South Emery Street

Montauk

668-5574

Open for dinner Thursday

through Sunday at 5:30 p.m.

Closed Thanksgiving Day.

Those who don't live in Montauk, but like to visit, have probably experienced this disappointment at least once.

You've had a long walk at the Point or in Hither Woods and, feeling caught up in the spirit of The End, you decide to stay for dinner. "The Harvest is supposed to be good," one of your party might say. And because everyone who likes to eat out has heard similar things, they all nod approval. "Yes, so-and-so said she had a great dinner there two weeks ago."

Satisfied at just the thought of it and proud of yourself for coming up with such a brilliant idea, a wonderful cap to a wonderful day in the woods or on the bluffs, you head off to the Harvest. But no sooner do you make the turn onto South Emery Street than your hopes are dashed. Cars line the street and fill the parking lot to the point of overflowing.

Still Top-Notch

When you check, the hostess informs you that there won't be a table for at least an hour and a half. So much for brilliant ideas on the spur of the moment.

The point of this preamble is merely to say that reservations are recommended, especially if you're coming from afar (i.e., Sag Harbor or Springs), because the Harvest is not the sort of restaurant just to drop into and it's so sad to be disappointed when you've made up your mind to go out.

So, plan in advance; you'll have something to look forward to all day.

What was true of the restaurant two and a half years ago, when it was last reviewed by The Star, is true today: The place is still top-notch in the food department and is popular for a myriad of other reasons, not the least of which is a menu and atmosphere that make it easy to feel celebratory and leave satisfied.

Big Portions

As you arrive, you're directed to cozy couches and armchairs near the front door, where you can have a drink or simply sit and talk until your table is ready. Low music plays in the background, and the noise is more muted there than in the dining rooms. Like the dining rooms, however, the couches and chairs offer a good vantage point for people watching. We spent our time scanning familiar and unfamiliar faces, guessing at how many of them were from Montauk, how many were weekenders, and how many might have come from East Hampton, or Springs, or Amagansett, or Sag Harbor.

First, the waitress asked if we knew about the menu, code for: The portions are all big enough for at least two and probably more. We knew, and thought that five diners were certainly enough to sample a respectable range of dishes. After we ordered two appetizers, a salad, a pizza, and two entrees, the waitress advised us that that would probably be sufficient for all.

Seared Tuna

Our party was dwarfed by at least three other larger parties, a nearby table of about eight, and two others with even more people at them. Family-size portions encourage people to go not only with their families, but with big groups of friends. Because of that, everyone seems to be having a ball.

A big plate of crusty peasant bread with a bowl of grated Parmesan starts the meal. There's butter for traditionalists and rich golden-green extra virgin olive oil for the others. We knew better, but indulged heartily in the bread until the table begin to fill with appetizers, a salad, and the pizza.

First to arrive was a pan-seared tuna, sushi-rare on the inside and rubbed with tarragon and other herbs on the outside. Sliced thin, the tuna was fanned out over a bed of fresh tomato, cilantro, and red onion salsa.

Polenta Tapas

What's more, it also came with four neat triangular packages: fresh corn polenta tapas. The flavors, especially the tarragon on the tuna and the cilantro in the salsa, speak beautifully to one another without drowning each other out. You have to close your eyes to appreciate the dimensions of this dish.

At $14, it seems pricey for an appetizer. Considering the fact that it satisfied five and could easily pass for an entree, it wasn't.

While still swooning over the tuna, a massive order of bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil was delivered. Then came a portobello mushroom, mesclun, and crisped goat cheese salad, and, finally, a pizza with artichokes, basil, fresh tomatoes, and smoked fresh mozzarella.

A Taste Of Summer

While the portion was truly grand, the bruschetta - several thick slices of toasted bread covered with a mountain of tomatoes - was simple and light, a taste of summer. What a treat to have a deep red tomato at this time of year.

The pizza was equally daunting in size, enough to feed three people happily as an entree or five with room to spare as an appetizer. One of our party said it was the best pizza on the East End.

We'd already begun serving and eating the salad when one diner noticed that the mushrooms were missing. She informed a runner, who whisked it away with apologies and returned two minutes later, with a completely replenished pile of greens, including mushrooms and crisped goat cheese to replace what we'd already eaten. There were no complaints about the dish, but given the level of everything else, we half wished we'd tried something more interesting than salad.

Tender Swordfish

Although we were five, we ordered just two entrees. The Harvest makes it hard on a reviewer. To get enough variety, we would have needed at least eight people and even so would probably have gone out overstuffed and less pleased because of it.

Our choices - swordfish with hazelnuts and a lemon butter sauce and pork with baked apples and a Grand Marnier sauce.

