The 1980 murder of John Lennon by a deranged fan with easy access to a handgun shocked the world. Twenty-four years later — to the day — the guitarist Darrell Abbott, better known as Dimebag Darrell, was shot five times in the head, onstage, by a former Marine. He and three others were killed.

In between those events, in 1999, two students at Columbine High School in Colorado shot and killed 12 fellow students and one teacher, and injured 21 others. While that massacre was hardly the first to occur in a school, the number of mass shootings in schools has steadily risen, alarming people from all walks of life, not least the students already confronted by multiple stresses in today’s world. 

The nation’s epidemic of gun violence continues unabated in 2018, the effect a desensitizing to what was once too horrific to contemplate. But the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 students and staff were killed and 17 more wounded, galvanized students and adults alike, both there and around the country. Legislators in the proverbial pocket of the National Rifle Association, who reliably offer “thoughts and prayers” after each incident, now scurry from the scorn heaped upon that empty, useless gesture. 

In East Hampton, a response to the slaughter in Parkland and elsewhere will manifest next Thursday at Guild Hall with Young Musicians Unite for Gun Sanity, a concert and fund-raiser for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. A group founded in response to — what else — a shooting, this one at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 six and seven-year-old children were shot and killed along with six adults, Moms Demand Action has chapters in all 50 states and works to establish common-sense reform of gun policies. 

The event will start in the garden at 6 p.m. with music by Hot Club of Montauk, voter registration, and remarks from speakers including Anna Skrenta of Moms Demand Action’s eastern Suffolk County chapter, Chief Michael Tracey of the East Hampton Town Police Department, and Sinead Murray and Allura Leggard, student activists. Starting at 8, three young bands from the South Fork, Earthreal, the Sectionals, and Big Karma, will perform in the John Drew Theater. 

Nigel Noble, a director and sound engineer, will document the evening with a five-person camera crew, and plans to complete a film depicting the event. 

The event was conceived by Michael Clark, the former proprietor of Crossroads Music in Amagansett, who produces live-concert and studio performances that are broadcast on LTV. “Everybody is stepping up,” he said last week of the donations of time, money, food, and other items that have been offered for the event. Gun violence, he said, “is a very hot issue, even though we kind of operate in a vacuum on the East Coast because we have very strict gun laws. But that doesn’t mean things can’t happen. Obviously, it’s a hot issue, and people recognize that something has to be done to close loopholes.” 

The catalyst, said Mr. Clark, who has a child in college, was the shooting in Parkland and a harrowing cellphone video he saw on Facebook. Until it was removed from the social networking site, it allowed a visceral, unsanitized look at the reality of a mass-shooting event, depicting Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students “screaming, sobbing, crying, and they’re just stepping over bodies,” Mr. Clark said. “There’s blood everywhere, they go out to the hallway, and they’re stepping over bodies to get out of the building, and I can’t un-see it. I can’t un-see it.” 

“Obviously,” Mr. Clark continued, “the families of the ones killed are so severely impacted, but what about the kids who were just in the school? You live with that for the rest of your life. I needed to do something, rather than just continue bloviating about it on Facebook. My wife said, ‘Stop arguing with people, go do something about it.’ ”

Students from Marjory Stoneman thrust themselves into a new role as activists, drawing national attention to their experience and to the issue of gun violence. (Predictably, they have also been targeted from some corners, and falsely accused of misrepresenting themselves.) 

“All the students that have spoken out are so intelligent, well spoken, eloquently presenting themselves,” said Ms. Murray, who graduated from Pierson High School in Sag Harbor this year. “I think they give a really good name to students. Not a lot of people who are 18 years old are taken seriously, even though we’re presented with the right to vote.”

“My life, in theory, is the one being threatened,” Ms. Murray, who will attend college in New England this fall, said. “People are getting killed in movie theaters, at concerts, but time and time again, it’s schools or colleges. I’m glad that students can present themselves in such a mature way. I’m proud to be an 18-year-old in this time.”

Ms. Skrenta, who has three children and lives in Amagansett, recalled the horror she feels every time another school shooting occurs. “The frequency of them is devastating,” she said. “My daughter comes home from school and talks about their lockdown drills, the place where her class goes. . . . She speaks about it matter-of-factly. It’s really upsetting.” 

Gun violence affecting African-American youth has affected her even more, she said. “Children in America in situations where they should feel safe — interacting with a police officer, being in class — that should be taken for granted,” she said. “That they are being shot and killed, coupled with the political climate since the election, made me want to get involved.” Moms Demand Action, she said, “is incredibly effective at change on the legislative level, the state level. We were really excited to get involved with them.”

Mr. Noble got involved because “I have small grandchildren,” he said. “I want them to be safe, and I want all children to be safe.” He was sharply critical of the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, which the House of Representatives passed in December. If enacted, it would allow any person with a concealed carry permit from one state to carry a weapon in any other state, and allow anybody with a concealed carry permit to do so on any federal land, such as national parks or national monuments. 

Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District was a co-sponsor in the House. “Lee Zeldin’s idea of concealed carry is insane,” Mr. Noble said, adding that some 20 million people visit New York City every year. “Two million of them walking around with a gun in their pocket is not my idea of safety.”

At Guild Hall, Ms. Skrenta and other volunteers for Moms Demand Action will provide information about the organization and solicit membership. “Then we’ll support Michael however we can,” she said of Mr. Clark. “He’s such a fantastic community leader.” 

Mr. Clark said that an important message to the public is that “We’re not trying to take your guns away. If you go hunting, skeet shooting, do everything legally, good for you. But that doesn’t happen all the time. This is about making safety a priority.”

“I do believe that the two sides are a lot closer together than the N.R.A. allows us to be,” Mr. Noble said. “Even gun owners want gun safety.” His hope, he said, “is to make a film that suggests that young people get out and vote and express their ideas.”

Tickets cost $15 to $40, $13 to $38 for members, and are available at the box office, at guildhall.org or theatermania.com, or by calling 631-324-4050 or 866-811-4111. Donations to Moms Demand Action have also been suggested.

