Ebony And Phonics

East Hampton

December 1996

To The Editor:

Years ago it might have been called slang or street language. But not today. In our supposedly enlightened times of political correctness, where we dare not offend this group or that, we now have a new language. Its name is Ebonics.

Ebonics got its start out on the West Coast of our country, where countless other mind-numbing trends and new-wave ideas have been born. In Oakland, Calif., at a school board meeting, Ebonics was sired.

The name, Ebonics, comes from two words really. The words ebony and phonics have been bastardized to form the new word. Heck, why not? In America today, in these times of liberal-think and great compassion, anything goes.

Now here's the rationale. At this school board meeting, it was decided that African Americans were predisposed to speak in a certain manner. Like any other ethnic group, they had their own terminology, so to speak, within the bounds of the English language.

Toni Cook, the spokesperson for the Oakland School Board, went a step further, however. She claimed that African American students were much more than predisposed; Ms. Cook said that these students were actually born to speak Ebonics. It was in their blood, an instinctual thing. Dogs bark, cats meow, and young African Americans, well, you get the picture.

All of this, of course, begs the question, just what is Toni Cook smoking? Her outrageous and insulting remarks are so far afield that, almost to the man or woman, black leaders are disgusted by her assertions. Good for them! If any person of noncolor were to make such an implication about African Americans being unable to comprehend and speak proper English, that person would be castigated and humiliated by every pundit in the country. As well they should be.

Needless to say, there are many underlying reasons for Ms. Cook's and the Oakland School Board's strange position. By coming to the conclusion that black students in Oakland are really speaking a second language and not a street slang, these folks hope to open the faucet of Federal and state tax dollars to study and teach it. Yes, the teachers would learn first. After doing so, they would be in a better position to reach their African American students. So who's running the asylum?

All of this nonsense has other far greater negative ramifications, not just for the students of whom we speak, but for America too. Once more, because of a misguided and shameful grab for dollars and a desire for separation from broad society on the part of some, further disintegration between the two races is taking place.

All that can come of it is more resentment and polarization. I'm convinced that a small minority in the black community would welcome this. After all, race hate is a two-way street.

To succeed in America, or anywhere for that matter, people must learn to assimilate and become part of the bigger whole. Successful Asians or Koreans or Germans even must learn to speak English fluently and correctly to get ahead. That goes for everyone, not just immigrants. This is not to say a person must forget his heritage or leave it behind. The language of America is English, not Ebonics. Just ask some of the many accomplished African Americans what language they speak. Their reply? English, thank you!

RICHARD BYRNE

The Christopher Tree

Amagansett

December 26, 1996

To The Editor,

Christmas is a special time of year for all of us to reflect on our lives, the meaning of family, tradition, and goodwill toward others. This year, my thoughts have been both tremendously elated and deeply disturbed. And, while love and joy will prevail this Christmas, I carry just a note of uneasiness about our community and the future my children will face.

The story begins when a boy was born and his father planted a living Christmas tree in the front yard in his honor. The Christmas tree was long a source of joy and remembrance for a growing boy. It was thrilling each year to put lights on the tree and see it become a towering conifer both mighty and magical.

And though the father did not live to watch the boy or the tree grow past 5, the boy, now my husband, cherished the thought and wanted to repeat this Christmas tradition for our son. And so, on our Christopher's first Christmas, we decorated a living Christmas tree, counted our blessings, and continued a tradition. The beautiful little pine was planted despite the cold frozen earth and nurtured dutifully throughout the year.

We began to call it the Christopher tree and relished the time when the family could together stand at its base and peer up to the heights and remember a child being born.

A few days ago, my husband lit the Christopher tree, and others, to celebrate our love of Christmas and to share good cheer with the community. The trees shone out of the darkness on a windy winter road and warmed the heart as if to say, "Peace, joy, happiness, and good tidings to all."