The swordfish was the hands-down favorite. Four tender half-inch thick steaks were place on a bed of fresh baby spinach that was barely cooked, just the way spinach should be. The sauce was delicate and velvety.

The pork was crusted with nuts and topped with a frizzle of what we guessed to be sweet potatoes. There was a sparkling hint of orange zest to the dish. The sauce was a delicious complement, sealing the marriage of apples and pork. Some of the slices of pork were the tiniest bit dry, others were perfect, but we all agreed we'd order the dish again. Incidentally, both the pork and the swordfish combined well with a side of garlic mashed potatoes we'd ordered.

When the meal was through we had five containers of leftovers, a taste for sweets, but absolutely no room for dessert. We felt it better to savor the pleasures of our meal than to mar them by eating too much.

We decided to leave room for dessert next time. And with raves from all five, there will definitely be a next time, and a time after that, and a time after that.

A panel representing East End governments has come up with an "action strategy" for transportation that stresses that only by innovation will eastern Long Island escape the fate of highway traffic-clogged western Long Island. And time, says the East End Transportation Council, is short.

The council, created last year by the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association and composed largely of planners and transportation experts from the East End, notes in the report, "With a substantial portion of its land still in an undeveloped state, the region has a window of opportunity within which to forestall the transportation ills that plague the rest of the Island."

Recommendations

The report's recommendations include:

Improved Long Island Rail Road service to encourage more ridership;

Consideration of auxiliary rail services;

Better integration of existing bus service;

A pilot project of minivan or minibus service within the East End towns;

A study of the demand for additional ferries across the Sound and potential sites for terminals;

Public transportation to Mac Arthur Airport in Islip, and

Encouragement of bicycle use through the creation of additional bicycle trails.

"It is important to remember that each transportation decision made by state, county, and town can have far-reaching effects, not just on the local or regional economy, but also on the landscape, the land use patterns, and the quality of life," begins the report of the council.

The Challenge

The report notes some of the demographic and economic changes occurring on the East End. Increasing numbers of retirees and young families are moving into the region. The attraction of the area for the latter is "buttressed by a number of major professional employment centers existing within an hour's - or two - commute" and the fact that more and more businesses are being operated from private residences. Also, many formerly summer or weekend-only residents are now primarily year-round residents.

The "standard Federal, state, and county governmental response to increasing development pressure and economic activity on Long Island has been to build more highway infrastructure," the report observes.

"Therein," says the report, "lies the challenge that faces the East End. Our desire to create a more balanced network of alternative and traditional transportation modes essentially runs counter to the prevailing national, state, and county planning and funding policies."

The report analyzes the different forms of transportation and suggests strategies.

Rail Service

Rail service is "considered a vital, but seriously underused, part of the regional transportation network of the East End," the report says. It notes that the Long Island Rail Road's "primary focus is providing commuter rail service from the suburbs to Manhattan." The railroad maintains that "there is insufficient ridership to justify improvements in the nature of frequency of its present level of service to the East End communities."

The council concludes that "rail transit service could play a more significant role in reducing traffic congestion on the East End if improvements were made in the timing and nature of the service and if better intermodal connections were developed."

The report calls on the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association to apply constant pressure on the L.I.R.R. to fight station closings and demand improvements in rail service.

Further, it urges the association to seek "state and Federal funding to conduct a feasibility study of introducing light rail or alternative forms of light rail transit which would be compatible with the existing heavy rail system." This study "should explore the possibility of establishing connecting rail links between Port Jefferson and Riverhead and between Riverhead and the Hamptons."

Bus Transit

Bus transit on the East End is provided by a mix of public and private companies. However, the public and private bus transit sectors here "are not as well-integrated as they could be," the report says.

It calls for "ongoing dialogue with Suffolk County's Bus Transit Division. . . to develop better coordination" of bus lines and "more convenient connections between residential neighborhoods, employment centers, and major shopping areas [and] with other modes of transit such as train stations, taxi stands, parking lots, airports, ferry terminals."

It further suggests county support for a "pilot project using minivan or minibus service" to move tourists from bus and train stations to destinations such as marinas and restaurants. The report also encourages "the development of bus routes from central locations on the East End to MacArthur Airport in order to reduce car traffic to and from the airport."

Ferry Services

"Ferry services, whether vehicle or high-speed passenger, pose a dilemma for the East End," says the report. "They perform much the same function as public highways or bridges. . . . They are essential to the economic well-being of the region because they ease its geographic isolation. Yet, if allowed to expand without limit, they threaten both to overwhelm the capacity of the region's road network and to undermine its rural character."