Update, July 23, 4:30 p.m.: Police have identified the body of a woman pulled from the surf in Wainscott on Saturday as that of Elizabeth A. Hummer, a 58-year-old Wainscott resident.

Bystanders found Ms. Hummer's body floating in the ocean, pulled her to shore near Beach Lane, and called 911 at 2:36 p.m.

The cause of death has not yet been determined, police said, though they have preliminarily ruled out any suspicious circumstances. The Suffolk County medical examiner's office will work to determine how she died. 

Originally, July 22, 5:54 p.m.: East Hampton Town police are investigating the death of a woman who was pulled from the ocean off Beach Lane in Wainscott Saturday afternoon. 

Police are withholding her name until family members can be notified, police said in a press release Saturday. 

The woman was found floating in the water, and beachgoers pulled her body to shore. Emergency crews were called to Beach Lane at approximately 2:36 p.m. 

"All efforts to revive her were unsuccessful, at which time she was pronounced dead at the scene," police said. 

The investigation is ongoing, and anyone with information regarding the incident has been urged to call the East Hampton Town Police Department at 631-537-7575.

“You’re Holly Golightly on the outside, and Kafka on the inside,” Frederic said over the phone.

“I’m a cockroach!” I hiccupped, tears streaming.

It was Wednesday. I was sitting on a bench on Main Street, having come into town to use the phone. I have no cell reception at home and, also, living in Manhattan for 20 years has made it so I can only feel truly alone when surrounded by people and with a siren whirling in the distance intimating the suffering of a stranger I’m free to ignore. I had just told Frederic I was depressed. “And anxious. I’m not cut out for journalism or for party reporting. I have this recurring nightmare where I’m at a party, and wake up screaming, ‘It’s good to see you, too!’ ”

At noon on Saturday, I was lying on the sofa with the blinds drawn watching Showtime’s “The Affair,” which makes adultery seem as appealing as dysentery. What’s the upshot? I wondered, watching the characters frown and get cancer in one of the show’s lighter sequences. I looked at the clock.

When you have the blues it colors everything, like an Instagram filter. You feel sad first, and then try to give it cause. The same circumstances on a different day might cause you no distress, but on a blue day, you mope and say, “Time to get ready for the Tea Dance,” as if putting on a party dress were stepping into an iron maiden. In my defense, my tasteful and flattering ankle-length floral dress pinched. 

The spikes stabbed relentlessly as I drove to Nova’s Ark Project in Bridgehampton, where the 26th annual Hamptons Tea Dance, benefiting the LGBT Community Center, SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), and Callen-Lorde, was being held. I thought about Rasputin in an effort to cheer myself up. “Try to think about someone besides yourself for a change,” I read once on a self-help website and took the advice to heart.

I parked in the outer field and hobbled over the grass toward a cluster of white tents, toward cheerful horses galloping in the distance, toward a sea of colorful shorts, toward great metal sculptures, toward music, toward sky. The breeze carried the disco, while the disco carried the D.J. drag queen Lady Bunny out from behind her turntables. 

She bounded, goddess-like, down the small stage as I approached the main tent. Stopping mid dance floor, Lady Bunny began to twirl, her magnificent iridescent dress catching the light and giving it back better, her hair, blond and bullied, reaching skyward in a defiant bouffant, her arms going up and up. And was I ever sad? Was there ever a time before there was Abba? Was that a Dreesen’s doughnut truck off to the side? Was that a crowd gathering round to dance with Lady Bunny? Was that longtime SAGE donors Dr. William Kapfer and his husband, the Starbucks lawyer Eric Baker, saying hello? Was that me dancing, too?

Brian Mott, John Omlor, Steve Gorman, and Jimmy Mack, who escorted the late Edie Windsor last year, sipped drinks in the field. April Hoo and her Genoa-born friend Gioia Grabos, who founded the same-sex wedding planning company Same Love, Better Wedding, relaxed on the giant rainbow flag set down as a picnic blanket. Nearby, Zach Howell and Garrett Hall lolled with their twins Clark and E.J. I chatted up the three drag queens of Stephanie’s Child after their performance. Jansport — named after the sturdy backpack — Laguna Bloo, and Rosé. Laguna, also in heels, complimented me on mine — “The block heel was smart. Mine [stilettoes] are sinking into the grass.”

I didn’t want to come and now I didn’t want to go, which is like life I suppose, but I had promised to meet my friend Marianna at the Hamptons Greek Festival, which is also like life on those days when you do just that.

In traditional Greek costume, the children’s dance troupe was making its circles before the bouzouki band when I arrived at 7 p.m., as a smiling Father Constantine, pulling wads of dollar bills from his black robes, made it rain over and the crowd of surrounding families cheered. 

Marianna and I applauded, then hit the souvlaki tent, waiting on line next to three rotating spits of lamb whose hooves were raised around their faces like Munch’s “The Scream.”

We were finishing our dinner when I heard the first strings of the Syrtaki and pulled Marianna onto the dance floor, empty. Marianna worried she didn’t know the steps but picked it up immediately, and soon we were joined by others, whirling in a mad, ever-growing circle as the music accelerated and we laughed trying to keep up with it.

Catching my breath, I spotted the eminent ophthalmologist Dr. Peter Michalos mingling among the far tables. Night fell and the carnival lights came up. “I love this time,” Marianna said, after confessing she, too, had been feeling blue earlier. “I didn’t want to come, but am so glad I did.”

We browsed the shopping stalls, a table set up with saints painted onto sparkly granite, where Marianna picked up a St. Mary and said she missed her German mother who used to take her to the Greek festival every year. I chatted in my broken Greek with the store’s proprietress, Irene, who it turned out is from the same part of Athens as my own family. She gave me a gold St. Savas to take home.

I bought Marianna an evil eye pendant that she wanted to buy for herself. “For protection,” I said. “It works better if someone gives it to you.” 

“Is that true?” 

“Seems like it should be,” I said happily, though Rasputin couldn’t have been further from my mind, as we walked toward a stall of stuffed animals I hoped to win.

Marianna and I threw balls into a bucket, but not enough to take home the tiger I had my eye on. John, who’d taken our money, gave us tiny stuffed bowling pins in consolation and winked.

