The Paul Robeson Foundation will begin a yearlong celebration of the 100th birthday of the renowned singer, actor, athlete, scholar, and civil rights activist with a party Saturday evening in Sag Harbor.

Virginia and Earl Arrington will host the event, at 66 Milton Avenue, in the Azurest neighborhood, from 6 to 9 p.m. It will feature cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and music - recordings of the late Mr. Robeson's internationally famous bass-baritone, of course.

Youth has its advantages in this context: No donation will be asked of persons under 17, while tickets for adults 34 and under are $35 per person, $75 per couple. For those 35 and over, tickets are $100 for individuals and $150 for couples.

According to William Pickens, the founding president of the foundation, the proceeds will fund a college scholarship for a student from Sag Harbor, who will be a Paul Robeson Scholar. The award will be made in time for the actual centennial on April 9, 1998.

Paul Robeson Jr. and his wife, Marilyn Robeson, frequent visitors to the South Fork, will address the gathering on Saturday, as will Mr. Pickens, who has been active here with the Harbor for Boys and Girls and the Sag Harbor Initiative.

The younger Mr. Robeson, an electrical engineer and translator of Russian and German, lectures frequently on civil rights and his father's life story.

Foundation leaders will unveil a calendar of events for the yearlong centennial commemoration, and explain the organization's mission, programs, and plans for the future. They will also create a "Robeson Remembered Corner," a spot on the Arrington grounds where guests will be videotaped talking about their memories of Mr. Robeson and/or how he influenced their lives.

In addition to the scholars program, for outstanding African American undergraduates, the foundation will administer a fellows program, "for uniquely talented world citizens pursuing a graduate degree in the performing arts," Mr. Pickens said.

The committee for Saturday's event includes dozens of prominent South Fork residents, among them Kathy and Ken Chenault, Richard V. Clarke, Helen and Edgar Doctorow, Betty Friedan, Barbara and Earl Graves, Shahara and Bruce LLewel lyn, Clem and Doug Pugh, Daniel and Joanna Rose, Barbara Smith and Dan Gasby, and Maryann and Arch Whitehead.

Necrophilia is out. Lesbians are in, especially in vampire movies. Men are underappreciated. Prostitutes are true heroines who are unfairly defined by the few victim-losers among them. Americans should be free to self-medicate but not to drive a train while doing it.

This is the world as Camille Paglia sees it. The controversial and confrontational author came Monday night to Guild Hall to chat with Joy Behar, a comedian and television personality, in front of a packed house. As Ms. Behar promised, Ms. Paglia could be counted on for thought-provoking talk, "even if you want to smack her."

A faculty member at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and facilitator of "Ask Camille," an Internet column sponsored by Salon magazine, Ms. Paglia is the author of several books, among them "Vamps and Tramps" and "Sexual Personae." She is also a defender of soft porn and all manner of uninhibited sexuality, and a declared enemy of feminists who, as Ms. Paglia has argued, endanger women by portraying them as perpetual victims.

Classic Paglia

Ms. Behar, a former radio talk show host, is one of four female hosts of "The View," an offbeat news and chat show that premiered on ABC that morning. She has been described, by her own publicity people, as a Bronx Renaissance woman. She appeared in Woody Allen's "Manhattan Murder Mystery" and Nora Ephron's "This Is My Life" and covered the Democratic National Convention for Comedy Central.

An occasional interviewer of famous personalities for the 92nd Street Y, which sponsored the program at Guild Hall, Ms. Behar is renting a house here for the season. She opened the discussion Monday by asking the urbane, perpetually dressed in black and gray, and irascible Ms. Paglia whether she liked the beach. The response was classic Paglia:

"Ah, the ocean, the ocean, the ocean. Primal, archetypal, elemental," she said, her hands making larger and larger waves in the air and her voice reaching seductively toward a crescendo.

Like A Machete

Then the hammer dropped, with stern conviction: "You know, nature is not mentioned in the humanities. All you people sending your children to Harvard, they're not learning about nature. . . . Everything is socially constructed."

It took just seconds for the two women to attain a sort of rhythm, with Ms. Behar tossing out some current affair with the kooky, anti-intellectual humor for which she is popular, Ms. Paglia hacking into it with the famous intellect she wields like a machete, and Ms. Behar closing the discussion with another of her Bronxish one-liners.

"Did you hear that men have 40 billion extra brain cells? And who cares?" she asked.

Ms. Paglia named those extra cells "the annex," where "extreme criminality and extreme genius" are born.

"Men are mutilated beings," she declared, using by way of an example the fascination they (and a few "gonzo women") have for tinkering with cars, which she labeled an urge to be "lost in the machine."

Drew Laughter

What about the story last week of a wife who was awarded $1 million after suing her husband's secretary for breaking up her marriage? "If that keeps up, Hillary will be a multimillionaire," quipped Ms. Behar.

Ms. Paglia launched into a discourse on the "infantile" and "litigious" nature of modern society. "In the old days, that woman would have just gone and smacked that secretary around," she declared.

She drew laughter from the audience a dozen times, once by recalling the Boston Globe reporter who was fined $1,000 and ordered to sensitivity training after a female co-worker overheard him using the word "pussy-whipped," and again by telling of a college English teacher who "felt sexually harassed" by a print of Goya's "The Naked Maja" hanging in her classroom.

Ellen's Coming Out

Ms. Paglia favors narrower guidelines for what constitutes sexual harassment, the presence of some verifiable quid pro quo being primary. She contended the current rush to file sexual harassment complaints does not result from an increase in bad behavior: "There are snitches running around. . . . I see sycophancy as more of a danger to the social fabric than abuse of power."

