One of the pleasures of visiting the group shows at the Elaine Benson Gallery in Bridgehampton is to wander through the galleries looking for favorite artists who have appeared there before.

Bingo! There in the last room of the back gallery is another collection of the sculptures of Linda Marbach - all variations on molds made from a traditional dressmaker's dummy. The black, leathery body shapes are cut, slashed, divided, strapped together, welded, pierced with wire, or enclosed in a strange openwork coffin woven with copper wire.

Ms. Marbach has a strange vision - half obsessive, totally delicious - that doesn't have to be entirely understood to be enjoyed. At first sight, one is tempted to cry, "It's the new spring bondage line from von Sacher-Masoch!" but that would be way off mark - there's a more delicate sensibility at work here.

Vonnegut's Trout

As you enter the gallery, the writer Kurt Vonnegut has some strong screenprints on display, including a fearless and successful still life of red, yellow, and green fruit in a stone urn.

There is also a portrait of Kilgore Trout as a many-eyed Argus that made me wish I knew just what it was that Mr. Vonnegut was telling us about the enigmatic Trout.

Anthony Harvey, film director and editor, is showing a series of photographs, including a spot-on shot of a hurricane approaching Key West, with grim clouds, troubled sea, and a fragile, scudding sailboat fleeing the storm.

"New York Waterfront" is a spiky, gripping composition of rusted and broken girders against a yellow sky with an exploding bullet of red sun breaking through the dark metal debris.

Collages By Tarr

Yvonne Tarr had another life as a writer of 28 cookbooks and how-to-entertain books before she turned her hand to the pretty (but pricey) collages on display here, incorporating images from Gauguin and Michelangelo, Victorian cherubs, cutouts from Hustler magazine, and figures from 1920s burlesque shows and circuses.

A young architect, Lawrence Saul Heller, has a series of intricate three-dimensional, Mondrianesque constructions of circles, squares, rods, and triangles.

The primary-colored "Kid's Room" is great fun and the little prototype for "Peaks and Valleys," which seems to lose some of its charm when seen on a larger scale, is captivating.

Next, you come across a little grove of Mara Gross's totemic painted sculptures. Like so many multicolored pistils from a giant alien plant, they send out a cheery, phallic message, "Here I am. Come and get me."

One rear gallery is given over to the delicate abstract collages of June Carrera and Edith de Chiara.

Ms. Carrera works with high-gloss paint in delicate colors. Ms. de Chiara uses soft, neutral colors which she works and reworks, in some cases over photos.

Occasionally, the obscured image in the photo - a door, a piece of bark - bleeds over into the background.

Pastel Landscapes

Next door are two more artists who work in similar styles, materials, and subject matter: Dana Little Brown and Cheryl Wright Green.

Ms. Green's pastel landscapes of wetlands repeat again and again the rhythmic movement of grass and water. Ms. Brown's include the strong "Dune Architecture," where the severe lines of a modern house are set off by the flow of beach grass.

In another part of the gallery, Stephanie Joyce, also working in pastels, has some lyrical, stylized seascapes.

Age-Old Show

The exhibit's name was changed to "Emerging Artists" to bring in some older artists who, like Mr. Vonnegut, Mr. Harvey, or Ms. Tarr, have become artists later in life. Most of the other artists aren't particularly young either and most could be incorporated into the other group shows at the gallery.

The work ranges from pleasant to very good, but there's nothing, except Ms. Marbach, that makes you go "Wow!"

Above all, for an exhibit of emerging artists it's a very "safe" show. It would be so nice to see this opening-season spot set aside for unsafe artists, very young artists (maybe some of the graduating students from Southampton College) who are risky, brash, and still hit-or-miss - a show that would grab us by the scruff of the neck and shake us like a terrier with a rat.

This is the third article in a series examining various aspects of real estate on the South Fork.

Even as East Hampton Town attempts to implement the "final chapter" of its new Open Space Plan, local real estate brokers are facing a strong demand for vacant land, both south and north of the Montauk Highway. The problem is finding it.

At the high end of the market, vacant land is a scarcity, brokers agree, and available oceanfront land, virtually nonexistent. So what's a millionaire to do?

The dwindling number of premium south-of-the-highway lots - coupled with the burgeoning real estate market - is having an impact on land prices in other parts of town and fostering some new trends.

Supply And Demand

Not that there is a shortage of lots in general, townwide. There are plenty out there - from quarter-acre slivers on old filed maps to expanses of woods in Northwest. But ask a broker about premium estate property south of the highway, and you may be out of luck.

"The market for prime land is really up," said Stuart Epstein, the owner of Devlin-McNiff Real Estate in East Hampton. "It's just the old supply-and-demand thing. There's just none left."

That applies especially to coveted vacant oceanfront properties. Devlin McNiff's computers list roughly a dozen such lots left between Napeague and Southampton. In Montauk, only a few parcels on Old Montauk Highway remain, with four more to be created in the Shadmoor subdivision.

No Vacancies

"I have people who want to spend $1 million. We can't find them anything," said Richard Monte, who owns his own firm in Montauk. "There's nothing available on the ocean right now."

Brokers agree the market for such oceanfront parcels and other high-end property is strong, but say the record prices accompanying them may be viewed as unrealistic.

The only available vacant parcel on Lily Pond Lane, a 3.7-acre lot owned by Loida Lewis, is selling for $7 million. In another corner of East Hampton Village, on Further Lane bordering Two Mile Hollow Beach, 12 oceanfront acres once owned by the Evan Frankel estate are listed at $10 million.

Though the 98-acre Shadmoor development is still awaiting approval, the four proposed lots overlooking the ocean range in price from $3.2 million to $5 million. The largest lot is over 10 acres.

Soon Gone

Despite such price tags, Brendan Brindise of Pantigo Realty in East Hampton predicted most of the premium vacant properties on the market will be scooped up quickly.

"There are some [prime parcels] left," he said, "but if the pace of sales keeps up at this rate, they'll be gone in probably another 18 months."

Michael DeSario, who specializes in vacant land for Cook Pony Farm Real Estate in East Hampton, pointed to two major tracts in the Georgica area that have the potential to be divided, but instead have remained single estates.