As we approached home last night, I told my son he would see his special tree brightly lit for Christmas. We were both excited to see it, and as we rounded the corner we saw the twinkle of lights but something was wrong. I could not see the Christopher tree. I thought with a panic that maybe it was unplugged and I just could not see it in the darkness.

I squinted and strained for the Christopher tree. I thought it must be there, it's a tree. I got out of the car and I felt for it in the night. The Christopher tree had simply vanished. The next thing I felt was a stump flush to the ground. Someone had taken a buzz saw to the Christopher tree, carefully unplugged it from the extension cord, and taken it away.

My heart sank, and my mind jumbled. Who could do something like this? Will someone actually enjoy celebrating Christmas under a stolen tree? Will that family know that this already brightly lit tree was cut down, thrown in the back of a truck, and whisked away from my home? Has the celebration of Christmas sunk to such a low point that morals no longer exist, and happiness is purely in the material? Then I thought how mean-spirited it was that some stranger could simply destroy my family's tradition.

The Christopher tree is now gone forever. Whatever possessed this individual to commit this crime will never be known. And, while I am sad at the loss of the tree, I am sadder for the chiseling away at my faith in the goodness of people and at the world my son will live in.

Thankfully, my son is still too young to understand this story so I do not have to explain it or mend any hurt feelings. When I replant a new Christopher tree, I do not know where I should plant it. Maybe I should secrete it away from public view to keep it safe. Or maybe I should stand up to this grinch and plant the Christopher tree where it was so that it can continue to share its joyful delighted dance and twinkle of lights with all of you each holiday season.

Peace be with you all.

JEANNETTE SCHWAGERL

Please address correspondence to [email protected]

Of course most of us remember Kay Thompson's "Eloise," the hit children's book of 1955 with the witty scarlet, black, and hot-pink drawings by Hilary Knight.

Subtitled "A Book for Precocious Grownups, About a Little Girl Who Lives at the Plaza Hotel," it's still in print today, selling briskly to a whole new generation of kids who think the Plaza belongs to Donald Trump when - if long-term occupancy and staff devotion count -it's really Eloise's.

To celebrate Eloise's 40th birthday, Vanity Fair ran a story last month about Ms. Thompson, now 94 and living in seclusion in Connecticut, and Mr. Knight, who just turned 70 and lives in East Hampton when he's not in New York.

English Influence

Mr. Knight did the drawings for the article, and recently joined the Vanity Fair staff as a contributing artist, covering the New York Collections for the January issue.

His dust-jacket drawing for the first "Eloise" book shows a bratty little girl standing on tiptoe, scrawling her name in scarlet lipstick on a mirror above a marble mantelpiece. It's a sassy image, but also full of pathos: the spunk of the lonely kid scrambling to make her mark on the Plaza's majestic decor.

"I'd always admired the pen-and-ink drawings by English artists in Punch and in a tiny magazine called Lilliput, which first published the work of Ronald Searle," Mr. Knight told a visitor recently.

Wicked Schoolgirls

"He did these dreadful, vicious little schoolgirls terrifying their teachers: one, for example, with a boa constrictor draped over her shoulders. I loved the wicked style, and in the early '50s began doing contemporary drawings along those lines."

These humorous works were first published in Mademoiselle, and later in House & Garden and Gourmet. They caught the attention of D.D. Dixon, Mr. Knight's neighbor in their East Side apartment building and a fashion editor under the legendary Diana Vreeland at Harper's Bazaar.

Ms. Dixon was just back from a shoot at which Richard Avedon had photographed Ms. Thompson posing with a coq-feather fan Mr. Knight happened to have designed.

"She said I must meet Kay, who had this alter ego, Eloise, whose voice she did on the phone. Kay was writing a book about her, and D.D. thought my drawings might be right for it."

First Meeting

The author and the illustrator met at the Plaza - where else? - where Ms. Thompson, a noted singer and voice coach, was appearing in a nightclub act. (She later starred in the movie "Funny Face," playing a Vreeland-like fashion editor who commands her staff to "think pink.")