We tried to find a ride that wouldn’t make us queasy, but most were of the spin-you-around variety, so instead of getting on, we sat beside a turn-y thing and watched the little kids fly through the air. Marianna, whose husband was at home and whose teenage daughter was at the Surf Lodge fibbing about her age, reminisced about her first date, which was at a carnival. “These spinny ones are the best, because they push you up against each other.”

And it was dark now, and the smell of honey over freshly baked loukoumades filled the air, and we strolled arm in arm as we looked at the teenage boys running the rides and imagined how we might have crushed on them when we were girls. “That one looks very bad,” I said, as he strapped a few kids in. “I bet he doesn’t care about anything,” I said. “I bet his kisses are sloppy and addictive,” I said, and Marianna warned me against him as if we were both 15 and I were daring and wild.

We bought sodas and ran into Maryann Calendrille and Kathryn Szoka of Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor, and chatted with Father Constantine, who’s writing a memoir about his dad called “The Rise and Fall of the Gus Lazarakis Company,” before he was pulled away by Helice Carris, a parishioner who was visiting from Chicago, and we walked with the painter Walter Us and Faith Diskin, and said hello to Paul Strassfield whose Greek wife, Christina, runs the gallery at Guild Hall — “She’s the earth and I’m her moon,” he said — and then I heard my name coming from a dark table where sat 

Helen Matsos, who produces “Star Talk With Neil DeGrasse Tyson,” and her boyfriend, a former soccer player, Gary O’Reilly. 

Marianna, who used to live in England, is a great soccer fan and was excited to meet Gary. She quizzed him about the other players of the Tottenham Hotspurs, while Helen and I danced in our seats and talked about a potential venue for the next Sci Hamptons, the science festival she’s started.

“My place? I have this natural history museum in my house.”

“That’s a great pickup line. Even better than come see my etchings. Can I steal it?”

“It’s full of fossils and taxidermy. I inherited it from my ex-husband. He’s a scientist and was trying to popularize a new theory of evolution, which is sort of why we broke up.”

“As good a reason as any.”

I told her why I broke up with my ex: “We were having dinner and I asked, ‘If you were convicted of a crime in a Kafkaesque court and the judge sentenced you to either have sex with an animal of your choosing or be put to death what would you choose?’ He wouldn’t answer, so I said, ‘You mean you’d rather die?’ and he said, ‘No, I’m not going to answer that,’ and I said, ‘Why not,’ and he said, ‘Drop it,’ and I began to cry, and while we didn’t break up right then, in retrospect I realize all our arguments could be boiled down to that one. Why wouldn’t he answer?” I asked in a fit of blue.

“Horse,” Helen said, supportively. “I’d go the Catherine the Great route.”

My feet were killing me in the best way: They were tired more than homicidal and wanted only to dance more, so I said goodbye to Marianna and zipped off to the Parrish Midsummer Party, the theme of which was neon and white in honor of the artist Keith Sonnier. 

I changed my clothes in the car, putting on a fluorescent orange sequin skirt and a T-shirt I made for my sad days, which says, “I Love Cliff Clavin.” I made it expressly to wear while watching TV. It’s blue to match the blues, and also the-know-it-all postman’s uniform on “Cheers,” my favorite show.

I met Sarah Maslin Nir, the Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigative reporting and gold lamé enthusiast, out front, and together we wandered the halls, looking at art and women painted in their own fashion and a few men, their collectors. Ball gowns mixed with party dresses — one woman wore a white mini covered in a clear plastic tube.

Sarah just left The New York Times on “book leave” to write her first book, “Horse Crazy,” which will be about her love of horses, she told me. I tried to smile the right amount, neither too much nor too little, as it was our first friend date, and I was nervous. I’ve known Sarah for five years, but she never remembered meeting me during most of the first one. From the beginning I admired her quick wit, her lamé, her confidence, her success. Younger than me, she’s part of this group of young media women who were all successful out of the gate, who got serious jobs right out of college and worked their way up to writing and editorial positions at major magazines and newspapers. When I met them, I had just published my first novel, which they seemed to find impressive enough, but it was about being a screw-up and was, in that respect, about me.

“How’s the reporting?” Sarah asked, having come as my press plus one.

“I just go to parties. I’m not much of a reporter,” I said, feeling sheepish beside a real one. Sarah also wrote for The East Hampton Star  — when she was 16.

“Sure you are! I used to write The Nocturnalist column at the New York Times and I always thought of it as real. I went to 268 parties in 12 months,” she said, though I didn’t write this down, so I may be getting it wrong. Instead of taking notes, I counted on my fingers the handful of parties I’ve attended this summer, which already felt like too many. I thought back to my conversation with Frederic earlier in the week: “I can’t keep this up! I’m terrified of talking to people and worry all week that everyone I’ve written about hates me.” Across the room, I spotted the smarmy anesthesiologist I mentioned in my last two columns and began to perspire.

“If I were writing about this party, I’d write about all the weird plastic faces here. And that couple.” She looked up at the couple two feet in front of us, a pair of 40-somethings in white who were doing a sloppy Lambada. They started making out and their hands seemed to multiply as they moved over each other.

“Gross,” said Sarah.

“That the forbidden dance. It’s forbidden,” I said referring to the trashy movie of 1990.

She shrugged and I remembered that she’s younger than I am. Probably doesn’t even know who Cliff Clavin is. I folded my arms, embarrassed.

“And I’d write about those women in the matching pirate costumes. What’s with that?”

Two modelly Russians were wearing white ruffly things, cinched by large black belts. “Do you think they’re prostitutes?” I whispered.

“When you see a young woman like that talking to an old fat guy like that, you’ve got your answer,” said Sarah. I thought about my ex-fiancé’s belly and age with respect to my own and wondered if I am as pretty as those girls, or if my virtue is as incontestable as my nose.

Patrick McMullan came by, photographed us, and talked about how his balance was off, how he was getting old. (Not old enough for me!) He and Sarah reminisced about Art Bagel, a joke they’d hatched 10 years ago at Art Basel. Patrick didn’t remember me.