The Creeks, Burnt Point

The Creeks, Ron Perelman's 58-acre spread just east of Wainscott, could have yielded 10 lots, some along Georgica Pond, if subdivided under current zoning.

Meanwhile, 37-acre Burnt Point on the Wainscott side of the pond was recently purchased by R. David Campbell, who tore down an old house owned by the Mathews family to build a new one.

The Creeks and Burnt Point demonstrate two of the current trends in the high end of the market: one, wealthy buyers are purchasing developed properties and tearing down or extensively renovating existing houses, and, two, buyers with money have been looking to buy larger spreads, and not hesitating to head north.

Teardowns

Brokers agreed that teardowns are the wave of the future in East Hampton's estate section. "That's our new land," said Peter Hallock, the president of Allan M. Schneider Associates. "Teardowns are our new 'vacant' land."

Two years ago, Mr. Hallock said, his office sold an oceanfront estate at the end of West End Road for $6.75 million. The buyer tore down the house, which dated to the 1940s, and built a new one.

The same has occurred recently on Further Lane, Highway Behind the Pond, and Apaquogue Road, to name a few.

"People aren't as much interested in parcels of land [south-of-the-highway] as they are in tearing down existing houses to build what they want," said Dick Baker, who heads East Hampton's Amaden-Gay Agency. "That certainly has been the wave of the near past."

The teardown phenomenon will be examined in depth in an upcoming article as The Star continues its real estate series.

Buyers Seek Privacy

Not everyone in the market for an estate-quality property is willing to go to such extremes for location alone. Several brokers noted the trend toward larger, more private lots outside what used to be called the "summer colony."

"People have been deciding in the past few years they want more space," said Mr. Hallock. "There's a real trend toward having more land, more privacy."

Mr. DeSario agreed. "There's more of a demand for a lot of land," he said. "All of a sudden they're looking for 10 acres. It's almost like they're paying for space."

Farm Subdivisions

Some buyers have been looking to the farm field areas of Bridgehampton and Sagaponack, where there is heavy subdivision going on. On Guyer Road in Bridgehampton, for example, a 2.8-acre piece of vacant land off Scuttlehole Road sold recently for $475,000.

Farther east, there is Northwest Woods. "Northwest is a place where you can go and put a nice house on two acres, with all the extras, for $600,000," said Mr. DeSario. "If you went south of the highway, you'd be looking at $1.5 million.

Despite the belief that the colonization of Northwest by such luminaries as Donna Karan has helped revive interest in the area, brokers believe the trends simply point there, and to other north-of-the-highway places.

Northwest Woods

With more than 50 new house lots just approved and a number of other roads finally ready to be developed, Northwest is certainly enjoying a healthy market - on both ends of the scale.

Subdivisions like the newly opened, 17-lot Cedar Woods are finding willing buyers for acre-or-more lots ranging from $160,000 to $225,000. The subdivision went on the market in March and five of the lots are already in contract, Mr. DeSario noted.

The figures reflect a steady increase in Northwest values over the years, said Mr. Epstein, who lives on Cedar Trail, right next to the Cedar Woods development. He should know. He bought his more-than-one-acre lot for $115,000 just five years ago.

Million-Dollar Mark

Elsewhere in the area, said Mr. Epstein, there are currently two listings for developed land - not on the water - for over $1 million. The properties and their houses overlook a 14-acre meadow on Hand's Creek Road, formerly owned by the publisher Barney Rosset.

Though vacant land hasn't climbed that high in Northwest, the million-dollar mark for non-waterfront property still had significance, Mr. Epstein said.

"It means the threshold has been transcended," he said. "It wasn't that long ago when the most expensive property in Northwest went for $500,000."

North Haven

The market for prime real estate is also slim in pricey North Haven, where only a handful of vacant waterfront parcels in the exclusive North Haven Point and West Banks subdivisions remain.

One of the remaining bluff-top lots overlooking the bay in West Banks is listed at $775,000 for just over two acres. That may be a bargain, considering the development it's in - a palatial estate built on another of the waterfront lots is currently on the market for $12 million.

"North Haven continues to be a decent alternative to paying top dollar south of the highway," said Price Topping, a broker with Sotheby's International Realty in Sag Harbor.

But just as in East Hampton, when it comes to land, prime lots are scarce. "The main thing is, there's very little left, in North Haven and in Sag Harbor," said Alfredo Merat, whose firm, Overseas Connections, represents West Banks.

As part of The Star's ongoing series on real estate, each week will include a brief look at the market in a particular hamlet. Amagansett is in the spotlight this week.

"People are pouring millions of dollars into Amagansett," Peter Hallock, the president of Allan M. Schneider Associates, a prominent East End real estate agency, reported this week.

Nonetheless - and maybe this is why - the hamlet still retains that je ne sais quoi that used to mean "Hamptons," before sprawl, farmland development, and that hectic city feeling began afflicting communities just west.

"There are more shrinks per square foot in Amagansett than anywhere in the Hamptons," said Robin Kaplan, a manager at East Hampton's Tina Fredericks agency. "There's so much water, it's very serene."

Serenity has its price. Brokers say there is very little prime land left in the hamlet, particularly south of Montauk Highway, and no one in the business seemed fazed by the $675,000 price tag on a buildable Bluff Road acre, complete with ocean view, that recently came on the market.

Line In The Sand

Demand is "pushing east," said Mr. Hallock. Indeed, development in Amagansett's dunes has reached the final frontier - Shipwreck Drive, which borders the fragile ocean dunes preserve that makes up Napeague State Park.

Approximately 36 percent of Amagansett's 2,370 acres, which include Napeague, is preserved open space, a notch above the town's 32 percent, according to Lisa Liquori, the planning director.

From Atlantic Avenue east to Shipwreck, whatever parcels remain run from $200,000 up. The "next wave," according to Arlene Reckson, a Schneider broker, will be "rehabs and teardowns" of older, smaller cottages - something already happening in a big way on the little streets off Bluff Road.

North Of Highway

Privacy, lush land, and rolling hills still can be had north of the highway -in a 12-lot development near Fresh Pond, in Hawk's Nest, and in the Bell Estate, where brokers say lots priced from $600,000 to $1.2 million are "trading briskly."