Returning to the betrayed wife's lawsuit, Ms. Behar suggested the amorous secretary who was fined $1 million "could sue the husband for sexual harassment and make up the money."

They agreed Ellen Degeneres's coming-out episode on the television show "Ellen" was anti-climactic, given all the hype, and her new real-life girlfriend, Anne Heche, was an opportunistic and undignified pseudo-lesbian. Ms. Paglia predicted she would do to Ms. Degeneres what Yoko Ono did to John Lennon - "she sucked all the jokes out of him."

Masculine Ideal

Drawing on her experience as an educator, she commented that young women are more apt these days to experiment with same-sex sex.

"Men love to watch women making love. Do you think it's because they're trying to figure out how to do it right?" Ms. Behar prompted.

The audience roared, but Ms. Paglia, uncharacteristically demure, simply called it an attempt to return to the womb, where life is without responsibility or work. She then went on an extended lecture that linked, as is typical of her writing, modern sexual behavior with references to classical art and literature.

For example, she said that all things masculine were labeled "destructive" during the 1970s, when domestic violence first became a cause celebre, but said she was thankful homosexual men - they form a greater part of her personal community than homosexual women, she said - retained an appreciation of "the idealism in masculinity" as it is depicted in Greek sculpture.

Men Get No Credit

"Feminist rhetoric" was dishonest, she asserted, by ignoring all that men had done for women over the centuries - "roofing, for example." Also, contending with natural disasters, fighting wars, finding food, and so on. "Men have done that for centuries and never got anything for it," she said.

"They're getting laid that night," Ms. Behar observed wryly.

Ms. Paglia was undaunted, though. She claimed men have given women safe places.

"But the men create the unsafe space they have to protect the women from. There's a conundrum," the interviewer observed.

Still, Ms. Paglia said, appliances invented by men give her time to teach and write. Nonetheless, women were happier in pre-Westinghouse times, she said. "Those women had a fantastic community with each other."

Conflicting Labels

In earlier times, extended families lived together. "The nuclear family," she declared, "is poisonous."

During the two-hour discussion, she offered a variety of labels for herself, a few seeming at conflict with each other - libertarian, Clinton Democrat, Amazon feminist, pagan - and also described herself as "an Aries, I'm so simplistic. . . . I don't believe in currying favor with the powerful. That's why I'm never in the Hamptons."

"So you see the people in the Hamptons as a bunch of ass-kissing types?" asked Ms. Behar. The audience laughed good-naturedly.

"I see the Hamptons as an appendix to the media establishment in New York," Ms. Paglia shot back. It was, perhaps, too well-aimed; there were a few embarrassed chuckles from the audience.

Power Over Men

One male spectator observed there had been much talk that evening about the power of men over women, and none about the power of women over men. Ms. Paglia agreed.

"Woman rules the emotional world," she said, adding that men as a result suffered from the "push-pull of wanting independence and to return to the womb."

"No wonder they don't talk," said Ms. Behar.

Had she been born in an earlier time, with the old societal limitations on what women could do, Ms. Paglia said, she "would have been a nun. And a very bitchy nun I would have been too."

"Yeah, and forget that vow of silence," rejoined Ms. Behar.

As civil disobedience goes, the event resembled more a caper put on by the Merry Pranksters than a protest staged by Gandhi. About a dozen people, some clad in festive costumes, climbed on a ragtag armada of rusty English three-speeds, new mountain bikes, and even an aging tandem at Marine Park on Friday night to challenge the village prohibition against bicycle riding on Main Street.

The group's first pass up Main Street went off without a hitch as it met no resistance from the village's youthful summer traffic control officers. But when the group made a second pass, the officers radioed to police, who swooped down on the protesters in two cruisers.

While one policeman drove his car with lights flashing at the rear, another placed his car across the street's center line - impeding traffic more than the bicyclists had, said one observer - and back in front of the riders in an effort to cut them off.

Police succeeded in corraling the group in front of the Apple Bank, where they gave them tickets.

The scene drew a steady stream of curious onlookers, many of whom offered the riders support. But one motorist, apparently caught up in the hostility that has been seen on occasion this summer, called from his car window, "That's illegal!"

"That's the idea," answered a pedestrian.

"Well, then does that mean I can back my car into them?" the motorist responded.

It will be once more into the breach of all that is good and holy on Saturday as the Artists and Writers tangle at East Hampton's Herrick Park in their annual softball confrontation, which, some will recall, the Writers won 6-5 last year on a bobble by the Artist's third baseman, Ed Hollander, in the bottom of the ninth.

Although The Star promised last week that the lineups would appear in this issue, the fact is they will not be penciled in by the managers, Leif Hope for the Artists and Ken Auletta for the Writers, until just before gametime at 3 p.m. Eartha Kitt is a definite, however, said Mr. Hope, to sing the National Anthem.

Be that as it may, the Writers' lineup is pretty much as it was last year, with Carl Bernstein, Ben Bradlee, George Plimpton, Mike Lupica, Auletta, Richard Reeves, Walter Isaacson, Bruce Weber, Mark Green, and Mort Zuckerman leading the way.

Not To Worry

On Tuesday, Mr. Auletta quashed a rumor that a youth movement was afoot which would eliminate two of The Game's fixtures - Mr. Plimpton, the jack of many trades, and Mr. Bradlee, the former editor of The Washington Post.

"We've got 150 years between us, you know," Mr. Plimpton told The Star.