The East End has "depended on local zoning and home rule powers to deal with - or prevent - the resultant traffic impacts" from ferries, the report says. "However, as the island's population continues to grow and the economic structure of the New England region evolves, we can expect continued economic and political pressure to expand existing ferry services, to create new services, and even to build bridges," warns the report.

Study Of Ferry Needs

The report notes Suffolk's 1990 report that found that both the Port Jefferson and Orient Point ferry services to Connecticut "were operating at levels exceeding projections" and that an "additional cross-sound ferry service would be needed by the year 2000" and urges it to be expanded "by undertaking unbiased baseline traffic studies and economic analysis in order to develop site-specific recommendations for locating a third cross-sound ferry terminal."

Also, the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association should research "legal and zoning methods by which local governments can control or mitigate traffic congestion and other negative impacts of existing ferry services. The goal should be to amass an unbiased, factual base of information about the region's ferry services and their impacts on local and regional traffic patterns."

The report says the existing airport network, although limited, is "functioning at a level sufficient for the present and foreseeable future."

Trails Network

Although "bicycle and pedestrian trails usually are viewed as being of lesser importance to the overall transportation network than the other modes," the report observes, this "was not always the case historically." The report tells of how the bicycle was once widely used in the U.S. and in Suffolk - with government encouragement.

"By 1894, close to one-third of Suffolk County's population had a bicycle permit. The Southold Town highway commissioner imposed a $2.50 bicycle tax which went towards maintenance of [bicycle] paths."

"Today, bicyclists are banned from most major highways, and they share an uneasy truce with motorists on local roads. However, on the East End, where the economy relies heavily on the rural landscape and its bucolic ambience, trails have the potential to regain some of their former prominence."

"Strategically located trails may reduce motor vehicle trips by tourists and summer residents to view the scenery and to access the waterfront or other parks," the report continues. "In the hamlets, the strategic location of trails may be instrumental in persuading people to leave their cars and walk or bike into the business districts, thereby reducing the congestion caused by short car hops from one business to another."

The report notes that control over the major highways is divided among Federal, state, and county transportation departments - all of which have shown a lack of "sensitivity to local concerns such as those of the East End. . . . Traffic management on state and county roads is not always in accordance with local preferences, particularly with regard to speed limits, signage, and road improvements."

The report recommends working with state and county governments on the development of rural road design standards.

Summing up the challenge the East End towns face in their efforts to improve local transportation, the report observes, "Without concerted, coordinated, and dynamic actions by the region's local governments, the transportation problems of the East End will worsen considerably in the foreseeable future. We face an uphill and politically slippery battle to forestall the tendency to build new and expanded highway capacity instead of investing in alternative transit modes."

Not Much Time

"It has become increasingly evident that there is not much time left within which to effect meaningful change in public policy, and, further, the actions required to get the job done will take enormous strength of will and fortitude to implement," the report continues.

The authors of the report include three town planners, Lisa Liquori of East Hampton Town, Robert Duffy of Southampton Town, and Valerie Scopaz, chairwoman, of Southold Town, and Van Howell, a Westhampton Beach Conservation Advisory Council member.

My trusty 1882 Webster's defines "status" as a state or condition. "Symbol" is defined as "a sign by which one knows or infers a thing."

Now what do you infer from the following "conditions?" 324? S.O.H.? To me, they imply money, money, money. Old money. Blue-blood money, honey. The kind of money that money just can't buy.

For the no doubt very few uninitiated readers, I shall explain this phenomenon of snobbish local minutiae.

Once upon a time East Hampton was a sleepy little village. So sleepy that up until 1963 we were quite content using operators to connect our calls. This was even 26 years after Amagansett and Montauk went "on dial."

I can almost hear them now: "Annie, could you get Mrs. Edwards on the line? I've lost my recipe for beach plum jelly and I'm up to my elbows in paraffin." Nowadays, you can't even escape the Seafood Shop parking lot without being sideswiped by Biff on his car phone: "Bonita, please tell Mrs. Arlinghouse that they're out of striped bass this weekend and we'll just have to make do with blowfish en croute. I'll be home in four minutes."

As you may have gathered, our town slowly but surely became - Planet Hampton! As the most beautiful village in America grew, the need for a new exchange became apparent. And the number that's feared almost as much as the satanic symbolic 666? 329! Eeeeek! Run for your insecure lives!

Here is this week's alarming but true factoid: Several years ago, a woman rented a 324 exchange for people to R.S.V.P. her 329 "we just come here to relax" party. A rumor persists that the desirable 324 number can be had for $50 from those mercenaries at NYNEX. Not true, according to Miss Jackson, the helpful but humorless home service representative I spoke with. You take your chances, and, if you luck out, you get a 324.