"There's something for everyone in Amagansett," said Kevin Conboy, the manager of Schneider's office there, which opened five years ago. Some of the hamlet is still "undiscovered," he said, pointing out that properties on "the lanes" offer proximity to ocean, village, and Hampton Jitney at half the cost of similar convenience in East Hampton Village.

The rest stop the Montauketts named Amagansett, or "place of good watering," for its underground springs, seems still to hold true to its name - especially for those who love New York City, but find it difficult to be there full time.

A late spring run of squid exploded along the bay side last week and continues to fill commercial pound nets and the coolers of young squid jiggers.

Nighttime jiggers reported the dark surface of Fort Pond Bay turning white on Friday and Saturday as thousands of schooling squid moved in swirls and eddies under docks and along the shore.

In response to the squid blitz, Montauk's Viking Fleet of party boats is offering squid fishing trips tomorrow through Sunday, and for the next three weekends. The squid boat leaves the Viking Dock at 7 p.m. and returns at 2 a.m. Reservations are required and can be made by calling Viking headquarters on West Lake Drive in Montauk.

Best Run In Years

Trappers are enjoying the best squid run in years. One trap in Fort Pond Bay reportedly yielded more than 3,000 pounds after a one-day set. Those located at Devon have also benefited from the surprise run, which includes hefty squid of the 8 to 10-inch size. The price is correspondingly hefty, nearly $1 a pound for the fisherman.

In addition, traps located at Devon and farther west in Gardiner's Bay are said to be filling with butterfish, porgies (scup), and bunker, along with a fluke here and there.

Butters and scup are delicious for eating, of course. These days, the bunkers - known in government circles as an "industrial species" because they have been processed for oil and meal - are bought up for bait by lobster fishermen. Brad Loewen's Hedges Banks trap reportedly has been producing a good supply of bunkers.

Frozen For Bait

Stewart Lester of Springs, who has not yet got his lobster pots in because of bad weather, said there was a promising showing of "ground keepers" - those lobsters that stand their ground over the winter and enter pots before the run of migrating lobsters shows up. It's a rare lobster indeed that can resist a slightly ripe, oily bunker. That's why lobstermen are buying up the recent bunker run and freezing them for bait.

Speaking of which, the spring run of mackerel is passing offshore of Montauk. It's time for charter captains, who chase tuna later in the season, to run out to the mackerel schools and load up. After being caught, the fish are kept on ice water to preserve freshness. They are then linked with thin twine, head-to-tail, as though chasing one another. A hook is secreted in one mackerel in the "daisy chain."

Like bunker bait, the daisy chains, along with individual tuna "chunking" baits, are frozen for later use.

Striped Bass

While the commercial striped bass fishery will not get under way until July 1 at the earliest, the recreational fishery begins today. Surfcasters have been catching small schoolie stripers at Ditch Plain in Montauk, on the north side of Montauk Point, as well as at various places on the bayside.

Regulations have not changed for sportfishermen. They are allowed to keep one fish measuring 28 inches or longer per day unless they are fishing on a charter or party boat, in which case they may catch and keep two of that size per day.

The 590,000-pound commercial quota given to New York State by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission last year will remain the same in 1997. However, the allocation among fishermen will change.

Two Kinds Of Permits

The rod-and-reel and net categories of fishermen are to be abandoned. Instead, fishermen will either get a "partial-share" permit or a "full-share" permit.

To get a full-share allocation of the tags required for the sale of bass, a fisherman will need to have a commercial food fishing license and a commercial striped bass license and show that 50 percent of earned income was derived from fishing during any of the years 1994, '95, or '96. Otherwise, they may stay in the fishery, but participate on a reduced level.

The healthy number of baitfish and squid around bodes well for bass fishermen.

AMAGANSETT

Fasteau to Tim and Amy Case, Whaler's Lane, $255,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Leahy to Peter Murphy and Elizabeth Weston, Butter Lane, $422,000.

Alper to Lazaras and Ivette Mavrides, Bridgefield Road, $1,100,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Cavelli to Frank Newbold, Egypt Lane, $415,000.

Antler to Lorraine Kirke, Cottage Avenue, $2,100,000.

Brierley to Luis and Maria Mussio, Boxwood Street, $215,000.

Chester to John Shanholt, Cove Hollow Road, $220,000.

MONTAUK

Passanante to Casilda Huber and Cintra Sander, Kirk Avenue, $190,000.

NORTHWEST

Ambrosole to Cynthia Armine and Geri Klein, Alewive Brook Road, $315,000.

McPhillips to Rodney Wickline, Settlers Landing, $160,000.

Chester (trustee) to National Brand Licensing Inc. Wasting Trust, Bull Run, $185,000.

Venture Contracting Corp. to Patricia Romanzi, St. Regis Court, $525,000.

SAGAPONACK

Sagg Fields Dev. Corp. to Peter Lampack (trustee), Saga ponack Main Street, $340,000.

Tutt to Sam Linder and Arthur Alban, Farm Court, $310,000.

SPRINGS

Olsen to Guy Horne, Harbor Lane, $200,000.

WAINSCOTT

Barton to R. David and Elizabeth Campbell, Wainscott Stone Road, $1,520,000.

WATER MILL

Bebbo to Todd and Carolyn Bratton, Flying Goose Path, $313,000.

Many pet owners bemoan the digging, chewing, and rampaging damage their animals do to their gardens, but they often are unaware of the damage their gardens can do to their pets.

To most of us, azaleas, lily of the valley, daffodils, and hyacinths are sweetly scented blooms bobbing in spring sunshine, but to veterinarians they present a darker picture. All of them are toxic.

Other familiar garden and landscaping plants that contain life-threatening toxins are boxwood, mountain laurel, foxglove, monkshood, yew, privet, lupine, rhododendron, and Japanese pieris. Do not let your pets chew on any of these plants.

Beautiful But Dangerous

Less toxic but still considered dangerous are wisteria, delphinium, English ivy, hydrangea, narcissus, daffodil, jonquil, amaryllis, Easter lily, glory lily, hyacinth, lily of the valley, bleeding heart, autumn crocus, trumpet vine, lantana, angel's trumpet, laburnum, and helleborus.