"Kay showed me her manuscript, I did some drawings, and we worked very closely for a year: It was the birth of an exhilarating collaboration."

Ms. Thompson is quoted in the Vanity Fair article as saying she once desperately drove her car across a golf course, rushing to get to the choreographer Bob Alton's house on time: "I opened the door . . . and he said, 'Who do think you are, coming here five minutes late?' I said, 'I am Eloise. I am 6.' "

And that is how the book begins.

First Spinoffs

"Kay really was like this mischievous waif with the absent parents, who lives with her Nanny and hobnobs with the Plaza staff," Mr. Knight said. "But there was a lot of her in the mother-substitute Nanny, too, and I drew her that way."

After getting a big spread in Life magazine, "Eloise" was an almost immediate success, and the first children's book to generate a line of toys produced in the heat of one of publishing's maiden merchandising binges.

The following year Mr. Knight went to Paris, where Ms. Thompson was filming "Funny Face," to begin work on a sequel, "Eloise in Paris," published in 1957.

"Eloise at Christmastime" followed in 1958, and "Eloise in Moscow" in 1959. The two were working on "Eloise Takes a Bawth" when "the collaboration became utterly devastating for us both, and fell apart."

"Bawth" Submerged

"By the end of our association," said Mr. Knight, "Kay wanted total control over the little girl's every movement, and really would not let me contribute anything. I realized that it was getting to be less and less fun, and that the later books were not up to the quality of the first."

Ms. Thompson evidently agreed, for she let all but the first, "Eloise," go out of print.

As for the "Bawth" book, it never saw the light of day.

In The Family

"It started out as a funny story about a bath that culminates in a giant flood in the Plaza lobby, a parody of the disaster film, that lost its humor because we worked on it for nearly four years," Mr. Knight said.

With several non-Eloise books already to his credit, as well as mag-

azine illustrations and, notably, many theater posters, he went on to work with other authors, and to write his own material as well. Among his solo works is the beguiling "Where's Wallace?", about a disappearing orangutan a young reader can find hiding in a new, surprising place on every page.

He also did the drawings for "Algonquin Cat," with story by Val Schaffner, and illustrated Judith Viorst's "Sunday Morning," entirely with silhouettes. His art work for Edward Lear's "The Owl and the Pussycat" perhaps shows him at his most charming as a visual storyteller.

Illustrating runs in the family. "I grew up in an amazing household in Roslyn with two very active and successful illustrator-parents," Mr. Knight said. "In the '20s, illustrators painted huge six-foot canvases for various magazines before photography took over; it was a big thing."

Art-Filled House

His father, Clayton Knight, a World

War I pilot and Chicago Art Institute graduate, did aviation illustrations for boys' books and World War II magazines and literature.

His mother, Katharine Sturges, worked for the Ladies Home Journal, designed fabrics, and filled their house with murals: circus animals for Hilary's bedroom, exotic Art Deco scenes in the dining room. The couple collaborated on a New Yorker cover in 1926.

When Hilary was 6 the family moved to New York, where he learned "absolutely nothing, not even how to add or write script" at the progressive City and Country School.

He later floundered academically at the High School for Music and Art and at Friends Seminary, until his mother finally let him go to the Art Students League, where he studied with George Gross and Reginald Marsh.

In The Navy

"I never wanted to do anything but be an artist anyway," he said. "Marsh was a great draftsman who taught me how the bones and muscles moved around, and gave me a sense of action in drawing."

Later, drawing children's fashions for Saks Fifth Avenue newspaper ads, he found this background allowed him to work without a model, "really whipping out the drawings and having a lot of fun."

Mr. Knight was drafted into the Navy in 1944. "I was an 18-year-old midget," he said, "and a complete innocent. I remember trying to look invisible on the train to boot camp, and being totally amazed at how often the F-word was used."