Mr. Auletta confirmed Tuesday that Mr. Plimpton and Mr. Bradlee were indeed on the roster, and shrugged off the "purge" rumor that Mr. Hope was rumored to have nurtured.

As for the Artists, Mr. Hope said he had lined up Cindy Crawford, Chevy Chase, Alec Baldwin, Betsy McCaughey Ross ("the art of the possible"), Gerry Cooney, Roy Scheider, Lori Singer, David Belafonte, and Gerry O'Connell in addition to the usual suspects, who include Dennis Lawrence, Eric Ernst, Billy Hofmann, Stu Sleppin, Hollander, and Jeff Meizlik.

No Marty Lyons

"No, Marty Lyons isn't playing this year," Mr. Hope said, in answer to a question. Mr. Lyons, a former New York Jets linebacker, caused gasps last year with a Ruthian clout high over the 20-foot tennis court fence in left field that enabled the Artists to knot the score at 5 in the top of the ninth. "The Writers screamed so much about him that I yielded. The fact that they won the game, I guess, didn't matter."

He would stick with Mr. Cooney, the former heavyweight boxing champion, however. Last year, Mr. Hope billed Mr. Cooney as "a practitioner of the manly art of self- defense."

"Ah, yes, another noted artist," Mr. Auletta said, tongue in cheek. "Andy Lack [the president of NBC News] is still recuperating from their collision at first base last year."

"Easy To Get Them Mad"

"It's so easy to get the writers mad," said Mr. Hope. "Ever notice how their eyes get redder and redder as the game goes on?"

"Of one thing you can be sure," said Mr. Auletta. "Leif will cheat. He knows he can't win fair and square."

The Artists have won three of the last four games, though the modern-day series stands at 17-11 in the Writers' favor.

The Game's beneficiaries, as they have been in the recent past, are the Retreat, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse, the East Hampton Day Care Center, and East End Hospice.

Tickets will cost $8 at the gate. The sponsors include Esquire magazine, Coca-Cola, Tag Heuer, London Jewelers, Moet & Chandon, Sun Rescue, and Brooklyn Beer. The Game is presented by the Laundry restaurant of East Hampton. The rain date is Aug. 23, again at 3 p.m.

It's happened before, and it's happening again: Cars parked illegally in the lot behind the Bank of New York's 66 Main Street offices are being towed. Actually, for four years the bank has not seen fit to do any towing, but on Friday nine drivers returned to the lot only to find their vehicles gone.

Balcuns' Service Station on North Main Street was hired to do the job. Linda Balcuns said Monday that she was too busy to confirm the number of cars towed. She did say that security guards the bank has hired to keep non-bank customers out of the lot during business hours were "quitting right and left because people are so nasty." There was no guard on duty the day the cars were towed, bank officials said.

East Hampton Village Police Chief Glen Stone metz said the bank had informed the Police Department of its towing plans, thereby relieving police of chasing down possible reports that cars were stolen from the lot. "The village can't enforce a private lot," the chief said, "but I'm glad they called to inform us."

Marion Stark, the bank's branch manager, declined to return calls, referring them instead to Paul Lyden from the Bank of New York's Manhattan public relations office, who said Ms. Stark was "not allowed to talk to the press."

The signs in the lot indicate that parking is for bank customers only, "who can't do their banking" if others park there, Mr. Lyden said. The public can use the space, however, once the bank closes for the day at 3 p.m. on weekdays, noon on Saturdays.

Under gray skies hinting of rain, Rick Shalvoy rowed out of Montauk Harbor yesterday, resuming his quest to circumnavigate Long Island - 240 miles in all.

Only a day earlier, Mr. Shalvoy had been asleep in Dr. Gavino Mapula's Montauk office while he received a salt and sugar based solution intravenously. No one thought he would or could continue.

Mr. Shalvoy, a 44-year-old lifeguard who lives in East Islip and the father of four, began his journey from Jones Beach on Sunday. Fifty-two miles later he was forced to turn into Moriches Inlet after being slammed by a rough sea. He said the Coast Guard told him the inlet was not navigable, but, along with Fabian Olaya, who was traveling with him in a separate pilot boat, he managed to avoid grounding and continue on.

For Research

The trip in the 19-foot surf boat is being made in memory of a friend and former classmate, Robin Goldstein Roche, who died of breast cancer six years ago. The two attended Freeport High School together.

Mr. Shalvoy is hoping to raise awareness of the disease and funds for research. He is being sponsored by the Long Island Breast Cancer Action Coalition and the Carol M. Baldwin Breast Cancer Fund, either of which would appreciate donations.

On Monday, Mr. Shalvoy completed the 40-mile row from Moriches Inlet to Hither Hills State Park. When he arrived at the park, he found that lifeguards there had prepared a huge pasta dinner for him. But, according to Mark Hansen, the senior lifeguard, who is a friend, Mr. Shalvoy only wanted to shower and get back in the boat.

"Felt Great"

"I felt great - the wind direction and the moon were all in my favor," said Mr. Shalvoy. He left Hither Hills at around 8 p.m., rounded the Montauk Lighthouse at about 9:30 p.m., and finally docked at the Montauk Yacht Club at 12:10 a.m. feeling totally exhausted, according to Mr. Hansen.

That leg of the journey turned out to be exhausting. Mr. Hansen said that when Mr. Shalvoy turned the Montauk Point he was impeded by the southwest winds that had carried him forward on the south, or "backside," of the Island.

Once ashore, he was taken by car back to Hither Hills, where he went to sleep on an air mattress in the lifeguard shack. During the night, however, he awoke, complained of nauseu, and had trouble getting back to sleep.