Given how commonly these plants occur in our gardens it is remarkable that pets are not poisoned more frequently. In fact, poisoning occurs so seldom, "It's conspicuous by its absence," said Dr. Dale Tarr of the East Hampton Veterinary Group.

Since adult animals will generally avoid these plants, the pet-owning gardener needn't rush out and dig them all up. But they shouldn't be lulled into complacency, either. Dr. Jonathan Turetsky of the Veterinary Clinic of East Hampton recently treated a cat who'd made herself very ill indeed by feasting on the stems of daffodils.

Young Animals

Pet owners should educate themselves about the contents of their gardens and the toxicity levels of the various plants, advises Dr. Alice Gwaltney of the National Animal Poison Control Center, so if they see their dog nuzzling up to the foxglove, they'll know to nip that activity in the bud immediately.

Young animals are another matter entirely.

"Puppies . . . they're the worst!" said Dr. Turetsky. With their insatiable desire to chew, puppies are continually on the verge of being poisoned.

"You have to treat them like infants," said Dr. Davis. "During their first year I tell owners they have to watch them because they'll chew on anything. The first year - that's the bad year."

Kittens are a little less likely to accidentally commit suicide, but it's not entirely unlikely. At least they mature faster. By 6 months of age, they're usually "out of the danger zone," observed Dr. Davis.

Horses And Goats

Horses and other herbivores have a great deal of sense when it comes to toxic plants - usually. "It's very unusual for them to get poisoned, but people should be aware of the possibility," said Dr. John Andresen of the Mattituck-Laurel Veterinary Clinic.

The glaring exception to this rule is the goat, an animal always prepared for gastronomical adventure. "We see a lot of goats poisoned by rhododendrons," said Dr. Andresen.

Cats and dogs are lucky; they can vomit. Their usual reaction to the presence of toxins in their systems is to throw it up.

"This makes the effect of most poisons self-limiting," Dr. Davis noted.

Remedies

Horses, on the other hand, lack the ability to regurgitate. They are therefore in greater danger when poisoned.

"All that can be done is to give them activated charcoal to absorb the toxins, and/or mineral oil to speed the poison out. Sometimes you have to keep them on supportive treatment and administer intravenous fluids and sedatives if they are convulsing," advised Dr. Andresen.

Fortunately, most poisonous plants are unpalatable to horses. But since horses are grazing animals whose digestive systems are built for all-day nibbling, in the absence of more palatable fare they may be driven to chow down on the untasty and unhealthful.

Fertilizers

When the grass in the pasture is low, supply hay to supplement it, advise the experts. And, if the pasture contains oaks, red maples, chokecherries, apple, peach, black locust, horse chestnut, or black walnut trees, strongly consider removing them, for they are all toxic to varying degrees.

Fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides may make our gardens more beautiful but they, too, can present dangers to a pet's health.

"Always plan fertilizing around rainstorms," said Dr. Davis. And keep the animals off the site for at least 24 hours.

If it rains after you've applied a herbicide, keep the pet away from the area for even longer. Pets can lap the rainwater from a treated leaf and ingest the chemical.

Dr. Davis has seen poisoning in horses pastured near farm fields that were sprayed with insecticides.

Insecticides

The most dramatic case of poisoning Dr. Andresen ever saw also involved insecticides. A horse went into violent convulsions after eating hay that had been grown alongside cropland sprayed with insecticides.

All garden chemicals should be stored where animals can't get to them. The pet-owning nonorganic

gardener would be well advised to keep the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' Poison Hotline number - 800-548-2423 - on hand.

Pet-owning gardeners can enjoy both their avocations to the fullest as long as they keep in mind Dr. Davis's advice: "If the pet is chewing on any plant, take it away from it! Except grass. Grass is okay, they can chew on that."

The Nature Conservancy has scheduled a children's walk through the Sagg Swamp Preserve in Bridgehampton beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday. Marnie Bookbinder, director of preserves, will lead kids aged 8 to 12 in search of the sounds of peepers, owls, and "creatures that glow."

Reservations are required, and may be made by calling the Conservancy at its East Hampton offices.

The Conservancy is also offering two tours this weekend of its Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island. The first, a hunt for woodland warblers, will assemble at 7 a.m. tomorrow at the entrance to the preserve, just off Ferry Road, for a two-hour trek led by Tom Damiani.

Tours Of Mashomack

On Saturday, a six-mile hike starting at 1 p.m. will pass by early-flowering trees including dogwood and shad as well as the remains of an early cottage, Miss Annie's homesite, and the Manor House, once known as the Bass Creek Cottage. Reservations for the walks may be made by calling the Conservancy on Shelter Island.

Earlier Saturday, the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society's Rick Whalen will guide walkers on a 10-mile hike through the rolling beechwood forest in Amagansett and the pitch pines, salt meadows, and beaches of Napeague. Hikers will look in on Fresh Pond and view Napeague's shad boom.

The society has recommended that liquids and lunch be brought along on the long walk, which will meet at the Hither Hills overlook on Montauk Highway at 10 a.m.

Mother Nature's Day

An interpretive hike through Montauk County Park on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. is the first in a series sponsored by the County Department of Parks, Recreation, and Conservation. Those interested have been asked to call Debbie Epple at Parks Department headquarters in West Sayville.

Sunday is Mother's Day, and "Mother Nature's Day" as well, says the Group for the South Fork, which has planned a family-oriented hike through mixed habitats in the Westhampton area from 1 to 3 p.m. The leader, Vikki Hilles, will be looking for evidence of maternal activities: nest-building, egg-laying, and territorial defense.

Also on Mother's Day, the Group will take canoers around Accabonac Harbor in Springs from 9 to 11 a.m. Mike Bottini, the leader, will describe the harbor's history and abundant wildlife as the paddlers glide along. Reservations for both adventures can be made by calling the Group's headquarters on Main Street in Bridgehampton.

Kids And The Bays

In other news, the annual Peconic Bays Children's Conference gets under way tomorrow at Southampton College at 9 a.m. Schoolchildren from East Hampton, Southampton, Montauk, Hampton Bays, Riverhead, Southold, and Greenport will perform and exhibit projects celebrating the Peconic Bays system.

The conference is sponsored by the Peconic Estuary Program, the Moore Charitable Foundation, and the Towns of Southampton and East Hampton.