He spent the war literally painting ships, and in a logistic support company that set up camps on Okinawa. "I had no idea what was going on. Sometimes I'd hear distant gunfire, but I was in another world, reading and drawing in my little tent and waiting to get out."

Stage Design: Short Run

Back home, a decision to become a stage designer led to an apprenticeship at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, then run by George Abbott.

"Nancy Davis Reagan was in the company, and Ruth Chatterton, Jane Cowl, and Richard Widmark. Set designing and building was very hard work, and too big, somehow. I wanted to be back at a drawing board."

After studying art and decorative-art history at the New York School of Design, Mr. Knight took a job as a room renderer for the decorating firm Amster Yard Inc. "I did slightly over-the-top renderings of room designs that made them look impressive and flashy. It was fun," he said.

He recently completed an Eloise display at the Museum of the City of New York on upper Fifth Avenue, where "New York Toy Stories," an exhibit of New Yorkers' playthings, has just opened.

Museum, Gallery

Eloise, fittingly, is the only character with her very own installation: a recreation of her pink Plaza bedroom that includes real '50s room-service plates from the Plaza collection. "She's the quintessential New York kid," Mr. Knight said.

For this summer, East Hampton's Giraffics gallery is planning a three-person show of works by Mr. Knight and his artist-parents.

"It should be interesting," he said. "We all have wildly different styles."

"I was very influenced, however, by a huge painting of my mother's of a sassy little Victorian girl in a big pink bow. She's prettier than Eloise, but has her smart-aleck attitude."

"As my mother used to say, 'She knows how many beans make five.' "

The New York Times crossword puzzle on Saturday is often of teeth-grinding difficulty. But while you may call down a pox and a mullein on the puzzle's editor when you fail to complete it, you would never exchange it for Monday's, which usually offers no challenge at all.

And so it is with books and music and poetry and an exhibit of 15 small photographs by Linda Connor at Glenn Horowitz Bookseller.

The limited edition artist's book of Charles Simic's long poem "On the Music of the Spheres," which the photographs accompany, opens with the words of Pliny the Elder, written over 900 years ago.

"Whether the sound of this vast mass whirling in unceasing rotation is of enormous volume and consequently beyond the capacity of our ears to perceive, for my own part I cannot easily say - any more in fact than whether this is true of the tinkling of the stars that travel round with it, revolving in their own orbits; or whether it emits a sweet harmonious music that is beyond belief charming. To us who live within it the world glides silently alike by day and by night."

Spiritual Photographs

Today we don't even have the comfort of a silently gliding world. If there is a celestial music, then our roaring, clattering globe has surely drowned it out, and the uninterrupted hour of peace and solitude when we might hear it in our imagination has become a rare treasure.

Like the chance to sit down in the book-scented silence of Glenn Horowitz and unhurriedly turn the big, gray, you-can't-afford-to-buy-me pages, read the poem, and absorb Ms. Connor's intense, spiritual photographs.

"This Saturday night the sky is a giant Pythagorean

jukebox sparkling in a corner of a darkened night club.

The black wax is spinning.

Tarantula Nebula.

It's one of the Golden Oldies.

The mystics among us will hear the music."

Satisfying Challenge

There is the music he's writing about, and then there is the music of the poetry itself and the music in the photography. You don't have to be a mystic to enjoy them, but you do need a bit of concentration and lack of interruption. It's like the crossword - it is satisfying because it is a challenge.

In the book, the 15 photographs run at the end of the text rather than beside it, leaving you to make your own interpretation. Some of them are taken from 19th-century astronomical prints, like a shattered plate of an 1895 lunar eclipse. The cracks run like ghostly meteorite trails framing the distant moon. White-on-black archive notes run around the edges of the negative impression like a religious mantra.

A woman on a threshing floor pours wheat from a silver bowl. It's hard to say why the picture, which was taken a few years ago in Turkey but could have been from the time of "The Song of Solomon," ties in with the polar axis and Andromeda and asteroids, but it does.