Sarah went to the restroom: “I’ll leave you to your reporting,” she said. Wanting to impress her, I looked around for someone to talk to. I spoke to a few strangers — would you like to know their names now? Their jobs and which ones had food in their teeth? “It’s good to see you, too!” I exploded in the face of the anesthesiologist — and then escaped to the outside, where I saw half a jet fuselage with the word Challenger written on it. A woman ran up the steps to pose for a photo, as if she were getting on her own private jet. NetJets was one of the event's sponsors.

“That’s in poor taste,” I told Sarah when she came out. “Wasn’t the Challenger the space ship that exploded 1986’s first teacher in space?”

We hit the dance floor and Sarah waved neon sticks. I held my sticks, not sure what to do with them, before a drunk girl with an armful took mine too and disappeared.

Sarah told me about her feud with Martha Stewart in the days before she moved on from her party column.

“I was just set up with one of her exes,” I said, trying to keep up.

“What’s with you and all the old guys?”

On the way out, a young woman swayed and hopscotched drunkenly, yelling at her friends behind her to “step it up!” before demanding to know where they were going next. Sarah laughed and I knew what she would write about.

But me? I’d probably write about what it feels like to wake up as a bug. How it makes your dress pinch.

Nearly five and a half weeks after the plane crash off Amagansett that killed Ben and Bonnie Krupinski, their grandson, William Maerov, and their pilot, Jon Dollard, the National Transportation Safety Board has issued its preliminary report on the accident.

The report issued on Tuesday points, as expected, to bad weather as a major factor in the crash. Preliminary reports include early information gathered in relation to a crash, but do "not include analysis or determination of cause," an N.T.S.B. spokesman explained on June 4. The report lays out the known timeline of events, describes the meteorological conditions, and details the status of the twin-engine Piper Navajo in which the Krupinskis, their pilot, and their grandson were flying.

There are few surprises in the report, with many of the details it contained having already been shared by other agencies. 

The plane, which was owned by Mr. Krupinski, had its last annual inspection on Nov. 3, 2017, and had flown just 39 hours since then, according to the N.T.S.B.

The Krupinskis were returning that afternoon from Newport State Airport in Rhode Island, where they had flown earlier that day with another smaller plane also owned by Mr. Krupinski, to pick up the Krupinskis' granddaughter, Charlotte Maerov. The planes were to fly back to East Hampton together. The smaller plane left a minute before the larger plane.

The pilot of the smaller plane told the N.T.S.B. that he and Mr. Dollard had "talked for about one hour regarding the weather between them and the destination airport," according to the preliminary report. They had planned to head south together to Sandy Point on Block Island, "and then turn west and follow the shoreline" to East Hampton Airport.

After takeoff, the pilot of the smaller plane "contacted Providence air traffic control . . . and was informed that there was a 'bad storm' near HTO [East Hampton Airport] and it was moving slowly," the report states. That pilot told Providence air traffic control "that he wanted to fly farther south over the ocean and try to miss the approaching storm."

"He did not know what happened to the Navajo as he did not hear the accident pilot communicate on the radio," the report said. The pilot of the smaller plane flew back toward East Hampton Airport at 1,000 feet, according to the N.T.S.B., and landed safely.

According to the N.T.S.B., radar data from the Federal Aviation Administration showed the Navajo in front of the other plane by five miles. Six miles out from East Hampton Airport it was flying at 432 feet above ground level. It then climbed to 512 feet, and subsequently descended to 152 feet. Its last radar target indicated it was at 325 feet at about two miles south of Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett.

The Navajo's wreckage was found on June 8 about a mile off Indian Wells Beach and was examined by the N.T.S.B. about two weeks later. The full investigation into the crash is expected to take a year or more, according to the agency. 

Since the Montauk Lighthouse was first lit in April of 1797, 19 civilian keepers, 14 Coast Guard keepers, and one civilian caretaker have lived at the property. The last of these, Marge Winski, was also the longest serving — 31 years — so when she departed last month to trade her Montauk view of the Atlantic for one in Maine, she left some big shoes to fill.

Last week, Joe Gaviola, a longtime member of the Montauk Historical Society’s lighthouse committee, announced that he would step into them. 

“When I heard that Marge was leaving, I put my hand up,” Mr. Gaviola said on Friday. He expects to take up residence later this year after the two-bedroom apartment above the museum gets a few upgrades — it hasn’t been renovated since the 1950s, he said. 

Like Ms. Winski before him, Mr. Gaviola will be the sole occupant at the easternmost property in New York State. Living at the light, which is either fantastically removed or unnervingly remote, depending on whom you ask, has its pluses and minuses. On the one hand, it is not as private as some might like. “We get about 100,000 visitors a year,” Mr. Gaviola pointed out. On the other hand, on a quiet winter night, with the wind howling off the water, it could feel a bit eerie. “We have a ghost, Abigail . . . so when you’re out there in February. . . .”

“When I tell people, like 75 percent think it’s fantastic,” he said. As romantic as it sounds to become a lighthouse keeper, it is not a post for everyone, yet Mr. Gaviola knows Montauk and the lighthouse well.

“I really love it up there,” he said. “I’ve been fishing underneath the lighthouse, surfcasting under the lighthouse for about 40 years.” 

Mr. Gaviola is a stockbroker and an investment adviser who works in East Hampton with Janney Montgomery Scott. A former chairman of the now-defunct Suffolk County National Bank, he is now on the New York regional board of People’s United Bank. He served on the East Hampton Town Planning Board and was a vice chairman of the town’s budget and finance committee, among other involvements, “but the one I’ve most looked forward to going to for 20 years now has been the lighthouse. It’s a labor of love.” 

“Joe’s heart is in the lighthouse, there’s no doubt about it,” said Henry Osmers, the lighthouse historian and its assistant director. 

Mr. Gaviola is the director of finance for the lighthouse committee and knows well what it takes to keep it up to landmark status. “There are only eight national historic sites on Long Island that have structures that are landmarks,” he said, a note of personal pride in his voice. The lighthouse, which was commissioned by George Washington as a navigational aid, was named a National Historic Landmark in 2012. 