At Dr. Mapula's office in the morning, he was diagnosed as dehydrated and told he needed liquids and rest. When the IV drip was completed, he went to back to Hither Hills and got some.

In Good Shape

After hearing that Mr. Shalvoy had resumed his trip, Dr. Mapula said, "He's in good shape. As long as he paces himself he should have no problem completing his journey."

Mr. Hansen said he was shocked when Mr. Shalvoy awakened him at 7 a.m. yesterday and said he was ready to go. Mr. Hansen said he questioned Mr. Shalvoy about the weather, which looked gloomy, and was told that only lightning would force him off the water.

As Mr. Shalvoy prepared to take off, a small group gathered. Someone asked if he had seen any interesting sea life during his journey. "I thought I saw a couple of dorsal fins near Hither Hills," he said, "but they turned out to be lobster buoys."

Mr. Shalvoy wears a huge straw hat and uses a no-name brand of sunscreen with a 45 sun protection factor, he said. He eats a lot of power bars and wheat bread and he relies on a sports drink called Professional Form Carbo Force, containing electrolytes. He downed two bottles, in fact, before leaving the Montauk Yacht Club dock. He also called home.

"I'm feeling great, don't listen to what you read in the paper," he said, and then he spoke privately to his wife, Ruth. He then conferred with Jeffrey Picken, an East Hampton resident and guidance counselor in the East Hampton School District, who was to become Mr. Shalvoy's guide to Orient Point, in a 35-foot power boat. They left Montauk at 10:45 a.m.

As he rowed past the town dock, where a family sat fishing, a woman called, "Oh, my God, it's him, the guy rowing around Long Island. Keep going, you can do it."

Mr. Shalvoy raised his arms over his head triumphantly and yelled back, "I'm going to do it."

It may be the charm for scaring the blackbirds and cowbirds out of the cornfields, but the Multi-Bang propane cannon, a noisemaker that can be heard a mile away, does not win points with the neighbors.

When Brenndon Struk set up the noisemaker behind the Amagansett Farmers Market last week, complaints from those in the line of fire weren't far behind.

The sounds could be heard from back porches, front steps, private gardens, and nearby farms. For three days, golfers at the South Fork Country Club across the road had their concentrated swings shattered by the sound of simulated gunfire.

Without some effective scare device, Mr. Struk said this week, the birds land on the corn, strip the husks down and peck at the ears, making them unsalable.

720 Minutes

The cannon creates a gunshot sound, a clap, a bang, or a boom depending on whom you ask, at irregular intervals. It can be programmed to go off once a minute, every minute and a half, then once every 45 seconds, and so on between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. - that's 720 minutes' worth of shotgun noise, although nothing is actually shot from the cannon.

"It's like Chinese water torture," Peter West said Monday. Mr. West, who lives on Amagansett's Main Street, called the police to complain about the noise on Aug. 5 at 8 p.m.

The police paid a visit to Mr. Struk, who had left the cannon on later than usual that night, to warn him he could be fined for violating the town noise ordinance if he didn't turn it off.

Superseding Law

Mr. Struk promptly informed the police that, as a farmer, he was within his rights to use such a method of crop protection, and a little research confirmed his claim.

Not only do town noise regulations provide an exception for agricultural activities between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. "including but not limited to, machinery operation and loading and unloading of produce," but a 1982 "right to farm" law in Suffolk County's code bars nuisance complaints against agricultural operations unless the activities in question adversely impact the public health and safety.

Agricultural activities may, the law says, "occur on holidays, Sundays, and weekdays, at night and in the day, and the noise, odors, dust, and fumes that are caused by them are . . . permitted as part of the exercise of this right. . . ."

County Code

The law was adopted after county legislators found that, when nonagricultural uses moved onto agricultural lands, farms often became the target of nuisance suits. The law states that "whatever nuisance may be caused to others by such uses and activities. . .is more than offset by the benefits from farming to the neighborhood and community and to society in general."

"Being this is the Hamptons, people don't want to be inconvenienced," Mr. Struk said Monday, sitting outside the bustling market he and his mother, Pat Struk, run. "That's why farmers are looking at areas off Long Island, because of all the large expensive homes bordering the fields."

Barking And Barking

Mr. Struk's fields on Old Stone Highway in Amagansett are across the street from the golf course, next to the Quail Hill Community Farm, and north of the Amagansett business district. A large parcel he has farmed for quite some time will be the site of additional holes for the South Fork Country Club in the next few years.

"We value our farmland, we love to look at the fields and eat the fresh produce," said Jane Makley, "but this one day, I couldn't believe it, I thought maybe somebody was standing there with a gun. It got me very on edge."

Ms. Makley lives on Abram's Landing Road. Her backyard faces the South Fork Country Club's golf course and looks out over the fields along Old Stone Highway. When the shotgun sounds in the nearby field started up, the blasts set her dog barking, and barking and barking. He finally got used to it, she said.

Ms. Makley said that the cannon was in operation a few years ago too, when she was dog-sitting for a Jack Russell terrier just before harvesting time. Then, she said, the barking was constant as long as the cannon was in operation.

Forget Scarecrows

"I find it so difficult to believe there is not some other way," she said of the propane-powered device. "It's an awfully high-tech, almost violent way to do it." She questioned why Mr. Struk didn't use scarecrows or something more neighbor friendly.

"It's a rather tricky thing to discuss in a mixed farming and residential community," Scott Chaskey, the head farmer at the Peconic Land Trust's Quail Hill Farm, said this week. Quail Hill, which grows produce for members rather than the market, doesn't use a propane cannon to frighten the birds.