Finally, volunteers to help the Nature Conservancy erect fencing and predator control devices on Saturday have been asked to call the East Hampton office today to receive their assignments and meeting places.

The Hamptons International Film Festival, conceived as a showcase for independent filmmakers and as a community-based, year-round organization, is taking on some high-powered board members and intends to make its presence felt in New York City.

The goal is to reinforce the festival's shaky financial base and to enhance its programming with corporate support.

"We are trying to expand the board with new blood and new ideas, new money and new sponsorship," said Stuart Match Suna, a vice chairman and head of Silvercup Studios. "We're looking beyond the existing sponsorship and keeping the focus on the South Fork because we want it to truly be an international film festival."

Four Nominees

Members of the board were to have voted by phone last night on four board nominees. Festival officers declined to name them, but said they were chosen for their corporate and/or professional connections.

The Star, however, learned the nominees were Claude Wasserstein, a journalist and filmmaker who has her own production company and is the wife of the financier Bruce Wasserstein, Michael Lynne, the head of New Line Cinema, Cindy Sulzberger, who is the daughter of the publisher of The New York Times, and Jonathan Canno, the owner of a paper bag manufacturing company.

All have part-time residences in East Hampton. Ms. Sulzberger expects to take a year-round job here as a teacher. Mr. Lynne is a second vice president of Guild Hall.

Changes On Top

The festival has, since its inception four years ago, been known as much for growing pains as for its artistic and popular successes. It lost its first two executive directors, its original artistic director, a subsequent program director, and both its founders.

Six of 18 board members quit in the last few months alone, and now Toni Ross has announced that she will step down as chairwoman after this year, although she said she would remain on the board. Ms. Ross is active in the new Hayground School and co-owner of Nick and Toni's restaurant and other businesses.

Among others who have left the board are Karen Fifer Ferry, wife of the Southampton Hospital president, who resigned two months ago. Ms. Ross said Mrs. Ferry resigned from four boards altogether, citing "too much on her plate." Tinka Topping of Sagaponack, who had been a vice chair, also left this year, as did Maria Pessino-Rothwell, Robert Sands, and Frank Yablans, all South Fork residents.

Searching For Balance

"We're trying to create a more balanced board. Some of our members bring money, some bring connections, some do the work on the committees, and some have wisdom in a particular field," said Ms. Ross.

Patricia M. Weeks, whose husband is a well-known documentary filmmaker, and Rodney Miller, the festival's first black board member, were the most recent arrivals to the board. Mr. Miller, like the festival's treasurer, Robert Wiesenthal, is on the board of First Boston, an investment bank.

Ms. Ross, who has been chairwoman since the first festival, in 1993, is the daughter of the late Steve Ross, who was the chairman of Time Warner, an early corporate sponsor. This week, she emphatically denied rumors that the festival would take a one-year hiatus to recover financially and, further, that its current executive director, Ken Tabachnick, was planning to leave.

Going Professional

The festival will go on in October, as it has for the past four years, but will become "more friendly to professional filmmakers," she said.

"From the inception, we intended to be fully operating year-round but that has turned out to be much harder and more costly than we anticipated," she said. However, she noted that this was the first year its East Hampton office, on Newtown Mews, had stayed open year-round, even if it had curtailed its hours.

Despite its funding problems, the festival hosted two well-attended screenings in East Hampton and Southampton this winter and a panel discussion of "Not in Our Town," a documentary about prejudice in a small town.

"If we had the funding, we could do the kinds of things we want to do," she said.

"Partnering"

"The festival clearly needs to find more financial support. I wouldn't deny that. Every nonprofit organization out there is finding it more difficult to fund itself. The climate for corporate underwriting has changed dramatically since we started up," Ms. Ross said.

Ms. Ross, who declined to discuss the dollars and cents, said this week that the board was looking to "bring the numbers down" by soliciting donations of services and equipment and "partnering with other organizations to make better use of the funds we do have."

She said the board had decided to work more out of Manhattan "since the organization is so tied to corporate underwriting, we need to have the presence there."

In addition to handing out $100,000 in prize money to student filmmakers and spotlighting their work, the festival has been a springboard for controversial projects, and Ms. Ross said she expected the programming would "continue to challenge the parameters of people's thinking."

Student Focus

Mr. Suna said the board had every intention of continuing its focus on students and planned to expand its connections with New York City film schools.

"We have some very creative ideas that we are still in the process of developing. . . . Some very good news will come out of this," Mr. Suna said.

Board members also noted there were plans to create a program for high-school students but no start-up date as yet.

Jeremiah Newton, an educational consultant to the festival from New York University's Institute of Film and Television at the Tisch School of the Arts, said the Hamptons Festival had given more money to student filmmakers than any other. He added that there were almost no festivals with a year-round mission.

Original Concept

Naomi Lazard, a poet, author, and screenwriter who founded the festival with Joyce Robinson in an office in Ms. Robinson's basement, said she quit the board days after the 1996 festival ended because she believed it was getting further away from its original mission, which she described as bringing "the best, the most interesting, independent, low-budget films here, with a year-round program of screenings and workshops for adults and children." Ms. Robinson quit several days before the first festival opened.

"For four years, I felt I had to struggle all the time to do that. . . . When we had no money, when it was all just a blue sky dream, that first summer we had three workshops of six weeks each," said Ms. Lazard.

"This organization requires a lot of good will and dedication. And aspiration to do the right thing, not to use it for other reasons, as a power base or a glamour trip. That would be so beside the point," said Ms. Lazard.

Other board members have said the mission Ms. Lazard and Ms. Robinson envisioned in 1992 may have been unrealistic.

"As any organization grows, its needs change and the interests of the board members change. . . . In the beginning, board members were a lot more hands-on, doing everything. That was what interested Naomi, but that is not ultimately what a board mem ber should be doing," said Ms. Ross.

The festival was seeded with a $10,000 donation from East Hampton Town, which has continued to make annual contributions, although not without controversy. Town Councilwoman Nancy McCaffrey, for example, has voted against doing so each year.

As to the general financing of the festival, its 1994 report to the state showed $526,000 in contributions, more than $76,000 in revenue, $554,500 in expenses, and a balance of nearly $44,000 at the end of the year.