Chill Down The Spine

In an early photo of the Milky Way, so many more stars have burned their impressions into the plate than can be seen with the naked eye that it sends a chill down the spine.

"If photographers are soul-stealers, whose soul is being stolen in the photograph of the night sky?

The eyes of the last one to go to bed and the eyes of the first one to rise, perhaps?"

Then there is a stunning slow exposure of the Mohammad Ali Mosque in Cairo, with its three circles of hanging lamps and high domed ceilings. At first glance the mosque is deserted, but then you see the faint ghosts of worshippers who have entered and left under the camera's slowly whirring eye.

Blissful Silence

Of similar intensity are pictures of sand mandalas at the Mindroling Monastery in Tibet and "Prayer Wheels and Lumber," taken at another monastery. The elaborate hand-poured mandalas are indeed "mindrolingly" impressive in their size and intricacy and perfection. An ill-advised cough at the wrong moment and hours of work would have been ruined.

In "Jesus Raising the Dead," all but a small piece of a religious mosaic has fallen from a dome of a church in Istanbul. Jesus reaches out his hands to the dead but all around his head the exposed circles of brick look like a swirling astronomical plate of stars moving through the night sky.

The series closes with "Window and Thankgas," taken in India. Sunshine coming through a window forms a blinding supernova of light, behind which can be distinguished wall hangings of the Hindu pantheon. And the 15 illustrations have composed themselves into a whole.

By the time you have read the poem a few times, and slowly felt your way along the procession of photographs, you do hear the music of the spheres. It is a blissful, whirling silence, like that charged moment between the final notes of a concert and the burst of applauding hands.

It's a little late to announce signs and portents perhaps, but a trend I've noticed developing is the rebellion against the Fat Police and food fearmongers. I don't mean the pollsters who make a living telling us of the burgeoning fatness of the entire American people - they can make a "study reveals significant. . ." out of almost anything.

It's the K.G.B. of diet, that D.C. organization known as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, that has recently come under serious fire for using bad science to push their fanatical agenda. Michael Jacobsen, "the closest thing we have to a national nag," as Stephen Glass calls him in the Dec. 30 issue of The New Republic, heads C.S.P.I. His histrionic plays to the press -- dressing up like Tony the Tiger while damning sweetened cereals and attaching 170 rotted teeth to a petition sent to the Federal Trade Commission -- have gotten him ink, but also considerable derision from public health professionals.

This organization publishes frequent nutrition and poison scares and last year sent Chinese restaurants into a 25-percent decline with its hysterical attack on an entire 5,000-year-old cuisine.

A former director of the National Institutes of Health declares that C.S.P.I. is actually a misnomer: "It's not always science, and these mini-scares are not in the public interest." The center's board, which consists of an actress, two lawyers, an accountant, a statistician, and an advocate for the poor, led all too vigorously by Michael Jacobsen (a microbiologist by training), has not a single member with medical or nutritional education.

This doesn't inhibit C.S.P.I. from inveighing against meat, alcohol, sweets, caffeine, microwave ovens, and, more recently, movie-theater popcorn and Mexican food. It's my observation that French food is returning to well-deserved popularity after a tedious decade or more of pasta and pizza. It develops that all those carbs haven't led to a svelte, fit population.

Scientists and nutritionists discount the center's many outrageous scare reports because the foods studied aren't placed in the context of how they are consumed. For example, a dish of Kung Pao chicken shared with three other people and eaten with vegetable dishes and plenty of rice does not constitute a threat to health.

Olestra Ordeal

Nor does even a whole bag of popcorn, since most people don't make a steady diet of it. The C.S.P.I. did accomplish one of its objectives though: It's almost impossible to get a bag of popcorn in any movie theater that isn't salt free and totally tasteless. Of course, the center's other objective - abolishing soda pop - will be defeated, as it's necessary to wash down this dry, cottony popcorn with oceans of Coke, Sprite, or whatever.