And what's with S.O.H.? Why is this important and where did this obnoxious abbreviation come from? Again, for the likely to be uninformed, S.O.H. stands for South of the Highway. This is a really, really big deal around here. Why, I'm not sure. Some of my best friends live N.O.H. But a real estate friend of mine (nice and successful, an oxymoron; therefore my friend must remain nameless) explained it to me.

In the 1970s, although East Hampton was a decidedly popular resort, most rentals were advertised locally. But Madison Avenue got a whiff of the potential and started coming up with some snappy and sharp lingo to lure mo' money. Yeah, sure, South of the Highway is the ocean side of the highway, but the whole S.O.H. acquisition has become even more necessary than that Saturday night table at Nick and Toni's, where the specialty of the house is apt to be braised Thumper. Why are there so few cottontails around Pauline's property nowadays?

Since whether or not someone possesses these status symbols is not always apparent, here are a few subtle clues. Certain types of status holders don't care about food. A quick bite at the club, or a mayonnaise sandwich washed down with Glenlivet at home will suffice. If Lovey wants to go out, the banquette at Gordon's will do.

The 329s, like lemmings, dine wherever New York magazine's Hamptons issue tells them to. Otherwise, the private chef at home can always whip up a meal of any nationality.

Stickers on cars are a good clue to who's who. If the entire back window is clouded over with stickers running the gamut from Hotchkiss to Harvard, you're following a 324. A 329 knows Land Rovers look terrible cluttered up with stickers. If the car only has a resident recycling permit, don't bother trying to social climb with this bush league player.

For exercise, the 324s take a dip in the ocean, knowing they'll work out later to the musical stylings of wild man Peter Duchin. For 329s it's the Reebok Sports Club in New York, and a personal trainer in the Hamptons.

Last but not least, drinking habits. The 324 bartender knows what you want when you walk in. The 329 sommelier will have decanted the right Bordeaux at the American Hotel before his favorite client roars off Route 114. For a bush leaguer, the bartender at Murph's knows when to cut him off.

So put on your Sherlock Holmes hats, learn how to make these oh so important distinctions, and you're all going to be quizzed at the end of the season!

Pauline Goliard tries hard to subscribe to Diana Vreeland's cryptic dictum "Elegance is refusal."

Before A Week Old

Panama City

April 26, 1997

To The Editor:

I have been a Star reader since I could first read. But this morning I woke up early to let the dog out, and said what the heck, let's go online. And I finally got to read my Star, or some of it, before it is a week old as it usually is when I receive it. So it's nice to know even though I live on the Panama Canal I can now read my Star on line.

Thank you,

JACK CONNORS

More Glitz

East Hampton

April 28, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray:

Land reform in East Hampton? Take from the poor and give to the rich!

While our best minds struggle to find solutions to the problem of the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor, our local government struggles to increase the gap.

Upscale zoning? Just what the doctor ordered. A little more glitz, a little less funk!

Sincerely,

RITA McINTYRE

Memorial Tribute

East Hampton

April 28, 1997

Dear Helen,

On Sunday, April 20, a very special event took place at Guild Hall. Colleagues, friends, neighbors, and members of the Jimmy Ernst Artists Alliance gathered to participate in a memorial tribute to Willem de Kooning, perhaps East Hampton's most famous artist, who died last month. Fifteen people who knew and admired Bill, as he was affectionately known, came to offer their memories and anecdotes about this modest, candid, caring, and humorous man, whose art is famous throughout the United States and the world. A special exhibit, in fact, featuring his last paintings, before he became a victim of Alzheimer's, is just concluding at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.

The program, sponsored by the alliance and ably moderated by Helen Harrison, director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs, began with a short film produced in the 1960s by Hans Namuth and Paul Falkenburg, which set the scene and revealed a vigorous de Kooning and demonstrated his painting technique and his authenticity, dating back to his European upbringing and training.

"Bill was the king of us," stated Paul Brach. "He was the best." Other colleagues described his generosity, his lack of pretension, his "sweetness." Ibram Lassaw, de Kooning's oldest friend and colleague, told of the many adventures he and his wife and Elaine and Bill had together. Will Zogbaum, a young neighbor, fondly remembered dinner table conversations when he was just 6 years old. Dr. Alan York, de Kooning's optometrist and an art scholar, spent hours discussing the old masters with him and watching him paint so that he could design special eyeglasses for close and faraway work. He noted that this caring man paid for an ambulance for the Springs Fire Department, and gave them two paintings which are hanging today in the firehouse.

Others who spoke at this moving tribute were Connie Fox, Donald Kennedy, David and Marion Porter, David Slifka, Judith Wolfe, Athos Zacharias, Elaine Benson, and Ruth Nasca.

This was indeed a memorable tribute to a remarkable and talented man. Everyone who attended felt privileged to be present and came away with a new understanding and appreciation of this irreplaceable human being.