The historical society has owned the lighthouse property and the buildings on it, including the lighthouse tower, since 1997, but the “actual lighting equipment and fog signal equipment are owned and maintained by the Coast Guard,” Mr. Osmers explained. Technically, Ms. Winski was not a lighthouse keeper in the older sense of the word, and Mr. Gaviola will not be either.

These days, there’s no need for a keeper of the light to carry kerosene up the tower stairs — in fact, the light has been fully automated since 1987. Still, Mr. Gaviola’s presence on the property at the end of each day, all year round, will be an important part of keeping the lighthouse and its museum safe and secure. 

And one of the biggest pluses: You can’t beat the view.

“Climate scientists have known this was coming,” The Washington Post wrote of the heat wave that has broken many longstanding records in Southern California, “and it may only be the beginning.” The heat wave is “exactly the kind of event that is becoming more likely and severe due to global warming,” said the website Axios, citing climate scientists.

The temperature hit 122.4 degrees in Nawabshah, Pakistan, on April 30. In Japan, torrential rains and the resulting flooding and mudslides have killed more than 150. And over a period of 24 hours last month, the temperature in Quriyat, Oman, never dropped below 108.7 degrees. 

While the president of the United States maintains that climate change is a hoax, concocted by the Chinese to make American manufacturing uncompetitive, its manifestations are becoming more and more plentiful, and dire. 

Maureen Raymo, a paleoclimatologist and marine geologist, director of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Core Repository in Palisades, N.Y., and Columbia University’s Bruce C. Heezen Lamont research professor, will discuss her research on climate change over earth’s history on Saturday at 6 p.m. at the Nature Conservancy’s Center for Conservation in East Hampton. 

Research by Dr. Raymo, who was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2016, has led to the “uplift weathering hypothesis,” which posits that the uplift of the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau acts as a sponge, absorbing carbon dioxide and resulting in a 40-million-year trend of global cooling that continues today. 

But, she said on Tuesday, the rate at which humans are putting carbon dioxide, or CO2, into the atmosphere “is an order of magnitude higher than all the volcanoes in the world. We are just swarming the geologic signal right now. Climate doesn’t care why, it just feels it there, the surface of the planet heats up, and more outgoing radiation is being trapped by these molecules.” 

For the layperson, “I try to answer the question, is the climate change we’re observing natural or anthropogenic, which is one thing you always hear from people advocating doing nothing — ‘Climates always change, we don’t know how much of this is natural or due to humans.’ You answer that by learning s much as you can about natural climate variability before humans,” Dr. Raymo said. “That’s what I’ve devoted my career to.” 

Yes, carbon dioxide levels can change naturally — over long geologic time periods, Dr. Raymo said — and the distance between the earth and the sun changes due to wobbles in the earth’s orbit. “But take the changes observed over the past, and the ones happening now are far greater,” she said. As politicians deny and obfuscate, “as long as we take our time grasping this bull by the horns,” species are going extinct, ecosystems are collapsing, coral reef systems are dying off, sea level is rising, and ice is melting. “All these things you can’t put back together,” she said. 

On the South Fork, a business-as-usual approach means sea level rise, among other manifestations. “One of the periods we study was 125,000 years ago, the last time we were in a warm period between ice ages,” Dr. Raymo said. “It was one to two degrees warmer than today,” due to the earth being slightly closer to the sun during a wobble in its orbit. Sea level, she said, “was more than five meters higher.”

If civilization ceased greenhouse gas emissions today, CO2 levels would continue to rise for decades, Dr. Raymo said. “But that’s exactly what we need to do, turn it around immediately. Every decade we delay it gets harder and harder.” 

Dr. Raymo plans to discuss the evidence for global warming on Saturday, she said, “and talk about why earth’s climate changed naturally in the past and what that means for today’s climate and sea level.” 

And what does it mean? “It means the past is the key to the future. If we continue to put CO2 in the atmosphere, the climate will continue to warm, and has already warmed by, like, two degrees Fahrenheit in the last 120 years. That rate of warming is accelerating as the rate of CO2 input increases.” 

There is a great deal of vested interest in civilization’s continued use of fossil fuels. “But it’s a simple problem in the end,” Dr. Raymo said. “We know without a doubt that if you put more CO2 into the atmosphere, the surface of the planet is going to heat up. All climate data from the past that has been developed over decades of research do nothing to contradict that physical observation, and in fact all of earth’s history has reflected that fact. So it comes down to the choices that we make as citizens about reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. It’s not hard.” Rather, the problem is one of political will.

Despite the growing manifestations of climate crisis and an American government largely hostile to science and facts, Dr. Raymo said that she maintains faith in the power of democracy, and pointed to researchers around the world who are collecting data “to show people what’s happening.” There is a growing recognition, she said, “that this is a real problem.”

--

Correction: Dr. Raymo as the director of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Core Repository in Palisades, N.Y. An earliery version of this article misidentified her as director of the observatory as a whole. 

Democrats on the South Fork will have to “fight in a way that we’ve never been asked to before” to elect Perry Gershon, the party’s candidate to represent New York’s First Congressional District, the actor Alec Baldwin told those assembled at a fund-raiser on Sunday at the East Hampton residence of Loida Lewis. 

While ample criticism was aimed at Representative Lee Zeldin, the Republican incumbent who is seeking a third term, President Trump was the object of greater scorn among those who spoke at the gathering, including Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York’s 12th District, in New York City. 

“What choice do we have but to get ready?” Mr. Baldwin asked, imploring the gathering to donate to Mr. Gershon’s campaign. Until political campaigns are publicly financed, “we have to muscle up,” he said, “because the other side of the aisle isn’t going to reach across to us on anything.” 

Mr. Baldwin, who lives in Amagansett, decried the “extreme partisanship” dividing the major political parties, but said that Republican support for President Trump is soft, with many “reluctant Republicans” in the district. “Not all of them, but many are ‘Give me a reason to vote for a Democrat and I will,’ ” he said. “That’s what we need to do.” 