"But I hesitate to condemn another farmer if he feels that's what he needs. They do work. We tried Scare-Eye balloons; they don't work. We had wonderful scarecrows donated by local artists; they don't work either."

1993 Incident

The Multi-Bang propane cannon is commonly used in retail farming operations, and is also a common source of neighbor complaints. In 1993 Andrew Babinski Jr., a Southampton farmer, was using a similar device in his melon and vegetable fields when neighbors brought complaints to Southampton Town officials. That town, in turn, sought advice from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets and the Cornell Cooperative Extension. The question was, did use of the cannon fall under "sound agricultural practice"?

Paul D. Curtis, a wildlife specialist with the extension, responded with a letter to the Southampton Town Planning Board. It read: "Scare devices that produce sounds other than alarm/distress calls have no persistent effect on birds," and, further, "the longevity of scare tactics is increased when an element of surprise is incorporated into the bird management effort."

Fall Use?

By this time, the Department of Agriculture had visited Mr. Babinski's farm, heard the noise, and determined that given the circumstances using the device was neither excessive nor unwarranted.

By the time Mr. Struk talked to The Star on Monday, the propane cannon had been turned off. He could have had it on for a few more days, but the backlash convinced him otherwise. He's still harvesting corn in the 12-acre field, but said he had taken a 10 to 15-percent loss from bird damage this year. Another four acres will be ready for harvesting in the fall and, if the blackbirds begin to do damage then, he said he would use the propane cannon again.

"It's just total disregard for anyone else except their damn cornfield," Mr. West said. "They'd be better off hiring somebody to go out there banging pots and pans than to create all this ill will."

Mr. West acknowledged that he shops at the Farmers Market, which is just down the street from his house. "And I complain, too," he said.

"At the same time I feel there is often undue pressure on farmers, I also feel farmers, as generally overworked as they are, have an obligation to look into every possible method that can make them get along better with their neighbors," Mr. Chaskey suggested.

A Sagaponack farmer, Ralph Dayton, had complaints about noise, dust, and spraying from his neighbors in past years, but has tried to avoid some of the problems this year by adjusting his practices.

"You'd like to think you live in a bubble. [You wonder] why don't these people understand. But the fact of the matter is, they don't have to. You have to say, if I want to do this long term in this area, I may have to change some of my methods," Mr. Dayton said.

Over in Amagansett, relative peace has been restored to the neighborhood this week. The propane cannon is at rest.

Assuming you have never eaten at the Downtown Grille in Montauk, what does the name conjure up? Breaded clams and homefries? Fourteen variations of hamburger?

Well, if that's what you assume, as I did, then you are in for a surprise that will knock your black rubber waders off.

The first hint of the attention to detail that gives this restaurant such an edge is the banked planters at the entrance, overflowing with simple summer flowers. Inside, the atmosphere is rustic chic, with lots of raw wood, stencils, and old wooden tools.

The service is attentive but so discreet the food almost seems to appear by itself. The main dining room has a high barn ceiling, so the acoustics are good, and the presentation of the food is simply outstanding.

Old Favorites Made New

A basket of onion-cornbread, rolls, and crispini struck a good first note, as did the menu. While essentially presenting old favorites in a new light - familiar faces freshened by an exotic sauce, a unusual garnish, or offbeat combinations of flavors - it's exciting, and engendered quite a bit of argument as to who was going to have what.

There's a big wine list, with sensible prices, from which we chose a Grand Cru Sonoma merlot at $23 that was just fine. The Downtown Grille also bills itself as a wine bar, which explains the large number of wines available by the glass.

However, while there are nine white wines by the glass at reasonable prices, I would quibble that having five of the eight red wines over $8 is a bit pricey.

Crabcake Pancake

Appetizers range from $6.95 to $9.95. They include two salads, one of mesclun with roasted onions and plum tomatoes and a Caesar salad, both of which were excellent.

Among those we didn't try: a crispy almond shrimp, steamed mussels with spaetzle, a grilled vegetable napoleon, and the ubiquitous grilled portobello mushroom.

Two excellent crab cakes were dark and peppery, with the crabmeat mushed rather than chopped. They were sandwiched around a crisp frisbee of potato pancake and came with two sauces, a spicy salsa and a chipotle, basil, and lemon aioli.

Put Out The Fire Oil

We also tried the shrimp and tuna spring rolls, which came with Oriental greens, lemon-thyme syrup, and a spicy sauce. They were crisp, light, and invigorating. As with the other dishes, there was a lot of passing around and discussion.

The cinnamon and coriander seared tuna carpaccio with greens, miso dressing, and mango fire oil was delicate but lacked a little something. Looking back, I suspect it was the fire oil, which its recipient may have overlooked on the plate.

Entree prices start at $10 to $14 for individual pizzas and rise to $26.95 for lobster, served in two different ways.

The Eye Eats

All the main dishes arrived on huge, round, colorful platters of different designs, with sauces drizzled in patterns and garnishes artfully arranged so that each was a small Fauve masterpiece. They say the eye eats half the food. They're right.

The "fisherman's pan roast" was in reality a dish of tricolor rigatoni in a white wine cream sauce with lots of lobster, shrimp, and scallops. It was rich and full of fishy flavor. This was my choice, and I might have enthused at length but for the fact that everyone else said theirs was even better.

There was a very plain and simple penne dish with grilled chicken, prosciutto, fresh sauteed spinach, and roasted garlic which demonstrated that with pasta, less is often more.