Its 1995 filing, the most recent sent to Albany, showed an increase of more than $143,000 in support and revenue, but a considerable jump in expenses of nearly $206,000.

Two score and ten years ago, on the afternoon of April 15 in Brooklyn, N.Y., the Dodgers (resident National League baseball club of that borough) sent a black man out onto the field to play first base for them.

His name was Jack Roosevelt Robinson and he was, in this century, the first black man to take part in a Major League baseball game. It was a momentous occasion, not only for the sport - then still the "national pastime" - but for the nation as a whole. The word was out: Segregation must be outlawed.

This summer, with the game in its doldrums and the fans apathetic, the people who run the business of baseball have decided to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the game's integration with all the bombast and fireworks at their disposal. They seem unaware of the irony that surrounds such a celebration, but then, irony is not part of the huckster's arsenal. The descendants of the men who kept "Negroes" out of "white" baseball since the days of Jim Crow are now embarked on an orgy of sentimentality and self-congratulation.

I thought about this as I tramped around the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University a couple of weeks ago, following the motley sessions of a three-day conference titled "Jackie Robinson: Race, Sports, and the American Dream." For the old Dodgers fan and civil rights activist alive and still kicking inside me, it was an event not to be missed.

A Brooklyn Rap

Three days filled with baseball talk, baseball memories, and baseball players are almost more than a fan can bear, especially in the company of other fans, turning every thought not only into a baseball utterance but into a Brooklyn rap.

In the (approximate) words of Ron Gabriel, Dodger Fan Club president, "The only Dodger is a Brooklyn Dodger, the only Dodger blue is Brooklyn Blue, the only Dodger fan is a Brooklyn Fan, and the only Dodger stadium is Ebbets Field. . . ."

An entangled web of nostalgic loyalty and pugnacious possessiveness binds these fans together. I'd like to say "us fans" but I realize this would be a distortion. I cannot belong to their fraternity for it is exactly that: a fraternity.

The Old Redhead

Women have no place in it. Befitting American mythology, they have been confined to the role of stern mothers calling their sons in from the baseball fields of summer or prying them loose from the radio and the seductive voice of Red Barber. Even though I myself spent endless afternoons keeping score on homemade scorecards as I listened to the Old Redhead on my red, white, and blue Emerson radio, I will always be excluded from the club.

You can read all about it in Roger Kahn's recent "Memories of Summer," yet another spinoff from his unforgettable "The Boys of Summer." Kahn is the paradigmatic Brooklyn Dodger fan - an urban white male getting on in years, a New York Jewish liberal who providentially turned journalist to give voice to Brooklyn Dodger fans everywhere - even those now dwelling in the Diaspora, be it Manhattan, Miami Beach, or Malibu.

Stories To Tell

It was Roger Kahn who gave the keynote address at the conference. He owns the Brooklyn Dodgers of the Golden Age, he is their friend and foremost chronicler. His stories come from the heart and we never tire of them.

"Storytelling" is a prism through which baseball enters our souls and makes itself at home there. It combines the exploits of our heroes on the field of battle with the intricate patterns of cold statistics and the "once-in-a-lifetime" events that define this game as no other. Mickey Owen's dropped third strike, Bobby Thompson's home run, the ball that went through Bill Buckner's legs - such moments are played back by our memories until we die or our memory fades to darkness.

Before Kahn spoke, needless to say, the politicians had their say. They are as ubiquitous at these occasions as the advertising banners that flutter above their heads: Chase Bank, McDonald's, and TWA, polluting the view to remind everyone of the bucks they spent to sponsor this event - which cost us $90 a head!

To Be America

We heard Brooklyn Borough President Howard Goldin, Congressman Charles Schumer (a hero among his fellows in Washington for advocating gun control - a subject about as welcome in America as affirmative action) and Mary Pickett, a member of the City Council.

Articulate as a preacher and old enough to wear a hat, she remembered just how it felt when Jackie R. made his debut - "to make America be America" - she said, quoting Langston Hughes.

And then Rachel Robinson, widow and keeper of the flame, appeared briefly - a heroine most deserving of the cliche'd accolade that "behind every great man stands a woman." She spoke her piece, which she has surely spoken a hundred thousand times and always in good humor. She is calm and confident, and nurtures the legend with infinite grace.

Self-Congratulations

As she spoke to the hushed crowd, I began to suspect that we were in for a celebration of white tolerance, white virtue, and white nobility.

This became clearer as the conference wore on and questions from the audience repeatedly reinforced the subtext. "Why don't those millionaire black players today honor Jackie?" "Why aren't there more African Americans here to celebrate with us?"

Dozens of papers were presented during the course of the conference, but I couldn't possibly hear them all since many readings - by writers, journalists, historians, even psychologists - took place concurrently. I did my best to catch a sample of the voices that might invoke a picture of Jackie Robinson that went beyond the usual ones.

I wanted to see not the icon but the man. Not the solitary black face in a sea of white ones, nor the posed shots of the happy family, meant to assure us they were "just like us."

Paul Robeson's Son

The first person to inject some bite into the proceedings rather than skating by on sentimentality was Paul Robeson Jr., whose topic, "Robinson and Robeson: Same Goals, Different Styles, 1943-1949," drew me like a magnet.

Paul Robeson - who appeared on the American scene earlier than Jackie Robinson - had been one of my childhood heroes. In him, the artist, athlete, and political activist met in rare conjunction.

I had met him when my stepfather conducted and he sang "Ballad for Americans" at the Robin Hood Dell in Philadelphia and when he played Othello on the New York stage. This was long before he became a reviled outcast in this country, exiled by witch-hunting "patriots" to seek refuge in Europe and the Soviet Union. He has never been vindicated or rehabilitated, even though signs and symbols of his football glory have grudgingly been restored to him.

Not Opposites

The most unforgettable aspect of his persona had been his voice, and it was with a small shock that I heard it issue once again from his son's throat. Paul Robeson Jr. has none of his father's charisma but he was the most intellectual of the speakers I heard, not excluding all the professors.

He came to teach, not to indulge in nostalgic memories. Giving us a historical overview of the fateful years of change between the Depression and the McCarthy era, he did his best to try to prove that Robinson and Robeson did not represent opposite poles in black life. He pointed out that Jackie's testimony before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee was carefully phrased not to attack or denigrate the great singer.