“We are really here because we want a check on Mr. Trump,” Ms. Maloney said. There is nothing more important, she told the assembled, than electing a Democratic majority “that can be a wall, a check on the president and the Republican Party, which now controls the executive, the Senate, and the House.” 

Mr. Gershon, who lives in East Hampton, told the gathering that his campaign is about unity, that Americans and Long Islanders are tired of “the poisonous rhetoric that’s going on” at the national level. Mr. Zeldin, he said, “is a major part of it.” 

He is seeking office to counter Mr. Trump, Mr. Gershon said. “But beating Lee Zeldin is about much more than just fighting Trumpism. It’s about representing the people of New York 1, and trying to make people’s lives better.” 

That, he said, means protecting the environment, ensuring universal health care, and building a green energy economy in the district. Wind turbines should be manufactured here, he said, as part of an effort to “change the whole wage scale back to what we used to be: a pro-labor, labor-based, union, manufacturing economy. That’s a vision I’m going to talk about throughout Brookhaven, and throughout New York 1. And that’s how we’re going to get people to the polls.” 

The incumbent congressman is an extremist, Mr. Gershon said, evidenced by his co-sponsorship of the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, which would require all states to recognize concealed carry permits granted by other states and allow permit holders to carry a concealed weapon in school zones in any state. Should it become law, it would “take down the New York State SAFE Act,” he said, referring to the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act of 2013, which requires universal background checks on gun purchases, increases penalties for people who use illegal guns, and mandates life in prison without parole for anyone who murders a first responder. Mr. Zeldin, he said, is beholden to the National Rifle Association. 

“I literally had the Police Department of the City of New York call me and say, ‘Kill this bill if there’s any way you can,’ ” Ms. Maloney said. “Every police department, every law enforcement in the country is opposed to this really ill-advised law.”

“As long as we’ve got people talking about these issues, there’s no way Zeldin gets re-elected,” Mr. Gershon said, predicting that his opponent is “going to try to change the dialogue to make it about anything other than the issues.” 

Mr. Baldwin said he is struck by “how people have been seduced by the Republicans into voting against their own interests.” Crafting comprehensive, enduring policy that would help the most people is difficult, he said; Republican legislators “don’t even bother.” Referring to the separation of undocumented children and parents caught crossing the border, he said that the Republican response is “Who cares?” “These are all shortcuts which wind up having a lot of collateral damage in our society,” he said. 

No one, he said, “envisioned the threat that Donald Trump brought of destroying everything that [President] Obama created,” but “now we’re energized again, and that middle group of people who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump are going to vote Democratic again. As long as we have a good quality, unifying message, we will get those voters. That’s the key.”

Despite Ms. Maloney’s pleas, Mr. Baldwin did not perform an impersonation of Mr. Trump, as he has regularly done on “Saturday Night Live.” “Haven’t you all had enough of it?” he asked, to a chorus of “No!” 

Nonetheless, Ms. Maloney said of Mr. Gershon, “I’m on his team. We need him there fighting for us.” 

As she left the gathering, she and Mr. Gershon spoke once more. “Congressman,” she said, “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

As part of an effort to bring more business to East Hampton Village’s commercial district, Steven Ringel, the executive director of the East Hampton Chamber of Commerce, revealed on Tuesday that he had a plan for a weekly event — part farmers market, part fair — that would take place right in the heart of the village. 

The spot Mr. Ringel has in mind is known as Percy’s Way, which runs east from Newtown Lane, just south of Babette’s restaurant, to the Schenck Fuels Services building. The event, as Mr. Ringel envisioned it, would take place on Fridays between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., with 30 to 40 booths set up by farmers, artisans, and nonprofit groups. There would be live music, and a children’s play area with attractions such as a bouncy house and a climbing wall.

 “It would be a true community gathering place and people could also do their shopping,” Mr. Ringel said. Before the day was over, however, Mr. Ringel said village officials had nixed the idea, calling the location too dangerous, partly because of its proximity to the Schenck fuel tanks. 

At a May 4 meeting of the East Hampton Village Board, Mr. Ringel had talked about an earlier plan to have a farmers market in the village. He had been exploring the relocation of the existing East Hampton Farmers Market, held on Friday mornings in the parking lot of Nick and Toni’s restaurant on North Main Street, to Herrick Park and rescheduling it to Saturday mornings so that retail stores could benefit from additional shoppers. 

Kate Plumb, the coordinator of the East Hampton market, said at the time that the main obstacles to that location would be the lack of parking, and the fact that farmers and other vendors are already booked on Saturday mornings, at farmers markets in Springs, Sag Harbor, and Westhampton Beach.

On Tuesday, Mr. Ringel said he had not yet conferred with vendors to see if Friday afternoon would be practical, but he believed it would be an easy transition for those selling at the East Hampton Farmers Market to set up shop later in the day in the heart of the village. “They can just take a couple of hours off and come over to our market,” he said. 

Ms. Plumb said this week that a few vendors may have been amenable to that, noting that some had made time for the now-defunct farmers market at the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, which took place on Friday afternoons. 

As for parking, Mr. Ringel said that vendors would be able to use an area behind Schenck Fuels to unload their goods and that the village’s Reutershan parking lot would accommodate customers.  

Chris Schenck, the owner of Schenck Fuels, said he had had a preliminary conversation with Barbara Layton, the owner of Babette’s restaurant and a member of the chamber’s board, about the possibility of allowing the area around his business to be used for the market. Although he was open to the idea, he said his tenants would have to be consulted before he could sign off on it. “It’s putting the cart before the horse,” he said of Mr. Ringel’s proposal.

As it turned out, he was right.

Part of the appeal of going out in your early 20s is that you never know where you’ll end up. You start at a bar, maybe, arrange yourself in line of the wind, and put your sails up. 

