonished at the way he amplified and extended the meaning of that poem.

Poem

Someone you loved is dead,

So you go about things

As if you were dead, too. Definition:

Careful gardening,

Highly polished shoes,

Lots of smiles and nods

And affable conversation.

After a few years of this,

You notice one day a carton

Of mildewed espadrilles in the basement,

Black flowers in the yard, and,

Running out of a bush,

A small child, singing to himself,

With a broken truck in his hands.

Is the cult of big staging a comeback?

Witness the East Hampton Town Trustees' largest-clam contest, for starters. For several years now the Trustees have sponsored a competition to find the heftiest clam in local waters. This year's quahog, a 2.8-pound monster, was greeted with rejoicing last weekend by what looked to be the largest turnout ever at the event. Coming up next, on Oct. 4, is a Giant Pumpkin Festival, co-sponsored by the East Hampton Kiwanis, the South Fork Natural History Society, and the Child Development Center of the Hamptons.

Speaking of children, have you noticed the big pants they're wearing these days - boys, anyway? Girls are sporting hip-hugger bell-bottoms that were in fashion when the big-muscle cars ruled the road, and come to think of it they go quite nicely with all the leviathan Humvees around now.

Movies sell big candy, super buckets of popcorn, and bigger drinks. The bull market continues to grow, and so, it seems, does the bull.

So does the human population. NATO is bigger, and the U.N. Security Council soon will be. Burger King has reinvented the giant, two-patty burger, and Fen-Phen has been outlawed. Fishermen are waiting for the big striped bass to arrive on its fall migration. The Hubble telescope tells us the universe is still expanding. It better be.

The widening of the main runway at the East Hampton Town Airport is a done deal; the contract was awarded Tuesday. Objections, particularly to the effect that this project is a component of a much larger improvement plan and should be subject to comprehensive environmental review and a public hearing, are therefore moot.

Judging from the statements of the East Hampton Aviation Association and the Federal Aviation Administration, the work is needed. They agree that the present condition of the runway (runway 10-28) "could, in the near future, raise questions of safety." Furthermore, the F.A.A. suggests that a decision against the project "after funds have been set aside and a design completed, must be viewed as a breach of faith. . .and will weigh heavily in our consideration of future funding support. . . ."

Accordingly, the existing 75-foot-wide runway and its two 12-and-a-half-foot-wide shoulders, which are highly deteriorated, are to be brought up to F.A.A. standards for an airport of East Hampton's size and to a width of 100 feet.

Although the entire Town Board approved this project at various steps along the way, its Democratic minority and the Town Planning Department now say such approval was a mistake. They have argued that there have been no accidents due to the condition of the runway, that widening it could attract larger planes, and that, since the project is part of a bigger plan to bring in a costly global positioning system, it should not go ahead in a piecemeal fashion.

Councilman Thomas Knobel, who spearheaded the recently completed $4.5-million renovation of the airport, and Supervisor Cathy Lester, who have argued about the runway and are opponents in this year's race for Supervisor, agree on one point: A new airport master plan is needed.

The decision to move ahead without environmental review may reverberate through the coming campaign, but it was understandable. However, the issue that underlies the runway 10-28 debate has not been resolved. That is, does safety require the 16 additional improvements the F.A.A. has recommended and can they be made without significant environmental damage, or are they evidence of a scheme to expand the airport and accommodate more or larger planes regardless of the impact?

It is clear, given these unresolved questions, and the costs that could be involved, that the town should impose a moratorium on construction at the airport following the widening of runway 10-28. Any further improvements should be taken as a whole, studied closely by independent experts, and the resulting plan brought to the public for a hearing.

Change is in the air this week, and on the land and waters, more abrupt than usual for late September and more sharply defined.

One of those wham-bam Canadian cold fronts, no less startling for having been forecast, swept in over the weekend on the heels of a selective thunderstorm that pretty much spared Springs and Montauk but drenched Sag Harbor and most of the hamlets south of the highway. In the wake of the rain, timed almost to the minute, came the first day of fall.

Everybody on the block, or so it seemed, built a fire Sunday night. Wood smoke, autumn's perfume, was in the air, along with a faint aroma of mothballs as sweaters came out of storage. Neighbors out for an evening walk along the ocean beach gazed in awe at a starry canopy stretching to Portugal and beyond, each cold pinpoint of light aligned in the constellations of autumn.

Summer's bounty has shriveled on the vine now. It happened overnight. Too late to pick those last, best tomatoes, the ones that were almost too red to be real. Purple eggplants and green peppers, more hot-weather paramours, are gone too, shouldered aside before you could say Jack and the Beanstalk by the bright, irreverent orange of October's emerging pumpkins.

Seldom does a new season take over so quickly or completely. At this point, an early frost would be no surprise at all; an Indian-summer interlude, on the other hand, would.

According to the calendar kept by the ancient Hebrews, a new year begins in September or October, the time of the harvest, not in barren January. Their descendants will mark the holiday next Thursday. The timing seems just about right.