Robinson, so Robeson said, was between a rock and a hard place, but did his best not to fall into the trap the committee had prepared for him. He would not play the good Negro to the bad nigger.

Is It Capitalism?

Listening to him, I wondered, not for the first time, whether the one insurmountable barrier between "race" and the "American dream" is politics?

Could it be that America allows its black heroes a place in the pantheon of the dead as long as they didn't threaten the system by trying to overthrow its economic assumptions? Do we forgive all "transgressions" (even those by a rebellious Malcolm X?) as long as they don't undermine the bulwark of capitalism? Did this question too hover over the conference - in Keats's words, "noiseless as fear in a wide wilderness?"

The relative scarcity of black faces among participants and audience at the conference was critically remarked upon, time after time, as though the black community bore the fault of it. Any number of New York's version of "good ol' boys" noted the shallowness of the current crop of millionaire ballplayers - as though every single one was an African American.

Who Knows Better?

Vince Coleman's disrespectful remark (to the effect that he didn't know Robinson and didn't care that he didn't) was hauled out again and again. Only once did someone place it into a different context.

At a panel of journalists, moderated by Newsday's Stan Isaacs, a young black female reporter for The New York Times stood up and declared that it was not up to white people to tell black people in what shape, manner, or form to honor Jackie Robinson.

Do we really believe that they know less about Jackie Robinson than we do? she asked. How dare we claim to know their minds and hearts better than they themselves? (And why, one might add, should inner-city youth love baseball, which shuts them out of lily-white suburban neighborhoods, and builds stadiums far from its precincts?)

For Our Sins

Both panel and audience were stunned into silence and then, after a few defensive retorts, the topic was quickly dropped. Pete Coutros, a baseball writer of the old school, trying to bridge the moment of discomfort, told his story of Gil Hodges's funeral, where he saw Jackie (who had himself but a year to live) press his fingers to his lips and then gently touch his teammate's coffin with them.

Once again, you see, the black man comes to redeem us. That's our deepest need and it's why we're here today.

He has died for our sins.

Peerless Preacher

A more conciliatory spirit was evoked by Buck O'Neil, a relic of the Negro Leagues, catapulted into stardom by his appearance on Ken Burns's "Baseball" documentary. O'Neil is a peerless preacher of peace, an old-fashioned storyteller, fully aware of the charm and power of his performance. No doubt he issued talking from his mother's womb.

White people (myself included) adore him. He got a standing O when he finished speaking, way past his allotted time. But he is far too self-assured and honest to "tom" it up. He turns the answer to every question into a moral lesson.

Gently refusing to "tell the funniest story you know about Satchel Paige," he repeated the one he told in "Baseball" concerning the pilgrimage they made together to the slave auction blocks on an island off Georgia, where Satchel mused on the tragic fate of their ancestors.

Shared The Field

(As I stood outside the lecture hall where he had just spoken, Buck O'Neil strode past - an old athlete still trim and fit and dapper at 84 - and said, "Hello, little lady, and how are you today?" I must have looked at him with the beaming eyes of a small girl, for he said, "Let me give you a great big hug," which he did, leaving me giddy with pride and pleasure.)

The big event of the convocation was the ingathering of old ballplayers that took place Friday afternoon. The auditorium was packed. Nobody captivates Americans like athletes and movie stars. Indeed, the cast was stunning.

Among the old-timers who showed up were Stan Musial, Bob Feller, Bobby Thompson, Tommy Henrich, Joe Black, Ralph Branca, Bobby Bragan, Clem Labine, Johnny Podes, Gene Hermanski, and Joe Pignatano - fabled names to those of us who came of age in the '40s, they are also the men who shared the field with Jackie Robinson, and several of them had not been pleased to do that at the time.

Behind Closed Doors

You wouldn't know it now, of course. They have mostly rewritten history to comform to present public standards. In private, the likes of Slaughter and Feller (inducted into the Hall of Fame the same year as Robinson, he reputedly did not wish to share the stage with him) may well go on expressing hard-edge bigotry.

But Slaughter does it at the local bar and Feller at the country club. One's a cracker, the other's a "gentleman" and longtime spokesman for corporate America. Which is where the trouble lies. The Bud Seligs and Fred Wilpons of the game have a power ol' Enos never had, but Enos takes the heat.

Baseball's boardrooms remain sanctuaries of whiteness and nobody knows the skulduggery and the racism perpetuated behind those closed doors.

How Flawed It Was

The generation of ballplayers who followed the old-timers to the dais knows the situation only too well. Here were men like Frank Robinson, Lou Brock, Donn Clendenon, Ed Charles, Ozzie Smith, and Larry Doby, all of them black. In their suits and ties they might be taken for doctors or lawyers.

They choose their words carefully. They know they must. Maybe another door will open. Someone asks if there's still racism in the clubhouse. "You must be kidding!" says Ozzie, the Wizard, some gray in his hair.

And so the day draws to a close. I do not want to say good-bye. What has occurred here today touches me deeply. It reflects and confirms my immigrant youth - assimilating America's collective memory. I didn't know how flawed it was until Paul Robeson came along, and I didn't know if it could ever change until that day in April when the Brooklyn Dodgers sent Jackie Robinson to bat.

Silvia Tennenbaum is a writer who lives in Springs and a frequent contributor to The Star's letters pages.

The Grapefruit

East Hampton

May 5, 1997

Dear Ms. Rattray:

The first time the grapefruit was pitched in an artists' baseball game was in 1954. Thomas B. Hess was the first to write the story in the introduction of Fred McDarrah's "Artists' World":

"In the summer of 1954, in East Hampton, Long Island, the artists organized a Saturday afternoon softball game. Phillip Pavia, who had enjoyed the advantages of a regular Connecticut boyhood, was the best batter - a home-run specialist. His friends decided to counter this forte."