There is a skill to it, partying. If you catch the wind right, you might end up with some pre-rehab child stars at Moby’s SoHo loft, where you’ve just been framed for clogging his toilet — Natasha Lyonne set me up — at a barbecue in Brighton Beach with a slew of Russian mobsters and a former roller-skating champion; stealing the mike from the lead singer of the B-52s at the Elbow Room’s karaoke night as Tatiana von Furstenberg and Sam Ronson look on, bored; at the Plaza on New Year’s Eve counting down the strokes to midnight with a room full of well-dressed strangers; at a Turkish hookah spot with Stevie Van Zandt, who buys you a take-home plate of baklava after he hears your mother is Greek; in the bathroom at the Copacabana, snorting coke post-show with a Latin singer who jerks off into the sink after you wipe your nose and say, “I’m not that kind of girl.” Ah, youth! I almost never end up anywhere these days.

I am only ever where I’ve planned to be. I go to parties to which I’m invited, dinners I’ve arranged long in advance — trying to match schedules with friends, a job in itself — or else cancel plans and stay home with a book, the most exclusive party of all. 

—

At the clambake I sat next to a friendly couple with five kids. “We’re not Catholics,” the wife explained. “He had three and I had two from a previous marriage. We met at a divorce support group.” 

I wondered aloud if I should attend divorce support groups, though I’ve never been married. Maybe a good way to start? 

“My mom met my dad at a widowers’ support group and she wasn’t widowed,” she offered encouragingly. 

The long picnic tables overlooking the bay were elegantly set with white linen and fine plates. We complained of the bugs — “No-see-ums.” “Is that Latin?” — as we bonded over the application of bug spray. John’s friend Lou was in real estate, he told me, “and jiu-jitsu.” He showed me a photo of himself in a gi flanked by one of his sons. A few drinks later he put me in a wristlock and told me he liked me. 

“You want kids?” 

“Very much, but there’s no man. I’ll probably go it alone in the fall.”

“I’d love to have more kids,” he volunteered, tipsy, and began hammering out the logistics of sperm donation. Is this how a single 40-year-old woman gets lucky? 

We ate lobster as fireworks exploded over the bay. The restorative properties of CBD were discussed at length. “It’s great for arthritis and anxiety. Like weed, but without the high.” It was the kind of party Odysseus might host after he’s been back in Ithaca a while. “I can’t [eat lotos] anymore, it makes me paranoid.” His adventures behind him, a 50-something Odysseus hires a caterer.

“We’re going to smoke a cigarette,” the friendly wife announced. “The real kind that burns!” she said before heading to the driveway.

I wanted to follow — if every cigarette takes five minutes off your life, smoking is a gesture of terrible luxury. “I can afford to lose time, I have plenty of it,” youth says, and when you’re middle-aged, the illicit cigarette thrills all the more. You’ve been building for a long time — a career, a home, a family — what a fine fire it would all make. A vape won’t suffice, for it destroys nothing; the price is what you’re after. You want to pay with your life, to feel again that you’ve plenty of it. Here’s five minutes. “I’ll have one, too.”

“You coming to the next party?” the jiu-jitsu master asked. 

I looked at my watch and yawned reasonably — 10 p.m. “Nothing good ever happens after 10 p.m.,” I said, but then, a wind coming off the bay, the open sea calling Odysseus back. . . .

We pulled up near the Sag Harbor wharf and approached a great yacht docked at the end. Through a window, hanging from a doorknob, was a tall black pair of Louboutins, like a pirate flag. A breeze stirred my dress. I took off my shoes and stepped aboard. 

Young women in mini-dresses decorated the older, pot-bellied men in Hawaiian shirts sprawled on the rear banquette. A cabin boy asked if I’d have a drink. No, thank you. I peeked into the cabin, weaved through the standing guests as dance music played, and walked all the way to the back before reaching a bedroom and turning around. 

“What’ya up to?” said a gray-haired man exiting the bathroom. He wore a necklace that flashed. I shrugged. He leaned in and looked me up and down. “You’re a fuckin’ hoot. Y’ave a boyfriend?” 

I followed a circular stairway into the control room, where a 50-something anesthesiologist I’d met earlier at Polo Hamptons sat with four young women he’d picked up at Bilboquet’s bar. I looked over the various controls and the surveillance video of what was happening lower aft, and spotted my friends amid the crowd. 

They came up from another stair to meet me on the rear, where a Jacuzzi was bubbling like a cauldron, only instead of three old witches surrounding it, there were three young women within it. A Macbeth-aged man circled, as we three stood off to the side.

“Whose boat is this again?”

“Len’s.”

“What does Len do?”

“He’s in business. You know. He’s a businessman.”

“John!” said Macbeth, stepping away from the boiling girls. 

He and John were in the same poker club, Macbeth told me, before introducing himself.

“They call me Big Dick.”

“Nobody calls you Big Dick. You can’t give yourself a nickname.”

“I’m not. They call me Big Dick because I place such heavy bets.”

“You wanna hit this?”

A vaporizer was produced. 

They passed it back and forth, unable to find the button.

“I can’t find the spot.”

“Give it to me, I always find the spot,” said MacDick, looking at me as if I’d asked the definition of leer. “But it’s easier if I use my tongue.”

MacDick took a hit, then drifted back toward the girls for a second prophecy.

“Should I get in?” said Lou, nodding toward the soup.

John and I explored the rest of the boat. We followed a path wrapping the ship’s edge, passing a small parapet set up with chairs, which seemed a great place to do away with Natalie Wood.

At the bow: 

“I’ve known him forever, like two years. But it’s weird. You know Len, but you don’t know Len. You know what I mean?” 

“Totally. You know him but you never really know him, you know?” 

We stood and looked east, toward the searchlights and purple strobe coming from a party on the shore. 

“Should we check it out?”

—

“Double, double toil and trouble.”

The girls were still boiling, and I worried they were getting prune fingers. 

John: “How long have they been in there?” 

MacDick circled unsteadily, holding his vape pen before the face of one, then, waxing Shakespearean, said, “Suck it. Suck it all the way.”

Then Lou put John in a chokehold, pointed to me and said, “Sperm,” and stripped to his underwear. “I’m getting in!” 

The hot tub overflowed with the addition of a fourth body. 

“We’re all one big happy family,” said a deckhand, bringing towels for the girls. “You can look, but you can’t touch,” said he, before the clock struck 12 and the girls, like Cinderallas employed by a top escort firm, rose and left.

The wind died. 