Cordially,

MARIE WARACH

President

Jimmy Ernst Artists Alliance

Please address correspondence to [email protected]

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

A friend who bears no love for the tobacco industry passed along a news item this week that goes straight to the top of the someone-is-trying-to-tell-us-something file, otherwise called the Department of Poetic Justice.

"Authorities say a smoldering cigarette butt was the probable cause of a fire that destroyed the luxury vacation home of the president of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The three-floor vacation home . . . on upscale Figure Eight Island in North Carolina was reduced to a row of charred pilings after it caught fire while workers installing ceiling tiles were at lunch . . . . Fire officials said the blaze probably was caused by a cigarette butt left by a worker who told inspectors he had smoked near where the fire started about half an hour before the crew left."

It wasn't cigarettes that caused the tongue cancer that afflicts our friend's nearest and dearest, but cigars, which have surged in popularity in the past few years even as the use of cigarettes has waned somewhat.

Those who smoke cigars or pipes will tell you more often than not that their habits are harmless. After all, they don't inhale. High school students who have discovered snuff (sometimes called "smokeless tobacco") almost always believe the same.

In fact, of course, there is nicotine in all these products, and it is just as addictive as it is in cigarettes. Those who think they are in no danger because no smoke reaches their lungs should think again, and again.

"A trip to the head and neck division of Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center would probably do more to cure nicotine addiction," says our friend, "than all the 'patches' and chewing gum and expensive rehab programs in existence."

Has no member of the Amagansett School Board ever heard that a school district has an obligation to its taxpayers to lease its grounds or buildings, where appropriate, to the highest bidder, just as it awards its building contracts to the lowest?

The principle is the same: to keep the tax rate down.

Last week, in agreeing to rent the district's south-of-the-highway house on Miankoma Lane for $10,000 for the months of July and August, the School Board lost sight of its mandate. The two-bedroom ranch-style residence may not be much to look at as Hamptons houses go, but its location, within easy walking distance of shops, beaches, the railroad station, tennis, even the Post Office - makes it highly desirable as a summer retreat.

The district paid $275,000 for the house in 1990, top dollar at a time when a serious recession was well under way. Many residents thought the price outrageous, but the proposal passed in a 140-to-89 vote held in mid-February (absentee balloting was not allowed). A further $25,000 then went for renovations.

Amagansett taxpayers were entitled to expect a better return on their investment this summer, the first time the district has leased the house to anyone other than its School Superintendent. Instead, the board, without advertising and with few people even aware the place was available, accepted a low offer from a young local couple whom several board members know personally.

In explaining the decision, members cited among other things the concerns of some parents about the proximity of a "stranger" living next to schoolchildren.

"Since we don't have our act totally together in terms of policy, maybe it's best to take the money and run with someone we know," said Patrick Bistrian Jr., who is vacating his seat in June after 30 years on the board.

It is too late now to rescind the lease, but it is not too late for Amagansett School District residents to make known their opinions of this questionable transaction, if for no other reason than to insure that nothing of the sort happens again next summer.

When last we dropped in on the South Fork Natural History Society, it was deep in negotiation with state officials over a dream - a natural history museum that would be at the western edge of the parking lot at Montauk Point State Park, complete with exhibits on our flora and fauna, programs for kids and adults, and a small aquarium.

Then last week we heard something new. East Hampton Town officials are considering turning the old Cox's Fishing Station at the mouth of Three Mile Harbor, which the town owns, into an environmental center for programs particularly for youngsters.

Add to these the summer programs at the Nature Conservancy's Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island and the amazing number of year-round "interpretive" hikes led by the Group for the South Fork and the East Hampton and Southampton Trails Preservation Societies.

All of these efforts to enhance awareness of, concern for, and pleasure in the environment among the public at large are welcome. They may in part be responsible for the public's willingness to spend tax dollars for clean water and the purchase of open space, and they may help make permanent the accolade from the Nature Conservancy that the East End is one of the "Last Great Places."

This generation of adults may be the last that grew up here knowing the harbors, meadows, woods, and wetlands almost by birthright. Informal and unfettered access to wondrous places was the best teacher, with friends, family, and centuries-old tradition. Today, that is becoming scarce; signs and fences say "private." Instead, the formal programs of environmental organizations are proliferating.

In this case, too many cooks can't spoil the stew but they can make it a jumble. The time would seem to be overripe for a summit among all those who know and love the East End, and who want to pass their knowledge and pleasure along. Working in concert, they could insure that all the environmental programs and any future nature centers are complementary, rather than competing or overlapping.

The promoter Ron Delsener and East Hampton's Guild Hall have teamed up for another summer concert series - this one with an even larger palette of performers than last summer's successful Grolsch series. Guild Hall announced the lineup on Monday.