Knowing how Jacobson and his acolytes hate fat, Proctor & Gamble reasonably expected a hearty endorsement from the center for their new fake fat, Olestra. This product, approved (after 17 years of testing) by the Food and Drug Admistration as a fat substitute for frying things like potato chips, is not digested in the human system, but merely passes through (I've never tried Olestra myself, so can give no opinion on its gastronomic qualities).

However, people who ate large quantities of it - I suppose the sort of "snackers" that crave a bushel basket of potato chips or Cheese Doodles in the middle of the night - suffered temporary diarrhea. This is not exactly a life-threatening condition and one that could easily be duplicated by heeding the current California prune growers ad campaign to snack on dried prunes.

With A Vengeance

What next, I wonder? A huge anti-prune campaign? A skull and crossbones on every bottle of wine or liquor, box of sugared cereal, bag of popcorn, Olestra-tainted potato chips, or french fries? Carrie Nation-style pickax attacks on all the Chinese and Mexican restaurants in America?

Jacobson is known to grill waiters on the ingredients in every dish he orders in a restaurant and pours off, or blots off, all sauces or traces of fat, onto satellite plates he demands to mix up his own noxious "everything free" concoctions.

Enough already! It's small wonder the American public is diving into their buckets of honey-fried chicken and triple "whoppers" with renewed zest. At a Christmas party a young single man told me he cooked mostly out of the books of the 400-pound Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme. Knowing what Prudhomme's notion of "a serving" is, I asked what he did with the leftovers. "I eat them for three nights running" was the answer.

Now that, food fans, is the sort of thing that can lead to nutritional disaster! Not a bag of popcorn or the occasional hush puppy or helping of fried chicken.

Load Up The Larder

I thought the Cajun craze had petered out several years ago, but apparently not: Last night I saw, on a very chic menu, a pecan-crusted sauteed chicken breast that would have Jacobson and his food police picketing the place.

And another friend of mine, whose roots are decidedly European, confessed a newfound love affair with gumbo and beans and rice dishes. The Paradise in Sag Harbor has a nothing if not eclectic menu that features those items as well as a delicious soup made with kale, white beans, and spicy, Cajun andouille sausage.

As the East End heads into the deeps of winter, it might be a good time to lay in supplies of dried beans, root vegetables, canned plum tomatoes, and other nonperishables to face the snowstorms and northeasters with equanimity. Check your oil lamps, candles, batteries, wood pile, and, if you have one, generator too - despite the flawless performance of LILCO, every Long Islander's favorite hometown team.

Acorn Squash And Wild Rice Soup

There can scarcely be anything more American than squash and wild rice and we had this soup to begin Christmas dinner. Acorn, hubbard, or butternut will serve equally well and are plentiful and long-keeping at this time of year.

Makes about three quarts.

2 cups cooked wild rice

2 lbs. acorn squash

Pinch of salt

2 Tbsp. duck fat or butter

1 large onion, sliced thin

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/8 tsp. mace

1 tsp. cardamom, ground

1 tsp. dried coriander, ground

6 cups de-fatted chicken or strong veal stock

Salt and cayenne pepper to taste

1/4 cup creme fraiche or heavy cream (approximate)

Wash, then cook the wild rice in plenty of water and a pinch of salt until it is very soft - much softer than it would be served as a vegetable - at least an hour. Prick the acorn squash and microwave it for three minutes, which will make it much easier to cut in half - peeling these tough squashes raw is nearly impossible.

Place the squash, cut side down, in a glass pie plate with about a quarter cup of water and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Microwave on high for 12 minutes and let stand five minutes. If not tender, microwave a bit longer. With a spoon, scoop out the seeds and pith, then the flesh, and discard the skin.