John said we should have dinner this week, maybe at his house because it’s his week with his daughter. 

I said I was overwhelmed with work but would check my schedule. 

Lou bubbled alone.

The Surfrider Foundation, in conjunction with Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the Peconic Baykeeper, has found the quality of the water at South Fork ocean beaches to be just fine. An annual report also noted that Napeague Harbor in Amagansett and several parts of Long Island Sound have never been observed as unsafe for swimming. 

In a summary of data from 2017, the groups identified patterns of enterococcus bacteria, a bacterium found in the guts of red-blooded animals like ducks, dogs, and humans. Its presence is evidence of fecal contamination because it doesn’t normally come from other sources. 

  The report confirmed that open water or water that moves consistently displays lower levels of the bacteria than water in still ponds and lakes. The data also show low levels of enterococcus during the winter and dry seasons. 

 Ditch Plain in Montauk is a slight outlier in terms of fecal contamination, however. Of 29 samples collected in 2017, 7 percent exceeded safe levels. 

At Three Mile Harbor, 3 of the 15 samples taken in 2017 were found to contain unsafe levels. One fifth of the samples collected at Settlers Landing,  off Three Mile Harbor, exceeded healthy levels and almost a third of samples collected at Lake Montauk were found to be unsafe. Fresh Pond in Amagansett contained unhealthy levels of bacteria in 29 percent of samples. 

At Georgica Pond, of 25 samples, 20 percent of those taken near Montauk Highway were unsafe and 24 percent of those taken near Georgica and Cove Hollow Roads in East  Hampton Village were unsafe. 

Water samples are collected weekly during the summer, biweekly in the fall and spring, and monthly during the winter. Samples are collected by volunteers and, in East Hampton, are taken to a lab at the office of Concerned Citizens of Montauk or, in Southampton, to Chris Gobler’s lab at the Stony Brook Southampton campus. 

At Havens Beach in Sag Harbor, where recent water-flow improvements have been completed, only a 3 percent occurrence of contamination was recorded in 29 samples in 2017.

A few other locations in Southampton Town also frequently displayed higher than healthy levels of the bacteria, including Sagaponack Pond, where 41 percent of samples were cited as unsafe, Mecox Bay, with 26 percent of samples deemed unhealthy, and Circle Beach, off Noyac Road, with unhealthy results in 25 percent of samples taken from the estuary and 22 percent of those from the bay beach. 

The report also identified a seasonal nature to the data. Fecal contamination in most ponds and waterways is generally a problem in the summer, which means it is probably related to the biggest seasonal migration of all: the flock of humans that alight on the East End on Memorial Day and stay until Labor Day. 

“You would normally expect higher levels during the summer, because of the warmer water temperature, but with levels this high you get into fecal contamination, either by humans or waterfowl,” Kevin McAllister, the founder of DefendH2O, a nonprofit organization, said. He said the seasonal migration of ducks and geese could be responsible for some seasonal fluctuations, but “most of the waterfowl around here don’t migrate anymore. Like the Canada geese, they used to go south for the winter, now they just hang out here.” 

Mr. McAllister identified the likely culprit in the elevated enterococcus counts as residential septic systems. “The water table has risen four inches in the past 20 years, and when the groundwater comes up to the septic tanks, the bacteria can’t be filtered out by the soil.” 

Septic systems gradually leech their contents into the ground, but it is not a problem as long as they are surrounded by dry soil and rocks that filter out harmful bacteria, including enterococcus. East Hampton and Southampton Towns have begun requiring new residential construction to install modern systems and there also are some rebate programs for upgrades.

Stormwater runoff can cause problems with enterococcus because it brings the water table higher. The Surfrider-C.C.O.M. report identified this as the reason water quality was so bad following Hurricane Jose. The problem is likely to get worse, according to Mr. McAllister, who said that the next 40 years will cause the water table to rise between 11 and 40 inches. 

Sewage leaking into the bays, ponds, and lakes is a problem even if nobody swims there, because it essentially makes those bodies high-capacity cesspools. The Environmental Protection Agency banned large-capacity cesspools in 2002. Much of the South Fork’s drinking water comes from Suffolk County wells, which get the water from the aquifer, which is far below the groundwater, but if the groundwater gets too contaminated, the bacteria could seep into the aquifer.

Kim Shaw, the director of natural resources for East Hampton Town, said that work has begun to investigate the underground pipes that discharge stormwater into Georgica Pond at Cove Hollow to determine a way to address high bacteria counts. 

Efforts are also underway by the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, in conjunction with the town and the State Department of Transportation, to reduce the amount of stormwater, nutrients, and bacteria entering Georgica Pond at the kayak launch and rest area on Route 27. 

Additionally, Dr. Gobler’s lab is investigating the bacteria in Georgica Pond using cutting-edge DNA source tracking. The Surfrider Foundation partnered with the Village of East Hampton and the Ladies Village Improvement Society in 2017 to plant a bioswale of native plants in the East Hampton Village Green that absorbs and filters road runoff before it flows into Town Pond, Hook Pond, and from there to the ocean. 

C.C.O.M. has also worked with the town to fund a United States Geological Survey microbial source tracking program that will help identify the sources of pollution.

To limit exposure to potentially disease-causing bacteria, the report recommends swimming at ocean or bay beaches where lifeguards are on duty, not swimming 24 to 48 hours after heavy rain, keeping kids and pets out of streams and runoff, not entering water where algae bloom signs are posted, and rinsing with fresh water before eating or leaving the beach. The full report can be found online.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, swimming in water with more than 104 colony-producing units per 100 milliliters of water can lead to health problems like urinary tract infections, endocarditis, bacteremia, wound infections, intra-abdominal and pelvic infections, gastrointestinal illness, rashes, and eye and ear infections. Enterococcus is usually found after severe rains, when runoff carries contaminants from sidewalks and roofs into the water.

Editor's Note:

A paragraph in this story regarding Kim Shaw, the director of Natural Resources for the Town of East Hampton, and her views about the water testing has been removed while its accuracy is being rechecked. Ms. Shaw and several others have described the statements in that paragraph, including a quotation apparently attributed to her in error, as false.