The country icon Willie Nelson will open "the Seagram's Mixers Summer Concert Series" with a performance on May 25, and the folk singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie will close it out on Aug. 16. In between, the series will spotlight an eclectic mix of everything from comedy to cabaret and jazz, including such names as George Carlin, Spalding Gray, George Benson, and Billy Bragg.

The lineup - with several more acts and dates to be announced - looks like this: Willie Nelson (May 25, $70), Echo and the Bunnymen May 30), George Shearing and Joe Williams (July 4, two shows, $60), Andrea Marcovicci (July 11 and 12, $35), Spalding Gray, "It's a Slippery Slope" (July 18 and 19, $40), George Carlin (July 25, $70), John Kelley in "Paved Paradise - The Songs of Joni Mitchell" (July 26, $35), Howie Mandel (Aug. 6, $60), George Benson (Aug. 15, $70), and Arlo Guthrie (Aug. 16, $35).

Comedy And Cabaret

"Like last year, it's a real pastiche sort of deal," said Robert Long, Guild Hall's public relations director, referring to 1996's span of acts from Elvis Costello to the '50s era cabaret singer Rosemary Clooney. "This is a somewhat more eclectic line-up," Mr. Long said, "It's going to be good."

The ticket prices are also more eclectic. The Grolsch series ranged from $50 to $80, while this year's shows run from $35 to $70. Guild Hall's John Drew Theater seats roughly 385.

While the Grolsch series was built largely around more current, pop-realm acts - Shawn Colvin, Mr. Costello, The Robert Cray Band, Laurie Anderson, Squeeze - the Seagram's series centers more on individuals and represents different genres. Mr. Delsener had hoped to bring comedy, for example, to last summer's stage, but wound up with all music.

Jazz And Folk

This year, the series boasts two established comedians, as well as a new monologue by the innovator of that genre, Mr. Gray. "It's a Slippery Slope" deals with the part-time Sag Harbor resident's trials in learning to ski.

The Seagram's series also gives a more vigorous nod to jazz and cabaret. George Shearing, the English jazz-piano legend, will team up with Joe Williams, an equally important jazz vocalist whose roots trace back to the big-band era.

George Benson, another prominent jazz figure, is a veteran guitarist who made pop breakthroughs with songs like "Breezin' " and a remake of "On Broadway" that became the title song of the film "All That Jazz."

Phony Joni

The cabaret singer Andrea Marcovicci is no stranger to Guild Hall's stage. She is a favorite in New York as well, playing regularly at the Algonquin Hotel and other respected venues.

Probably the most colorful musical act in the lineup is John Kelley's "Paved Paradise - The Songs of Joni Mitchell." Mr. Kelley has been pulling in rave reviews for his impersonation of Ms. Mitchell's alluring voice and persona.

The series' originally scheduled second act, Billy Bragg, a politically oriented British folk singer, was canceled this week. But Guild Hall announced the addition of another British act, Echo and the Bunnymen, a new wave band that made its mark in the '80s.

Nelson's Encore

Like Elvis Costello last summer, Willie Nelson may be the marquee act of the series as well as the opening act. The soft-spoken singer has not played in the area since appearing with the Highwaymen at the 1992 Back at the Ranch Concert.

Tickets for all shows go on sale Saturday at 11 a.m. They can be purchased at the Guild Hall box office (cash only), or by credit card through all Ticketmaster outlets and American Express Gold, at (212) 307-GOLD.

The Guild Hall box office will be open Thursday through Sunday throughout May and June, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. In July and August the box office will stay open seven days, also from 11 to 5. On show days, the box office will be open until show time.

When the Meet the Writers Book Fair at the Elaine Benson Gallery celebrates its 20th year on Friday, May 9, the old cynic from Ecclesiastes who wrote that "of the making of many books there is no end" will feel totally vindicated if he pays his $15 and comes along.

Over 60 famous and not-so-famous East End scribes who have published books this year will be present, seated behind a long row of tables circling the gallery's patio, pens in hand, ready to sign away for the good cause of the writing program and library at Southampton College.

From a financial point of view, this has to be one of the most attractive benefits of the summer season - it costs very little to attend and you get more than your money's worth for any books you buy while you are there.

Quite A Collection

And just imagine for a minute that you are one of the faithful who have turned up at the fair every year and done your bit for the John Steinbeck Project by buying a book each time.

By now, your collection of signed first editions might include books by James Jones (could be worth as much as $500, based on prices at Glenn Horowitz), Jean Stafford ($250), Kurt Vonnegut ($500), Truman Capote ($300) . . .

That's just four, and you're already way ahead of the game.