The Best Risotto

A special of the day, crisp softshell crab, came on a bed of the most outstanding risotto I've tasted on the East End, its glistening surface scattered with tiny capers.

How many times have you ordered a steak and regretted it by the 20th unrelentingly red-meat mouthful? Not at the Downtown Grille you won't - their grilled filet mignon with potato pancake, roasted shallots, garlic, herb farci, and red-wine rosemary sauce is divine.

(Glancing at my watch, I wonder if there's time to rush over there and have a portion all to myself before deadline.)

But it was fish - tempura fluke - that actually brought a round of applause from the table. It sailed in like a galleon, the fluke billowing above a sea of homemade potato chips, manned by a crew of phyllo-wrapped curried shrimp that looked like tiny prickly hedgehogs.

Above it, a wafer of potato with a basil leaf trapped inside waved like a flag. It was the tops, the tower of Pisa, the smile on the Mona Lisa of the evening.

The restaurant didn't fall down on desserts either, though we only tried two - the successful momentum was carried right through to coffee. The key lime pie with a very subtle ginger sorbet was lovely, and the "chocolate bag" (a real, square bag made of chocolate) filled with different ice creams and chopped banana, was great fun.

The evening was an unqualified success. Downtown Grille gives excellent value for the prices it charges and the charming visual presentation adds inestimably to the pleasure of the meal. It is highly re commended.

Car-Free Day

East Hampton

August 11, 1997

To The Editor:

News from Aspen, Colo., tells us that the townspeople are fed up to their eyebrows with endless summer festivals - as enjoyable as they are. So the folks have declared enough already and are soon going to have a much desired festival-free weekend called "The Nothing Festival."

Hey! Out here we are in over our heads with traffic, so how about we put the brakes on, one summer day a year, and have a car-free day called "The Hampton Leg On." No one is allowed to move anyplace, anywhere, anytime except on their own legs (emergencies exempt). Of course, the roads might end up butt to butt instead of bumper to bumper, but think of it! Turtles and deer, among others, could finally make it to the other side. People could walk, trot, and stop to smell the roses without a tad of road rage, fuss, or fumes. The patter of all the feet accomplishing their missions would, for one day, make us feel like we were walking on air.

"The Hamptons Leg On" could be a breeze. All you have to do is put one foot in front of the other.

Nothing to it!

BARBARA HOTCHKISS POSENER

Not A Sanctuary

East Hampton

August 9, 1997

Dear Editor,

I was disturbed by the first page story titled "Threaten Hockey Suit." It is difficult for me to imagine the audacity of anyone "demanding that a roller rink be padlocked until a decision can be made to dismantle the rink entirely or relocate it." Does anyone else have a say in this? This area has been designated for park use for 30 years. Underage drinking? Public nuisance?

Let me begin by welcoming Ms. Carla Van de Walle to the area. I understand she purchased her home in September of 1995. Didn't anyone explore this area before purchasing this house? If a person buys a house near the East Hampton Airport would you then have the right to complain about the noise from planes? If you bought a house near a school, would you then complain about the children in the schoolyard?

Lawsuits have become very trivial. Often they are frivolous and petty. Frivolous lawsuits, in my opinion, only serve to demean Ms. Van de Walle's very own profession. Let's also not forget the detrimental effect they have on our court system. East Hampton Town is not a sanctuary for one person. If it has come down to this sort of complaint having any substance at all, perhaps a time should be designated for swimming in pools and visiting with friends and family. These sounds can also be echoed up to a mile. Where does this sort of thinking begin and end? What constitutes noise?

Finally, if the town is going to impose a morning ban on hockey players, I suggest they also do that for tennis players out there in the early morning. I don't think we want to discriminate against any one particular sport, or group of people. That would not be politically correct.

To Ms. Van de Walle and her staff of lawyers, I wish them well. Instead of trying to undermine the Town Board, congratulate it for the efforts it makes for the residents, young and old, in this beautiful town. It seems to me that the Town Board has accommodated you in every way, already imposing a weekend morning ban on hockey, without anyone else's opinion being expressed. Why now threaten to sue the Town of East Hampton?

One final comment. As a hockey mom, the sound of pucks crashing against the boards is not a violent echoing sound. It's "music to my ears."

DENISE SAVARESE

Life Of Dependency

East Hampton

August 11, 1997

Dear Helen,

Re: Justin Spring's interview with Nathan Kernan (Star, Aug. 7) in which he asserts that the poet James Schuyler "lived most of his life in poverty and obscurity."

Yes, this wonderful poet was not as well known as he should have been. Before he had the label of "Pulitzer Prize-winner" attached to his name, many of us thought of him as the best unknown poet in America. But it is erroneous to say that he lived in poverty.

Mr. Kernan himself hints at the actual circumstances of Schuyler's life when he is quoted as saying that the poet "relied heavily on the generosity of friends for financial and emotional support." But this statement does not go far enough. Indeed, I would say that Schuyler depended upon his friends to such an extent that he could not have written his poems without them. He would have gone under; he would have been destroyed by his madness.

I'll be specific - and personal. It is noted in the interview that Schuyler shared an apartment with Frank O'Hara in the early '50s. Right; and he was living elsewhere by 1955, at which point I began living with O'Hara in the same apartment. All went well with Frank and me until a couple of years later when Jimmy, in the midst of his first major breakdown, moved back and, without meaning to, made life hell for us.

That was the beginning of his life of dependency: To the end, he was supported, cared for, looked after, and encouraged in his writing by scores of friends and admirers, beginning with Anne and Fairfield Porter, with whom he lived for so many years. Of course, it was no wonder that he was treated like a prince, for he was a poet of unique gifts.