"A day before the game, Willem and Elaine de Kooning and Franz Kline, who were sharing the Red House, bought two grapefruits and a coconut. They worked until 2 in the morning sandpapering them and painting them to look exactly like softballs, with all the essential seams, cracks, chiaroscuro, and even a trade label, 'Pavia Sports Association.' "

"The next day, when the game was about halfway over, Harold Rosenberg came up to pitch. Pavia was at bat. Rosenberg pitched the first ball. Pavia swung, and it exploded in a great ball of grapefruit juice. There was general laughter and little shouts of, 'Come on, let's get on with the game.' "

"Esteban Vicente came in from behind first base (where Ludwig Sander was stationed with a covered basket containing ammunition); he pitched his first ball over easily. Pavia swung. There was another ball of grapefruit juice in the air. More laughter. Finally they decided that fun was fun, but now to continue play, seriously. Rosenberg came back to the mound. He smacked the softball to assure everyone of its Phenomenological Materiality. He pitched it over the plate. Pavia swung. It exploded into a wide, round cloud of coconut. 'Look, look,' shouted Pavia, as if he had always suspected that if you hit a baseball bad enough to break it, there would be coconut inside. Then, from nowhere, a crowd of kids appeared around home plate and began to pick up the fragments of coconut and eat them. They had to call the game.

Suddenly after the funeral of Willem de Kooning I read in local newspapers (not The Star) that Bill de Kooning was pitching to Ben Heller. Where is this story coming from? And one week later, Patsy Southgate repeats the same story in her New Yorker piece, "Remembering Bill."

The further we move from those classic years in American art, the more the actual occurrences of the period are reported wrongly or just plain buried under the embellishments of anti-historical writers and other persons who suffer from some kind of the Woodstock complex -if all who said they were at Woodstock were actually there, there would have been 50 million people in the audience.

Who knows, maybe in 20 years they will say it was Elizabeth Taylor pitching the grapefruit in the Artists-Writers Game, and a young Steven Spielberg was at the plate. (By the way, in The Star's 27 East a few years ago, your reporter Jack Graves did a whole article on this famous incident in the original unrevised form.)

Thank you,

PAUL PAVIA

P.S. Tom Hess was a leading critic and intellectual; also, editor-in-chief of Art News throughout the '50s and '60s to 1973.

A Lousy Deal

Melville

April 29, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray,

Your letters page bears a close resemblance to the old-fashioned New England town meetings, albeit in print, so I hope you will indulge me as you do so many others.

Back some time ago, Congressman Mike Forbes of your area decided he couldn't back Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House and, to be honest, I didn't see the reason to do that.

However, just recently, Mr. Forbes beat the forces that opposed him and pushed through an amendment in the House of Representatives that protects small businesses, individual inventors, and universities like our own here on Long Island, from a lousy deal cooked up by President Clinton and the Republican Congress. Their scheme was to weaken the historic protections given to American ideas (intellectual property) through our patent system.

The fraudulently named "reform" bill taken up in the House of Representatives would have required every American who attempts to protect his unique idea by seeking a U.S. patent to publish his idea 18 months after applying. (Foremost, that's well before the patent has been granted). The whole world would then see his idea, and the forces of commercial espionage most likely would put the little inventor out of the game.

The Forbes amendment, fortunately, made it into the bill, thereby exempting our most vulnerable citizens - individual inventors, small-business men and women, and universities - from what would surely be the beginning of the end of American dominance in the global economy. Remember Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, Henry Ford and the Model A, or Thomas Edison and the light bulb? These "Horatio Alger" types defined America as the land of new ideas and new opportunities.

The patent "reforms," even with Congressman Forbes's valiant, winning effort to protect the little guys and gals who are brimming with ideas to enhance American lives in the 21st century, is a terrible bill.

As someone who took his idea to use water molecules in the human body to read patient's internal problems, I saw how strong patent laws made possible my efforts to bring magnetic resonance imaging to fruition and, thankfully, benefit millions of Americans.

The G.O.P. Congress and the President want to weaken U.S. patent laws so foreign countries will give us access to their markets. It's a bad deal by anyone's standards and deserves to die in the Senate.

Sincerely,

RAYMOND DAMADIAN, M.D.

Tax-Reform Junkies

East Hampton

May 5, 1997

To The Editor,

The Sunday Times Week in Review article on the world dominance of the United States economy was a frighteningly bizarre, eerie piece. Quoting Mort Zuckerman and a head honcho at Merrill Lynch (why not Daffy Duck and Milo Minderbinder?), it extolled the virtues of the deregulated free market system over the European and Japanese systems, the economic pre-eminence of the U.S. system, and the American way of life. The article also identified the negative fallout from the system and apologized for this fallout as unfortunate but necessary. Thus the frightening part of the story.

The essence of the story is that while twice as many people now live at the poverty level, real job creation is zilch, our education system is going down the tubes, and our inner cities are falling apart, it's really okay because business is booming, and profits are through the roof. The free market is working, even though more and more people are falling through the cracks. "If it's good for the company, it's good for everybody, because we are all part of the company."

The solution. Eventually these enormous profits will trickle down to the rest of the country. Meanwhile, government programs and tax reform will readjust income distribution.

The answer. The trickle stopped 20 years ago. What's good for big business is not necessarily good for the rest of the country. Tax reform is 99.99 percent garbage.

Tax reform. Our politicians are tax-reform junkies. They gotta propose it. It's like heroin to junkies, Prozac to the depressed, oral sex to the over-50's generation. It's safe, popular, and it never happens. It makes everyone feel they are getting something for nothing. The reality is, if you don't make a lot of money, tax reform means nothing. If you don't make any money, you don't save money.

Tax reform. Two legitimate reforms are lowering sales tax (regressive) and a steeply graduated income tax. Everyone pays the same sales tax regardless of income. How much money does someone need to live phenomenally? After a point it becomes obscene.

Capital gains. Pure scam. If the biggest boom economy ever generates few jobs and more poverty, what will reduced capital gains do? Give more income to people with lots of income. It's a tithe, a taking, a cadeau for the rich. "Because you are who you are." Who does the capital gains tax affect? Five percent, 10 percent, 15 percent of the population. What about the rest of us? We do all aspire to pay capital gains some day, and we must have our dreams. No?

So, we sit here depressed, in the middle of an economic boom. New jobs pay minimum wages, government programs are cut to the bone, and tax reforms are a joke. We are scared every way we turn, and they want us to like it. It feels like a Joseph Heller novel, and we are all pretending to be someone else.

NEIL HAUSIG