With the first money it ever had, the Steinbeck Project set up a writer's room at the college. Budd Schulberg, when he had two small children at home, was one of many to use it.

The project has since expanded to provide scholarships, a visiting writer program and annual lecture, books for the library, and support for the college's literary magazine.

Among The Signers

This year those who attend the book fair will have a chance to buy "Longitude" from Dava Sobel, "Wolf Kahn" from Justin Spring, new poems by David Ignatow, and a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction from Lanford Wilson, Rona Jaffe, Gregory Rabassa, Roger Rosenblatt, Lee Seldes, Suzanne Nalbantian, Star Black, and others.

Or "The Slick of the Cricket" by The Star's own Russell Drumm, about Montauk's shark-hunting Captain Frank Mundus, or "Good Cheap Food" by The Star's food columnist, Miriam Ungerer.

Ms. Benson, who has hosted the fair at her gallery since its inception, will have a book of her own in it this year, "Unmentionables, A Brief History of Underwear," which is selling like hot pants.

This year's John Steinbeck Award will be given to Edward Albee. While still best known for having written "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" the playwright has had a recent run of successes, including "Three Tall Women."

Mr. Albee, who has won three Pulitzer Prizes and was honored last December with an award from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, ran the Playwrights Unit in Manhattan for many years. On his property in Montauk, he has established a foundation that provides a summer work program for young performers.

Independents

The Playwrights Unit produced over 110 plays by new playwrights, including Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Terrence McNally, Adrienne Kennedy, and John Guare.

Perhaps the most gratifying event of the afternoon, in light of the loss of many independent bookstores and the upcoming closure of Books and Company in Manhattan, will be a presentation honoring George Caldwell and George Costello of Book Hampton and Canio Pavone of Canio's Books for their contribution over the past 20 years to the literary life of the East End.

Art, Too

Book Hampton has stores in East Hampton and Southampton; Canio's is in Sag Harbor.

Add to this the opportunity to attend the opening exhibit of the Benson Gallery's 33rd season, "Emerging Artists," and you have an event that represents not only the traditional start of the season, but a chance to meet authors, see art, buy books, and prime oneself for a summer of drinking warm chardonnay in plastic glasses.

A first for the book fair this year is a $10,000 underwriting grant by Kimco, the company behind the Bridgehampton Commons shopping development.

A slide show at the painter Billy Sullivan's studio off Route 114 in East Hampton turned out to be neither a solemn parade of canvases nor a doting collection of family photos but a little of both, with funny remarks and irreverent asides thrown in for laughs.

Mostly of pieces from his current show at the Fischbach Gallery in New York, the slides included ink drawings of local birds, pastels of nudes, pictures of dogs, portraits of friends, and paintings of his sons.

Although his work is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Art Museum of South Texas, and is in numerous corporate and private collections, there's nothing pretentious about Mr. Sullivan.

Just as he never refers to himself as William, or even Bill, neither did he try to impress a recent visitor with his personal majesty.

Dave, Archie, Harry

"This is called 'Archie and Jane,' " he said about a playful painting of a white bulldog and a woman's leg, beside a body of water. "Archie's the dog. That's Jane Rosenblum's leg, and that's Georgica Pond."

"Dave and Archie," a pastel, depicts Archie with a black bulldog belonging to Mr. Sullivan's companion, Klaus Kertess, whose foot, like Ms. Rosenblum's leg, also seems to be in the picture by accident.

Another work shows his 21-year-old son, Sam, in a black wool hat and a Dave-photo T-shirt in Wainscott; another, his son Max's dog, Harry, posing in Colorado, and another a motley crew of clownish blackbirds, bluejays, cardinals, and a velvety mourning dove sketched from his dining room table.

Recently back from Hollywood, where he was flown to do the paintings for a film about a gay artist who lives across the hall from a writer played by Jack Nicholson, Mr. Sullivan also showed works from that gig.

Directed by James L. Brooks of "Terms of Endearment," the film, "Old Friends," will be released this Christmas.

Ross Bleckner plays a lawyer, Skeet Ulrich a hustler who beats up the artist, and Helen Hunt of "Twister" the female lead as the artist's model.

A pastel of Skeet is in the show, along with several pastels of Kathleen White, a friend of Mr. Sullivan's and the model for the nude drawings made in his Bowery studio - supposedly of Ms. Hunt - that were used in the film.

"What a scene," he said. "The director had just discovered Degas, and bombarded me with faxes and phone calls from Hollywood telling me to make Kathleen look as Degas-ish as possible, posing her like 'The Bather,' and so forth."

Artist To Actor

Eventually Ms. Hunt tore up most of the drawings, even though they weren't of her body.