Unique, too, is the story of how his glorious poems came to be written, and I hope whoever writes his biography gets it right. His was an achievement shared by many people who loved his work and were moved by his terrible plight, chief among the them the Porters, Kenward Elmslie, Donald Droll, Robert Dash, Morris Golde, Joe Brainard, Darragh Park, and, toward the end of his life, younger poets like Mr. Kernan, Tom Carey, and Eileen Myles.

Now, lest one get the impression that I am being self-serving, let me make clear that I do not claim to be one of the people who came to Jimmy's rescue. Like Frank O'Hara, I recognized from the outset that I wasn't up to the task. "I'm getting a place of my own," I suddenly announced to Frank one Sunday afternoon, near my wit's end, after some especially unsettling behavior of Jimmy's. "Don't leave without me," said Frank.

Jimmy didn't stay long in the East 49th Street apartment after we moved out because there was no way he could live alone and look after himself. How fortunate, then, that others appeared in the breach to save him from a tragic end!

Sincerely,

JOE LeSUEUR

Beach Stickers

East Hampton

August 11, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray,

I highly take offense to the response by David Goodman to Julian Knaster's letter regarding designations on beach stickers. Were it not for the "residents of East Hampton Town supporting the small number of "village" residents at the "village" beaches and village shops and services, where would the Village of East Hampton be? How many villagers are there to support the services, no matter how limited the services may be (as described by Marilyn Bregman in the July 31 edition of letters to the editor), at Main and other village beaches? Village folk do not have to pay at all.

Although another writer in the Aug. 7 letters described the way it has been at Main Beach, that is not the way it now is. He is not there daily as many of us are to see the general decline and lax attitude of the beach workers, the dirt, and the dog . . .

If the "residents" and "summer renters" did not pay for beach parking stickers, villagers could not sustain their wonderful beach. The village is so small and so gerimandered that we are precluded from being residents. The old power elite survives, but we pay for you and your "village resident" permits.

Sincerely,

SUSAN AMERLING

Return Rights

Sag Harbor

July 24, 1997

Dear Editor:

We have finally been sold out by the people we elected to protect us.

Again, we as baymen were told we could not catch shellfish in Three Mile Harbor due to the fireworks. Let's not stop polluting our bays; Let's stop our local baymen from working.

We called East Hampton Town Hall to be told that boats cannot be restricted at the fireworks because, after all, it is a tradition.

Our family tradition for 13 generations has been fishing and shellfishing. We now know how the community feels about us. We don't want to ruin their fun so we can work.

Local, hard-working people are being punished so our town can provide fun and games. Let's get our priorities straight. Return rights to the baymen.

By haulseining, we were in the way of the sun and fun people, so they stopped us.

An overload of boats were allowed in our harbors, and shellfish grounds were closed.

Houses were allowed on wetlands and too close to beaches, and again waters were closed.

Wake up. Stop allowing pollution. But no one really cares. Money talks.

FRED and CAROLE HAVENS

Please address correspondence to [email protected]

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

Shana Alexander, pioneer girl reporter, early feminist, award-winning print and television journalist and commentator, and author of nine nonfiction books, set her wine glass on a table behind her house on a recent windy afternoon and talked amusedly about her current work-in-progress.

As the gusts blasted across the potato fields and her two miniature poodles barked to have their rubber toys thrown again and again, her jubilant laugh carried the heady mood along, whipping up a kind of supercharged high.

"My new book's called 'Haunted by Elephants,' " she said, "and that's what I am - haunted, hooked, obsessed."

Hard To Breed

The infatuation began in 1961, when, as a young writer for Life magazine living in Los Angeles with her then husband Stephen and their adopted daughter, Kathy, Ms. Alexander heard that an elephant in the Portland Zoo might be pregnant. If brought to term, the calf would be the first ever born in captivity.

"Elephants are very hard to breed, like me," said Ms. Alexander. She was drawn to the story after being subjected, as a young wife, to humiliating sessions with fertility doctors who convinced her she was incapable of having a child.

None, it seemed, had ever taken note of the singular abnormality that precluded her husband's becoming a father. "Handle this as gracefully as possible," she cautioned. "He had three balls."

Gestation

As she writes in her recent memoir, "Happy Days," a psychiatrist she consulted for depression years later was stunned: "You mean you were married to a man with three testicles, and you thought there was something the matter with you?"

"I didn't know how rare it was," she said ruefully, "and Steve probably figured that having three was slightly better than having two."

An elephant's gestation period wasn't known back in 1961, only that there would be a sudden drop in temperature when birth was imminent. The zoo vet moved into the elephant house and twice a day, for months, "removed his shirt, vaselined his arm up to the armpit, and, with a cattle thermometer tied to the end of a yardstick, lunged in true fencer fashion to take a reading."

Morgan And Buddha

After four false-alarm trips to Portland, Ms. Alexander saw Pachy born on Easter Saturday, 1962, and began saving elephant notes for an old age when she would be "too decrepit to be a foreign correspondent."

A subsequent friendship with a wild-animal importer named Morgan brought her to the top of a mountain outside Seattle, where he lived with nine elephants including Pachy's mother and father, Buddha, a big alpha male who was his favorite.

"Morgan fed and watered them, and slept outside in a kind of Barcalounger in the moonlight. He was a little crazy."

McCall's, CBS, Newsweek

When he disappeared under mysterious circumstances, Ms. Alexander decided to play Sherlock Holmes and write up her findings for Life, the proceeds to go to keeping the herd together.

A search of the area turned up something that looked like a folded deer hide lying on the dusty ground. It proved to be the squashed profile of Morgan's remains. Buddha, in musth (an Urdu word for drunk that describes a state of violent destructiveness occurring in male elephants in the rutting season), had trampled his owner to death.

Stints as a columnist ("The Feminine Eye"), editor of McCall's magazine, a radio and TV commentator for CBS News, a columnist and contributing editor at Newsweek, and a commentator on "60 Minutes," among other jobs, put the elephants on hold for a while.

The Good Animal

So did such books as "The Feminine Eye," "Shana Alexander's State-by-State Guide to Women's Legal Rights," "Talking Woman," and "Anyone's Daughter," about the Patty Hearst trial.

The rigors of a divorce, the responsibilities of raising a child, and a long, ecstatic love affair with the Irish playwright H. A. L. (Harry) Craig, filled her life as well. It wasn't until 1979, after the publication of the Hearst book, that the decks were clear and elephants shambled back into Ms. Alexander's heart.

Living in Bridgehampton at the time (she'd first come to the East End in 1971), she immersed herself in accounts of the elephant in history, mythology, and warfare, and pondered the mysteries of the beast who appears in every religion, always as the good guy, the animal that every writer from Herodotus on believes to be the most akin to man.

Research at the Southampton College library turned up old circus magazines and records describing the elephant genocide that swept the United States early in the century as owners of small traveling circuses systematically killed off all their males.

"They shot them, fed them poison peanuts and cyanide-laced potatoes, bow-and-arrowed and electrocuted them," Ms. Alexander said. "The elephants would go into musth and charge the bleachers, killing innocent children and nuns. On the road there were only stakes and chains, no iron bars to restrain them."

Just as she was settling into it, her research screeched to a halt on March 11, 1980.

"Very Much A Lady"

"I know it was the 11th, because on the night of March 10, Jean Harris killed Dr. Tarnower, and I came home on the 11th, put my groceries away, fed the dog, made my martini, turned on the TV, and took out my needlepoint. Suddenly I heard that the headmistress of the Madeira School was being held on a murder charge because she had shot a guy I used to know - not well, but well enough not to like very much."

"I looked up. Here's a woman getting out of a lawyer's car - he has a trenchcoat and a cigar, so he has to be a lawyer. I see her foot first, and on that foot is a Ferragamo shoe that is my shoe. Then out comes a woman about my age and height who looks like she's just been to my hairdresser, and the lawyer says to the photographers, 'Listen, fellows, you don't understand my client . . . she's very much a lady.' "

"I stood up all alone in my kitchen and said to the TV screen, 'Maybe they don't understand her, buddy, but I do.' I got in my car the next day, drove to Scarsdale, and told him I'd be writing a book about this whether he liked it or not, with his help or without it."

"He told me, as lawyers will, to put it in a letter."

Assignment Tanzania

"Very Much a Lady: The Untold Story of Jean Harris and Dr. Herman Tarnower" was published to much acclaim in 1983. It was followed two years later by "The Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder: A Family Album," a best-seller later made into a TV mini-series starring Lee Remick.

In 1985 came another elephant alert: a call from The National Geographic articles editor who had assumed, from her Life pieces, that Ms. Alexander was a wildlife person, and was summoning her to Tanzania.

"The editor told me to go immediately to Abercrombie and Fitch and buy safari clothes, then come to their office for the necessary shots and Tanzanian shekels, or whatever," said Ms. Alexander. "When I got to Africa I was to rent a plane and fly over the Serengeti to get a general idea, then hire the best available white hunter as a guide."

National Geographic

"I told them this sounded like something Peter Matthiessen had just turned down - and it was. Peter [who lives in Sagaponack] urged me to drop everything and go, and Maria [his wife] lent me her bush stuff."

"A brave Japanese photographer had taken the pictures; my job was to write a tone poem to go with them."

The piece ended up as the cover article, and was recently included in an anthology of National Geographic's best writing, along with a work by Joseph Conrad.

Ms. Alexander went on to write two more books about people caught up in trials, "Dangerous Games: The Pizza Connection," and "When She Was Bad: The Story of Bess, Nancy, Hortense and Sukhreet."

"Happy Days"

"Then, finally, it all ended with 'Happy Days,' " she said of her 1995 autobiography subtitled "My Mother, My Father, My Sister and Me." "It was a succes d'estime, to quote my father. In other words, a flop."

Actually a fascinating remembrance of her parents -Milton Ager, the Tin Pan Alley composer of such songs as "Ain't She Sweet?" and "Happy Days Are Here Again," and the dauntingly chic Cecilia Ager, a Variety columnist, Hollywood screenwriter, and lethal Manhattan film critic - "Happy Days" chronicles their bewildering private eccentricities and glittering public lives.

It also describes the author's rather quixotic quest for love and acceptance after a lonely childhood (one of her happiest memories is of tangoing with her mother's manicurist), and documents her subsequent career and private life with striking honesty.

"So now it's back to the elephant book," Ms. Alexander said. She'd bounced around publishers, she said, but the editor she loved was Robert Loomis at Random House, who lives in Sag Harbor.

Full Circle

"Don't you remember, Shana?" he said when she called. "Before you rushed off to do Jean Harris I offered you a contract for your elephant book, which you never signed."

"I'd completely forgotten! Now I'm back in the arms of Bob and Random," she said, quite blissfully.

There may also be a play in her future, the veteran observer of courtroom dramas concluded.

"I've never been able to fantasize, or make anything up, but I think I can do a play."