"She was scared of guys seeing them on the Internet, and destroyed them. I was stunned. It was like the old book-burnings, only Hollywood style."

"The movie has a surrealist quality," he said. "It's theoretically about the New York art scene - they completely recreated Jane Freilicher's studio for it - and also asked me to advise the actor on how to play a queer artist."

"I told him to move his hands a lot, and suggested black clothes. They had him in floral prints and Hawaiian stuff dating back to Cherry Grove in the '60s."

Pivotal Painting

One of the pivotal paintings he was asked to make was of a mother, with her breasts exposed, towelling her son's head.

"Part of me wouldn't let me think this was supposed to illustrate why the artist went gay - it was too lame a theme," he confessed.

When they later recast Louise Fletcher, the mean nurse in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," as the mother, he was flown back to Hollywood to paint her head in above the breasts. "That made more sense," he said.

Mr. Sullivan, the younger of two children, was born in New York City in 1946 and grew up in Brooklyn. He attended a Catholic grammar school where, in the pre-dyslexia-diagnosis days, he was known simply as "a horrible student."

What The Doctor Ordered

His mother, one of a family of 12 kids, "was sharp as a whip and very understanding," despite having gone no further than fourth grade. She worked as a switchboard operator, while his father held a menial job on Wall Street.

In a great stroke of good luck, the family doctor urged the young artist to take the exam for the new High School of Art and Design near his Manhattan office.

It was just what the doctor ordered.

"It took me out of Brooklyn every day and planted me in Bloomingdale's basement, through which I walked from the subway to the school, on 57th Street. It was a totaly different place, designed for gifted kids, with great teachers, where I sort of found myself."

Mr. Sullivan won a scholarship to the fine arts department of the School of Visual Arts, and embarked on a wild nightlife of disco-hopping, drinking, and cutting up '60s-style.

He went out every night, to Max's, Arthur's, Ondine, any club where the bouncers liked him. At Scene East he met Amy Goodman, another of the P.Y.P.s - pretty young people, as they were called - and fell in love with her. The two were married in 1968, the year he graduated from Visual Arts.

An Attraction

"It was like a fairy tale. She came from a good family, we had a big wedding, and went around the world on our honeymoon. When we got back, we bought a brownstone at a great bargain on the Upper West Side, and went to Max's every night. I kept painting. We had two kids; it was great."

The young family began renting summer houses in the Hamptons in the early '70s. One night, after a party, Mr. Sullivan went for a swim with Mr. Kertess, whom he'd met casually at the writer's Bykert Gallery in New York, and realized there was a strong attraction between them.

"I sort of thought I could juggle both things at first," he said about the looming conflict with his growing family. "Klaus was then living with a woman artist, and it took us a long time to work it all out."

"Of course none of us had a clue about what we were doing. We were the young kids on the block, out of our minds in that pre-AIDS era when everything was allowed."

Salad Days

While Mr. Sullivan wouldn't trade the drama of his salad days for anything, he's "not so wild and confused and lost anymore," and pleased still to be on loving terms with his ex-wife and sons.

"I had a hard time figuring out who I was, and that I was going to spend my life with a man," he said. "But once I got it, I was okay."

Through it all, Mr. Sullivan kept painting. He began appearing in group and solo shows at the Kornblee, Holly Solomon, and Fischbach galleries in New York, and in galleries and museums around the country and the world.

"I love all kinds of art, and always did," he said. "I knew I was an artist from day one, and never experienced not knowing what I wanted to be."

Drawn To Fashion

He has always done portraits, thinking of them as less than art, as ways to pay the rent. But getting into a person's life and turning it into something else, he realized, is the way art works.

He has also been forever drawn to fashion, on the edge of art, and was commissioned two years ago by The New York Times Magazine to cover the Milan, Paris, and New York openings.

"It was a grueling but wonderful experience. I got a better view of the fashion world, and got to make art out of it, too."

Animal Subjects

An earlier trip to Deauville during the Paris openings broadened another lifelong obsession - with animals. "I've always painted dogs, but one morning, after staying up all night in the casino, we drove out into the countryside and there were these terrific white French cows."

They turned up in his work, along with a highly pedigreed breed of cows he saw in Texas, and eventually were joined by pigs, swans, and, his current fascination, birds.

"My art is about chronicling my life," he summed things up, gazing out the dining room window at the latest flight of grackles.

"I've been taking photos for the last 30 years, then making drawings which give me the freedom to feel comfortable with paint, brushes, and pastels, and just to let things happen. When a painting works out, it sort of rises above its subject."

They've been working out for him a lot over the past five or six years, he said with a smile. "I'm feeling more secure about who I am and what I'm doing than ever before. Maybe I'm a late bloomer: everything's falling into place."