Melt the duck fat or butter in a deep, heavy soup pot and add the onion, garlic, and spices. Cook over gentle heat about five minutes, stirring often. Add the rice and its cooking water and the squash, the stock, and a little salt and pepper. Simmer it all, covered, for about 20 minutes, then taste and add more salt and cayenne as preferred. Puree the soup in a blender or food processor when it has cooled a bit, then return it to the soup pot to re-warm. To serve - this is enough for eight - ladle the hot soup into individual bowls and trickle a little creme fraiche or heavy cream over the back of a spoon to float swirls on the surface of each.

Kale, White Bean And Andouille Soup

A comforting supper on a cold winter's night, rounded out with a piece of ripe Brie, a whole wheat baguette, and a wicked glass of red wine. And for the truly daring, perhaps a baked pear with frozen yogurt and caramel sauce topping! Leftover soup keeps well for several days in the fridge and can be frozen. Cromer's Market sells andouille, a spicy Cajun dry sausage.

Makes about four quarts.

1 lb. dried Great Northern or white cannelini beans

3 qts. water

2 tsp. coarse salt

2 qts. washed, stemmed kale leaves

2 Tbsp. duck or goose fat, butter, or oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp. concentrated chicken demiglace or bouillon cubes

1 whole andouille sausage, peeled

Cayenne and black pepper to taste

Wash and soak the dried beans overnight in cold water away from the stove or use the quick soak method described on the package. Simmer the beans in the water about one and a half hours, depending on the age of the beans (this timing can be markedly shortened with a pressure cooker - to about 15 minutes), until just tender but not mushy. Then, and only then, add salt. Salt toughens all dried beans and should never be added until they are almost done.

Toss in the kale leaves and simmer until they are tender - about 15 minutes. Melt the fat or oil in a skillet and saute the onion and garlic; add to the soup along with the chicken bouillon. Andouille has a tough natural casing that should be peeled off before eating or cooking with it. Slice it in quarter-inch rounds and add to the soup.

Heat through and season to taste with cayenne and black pepper - they have different flavors - as Cajun cooking uses them together. Taste and add more salt if necessary. If you can't find any andouille, you might substitute pepperoni.

At its last meeting of the year, terming it a "motherhood and apple-pie issue," the Suffolk Legislature overwhelmingly passed a measure banning body-piercing by anyone under 18 who could not show signed and notarized permission from a parent. Only one exception was made, for piercing ears.

Most Americans older than Generation X probably agree that making holes in your body and stabbing bits of metal into them is pretty weird, although, when you stop to think about it, body-piercing isn't much weirder than sticking bunches of burning vegetation in your mouth and inhaling the fumes. Kids should be discouraged from both practices.

But can anyone explain why drilling through an ear is acceptable while drilling through a nostril or belly button isn't? Shouldn't it be a case of no holes barred or all holes barred?

The difference, of course, is that earrings have been culturally acceptable in the Western world since recorded time began. In some parts of Africa it is the other way round. In India certain women wear a red spot on their foreheads, but wearing one in the cleavage probably would be frowned upon. Tribal cultures throughout the world have elaborate and ancient styles of personal decoration, including neck rings and lip plates. Our own teenaged culture follows dress codes that are as rigid while they last as they are trendy.

There continues to be debate about whether government should forbid the free use of substances that are mentally or physically harmful. It is totally out of order for it to prohibit cultural practices that are not.

The New Year opens with unexpected good news. Brooklyn Union Gas, a utility considered one of the nation's best-run, is merging with one of the worst, the Long Island Lighting Company. The advantages for LILCO's ratepayers should be many.

Long Island's high electric rates, second only to Hawaii's, not only are promised to come down but may even become competitive with what is paid elsewhere for the same service. Equally important, natural gas will be extended all over the Island, including the faraway East End. This clean alternative to oil and electric heat will be welcome.

Envisioned in the future are computer-run "neutral fuel" programs which will select the cheapest source for lighting, cooling, and heating businesses and houses. When the price of oil soars, as it has this winter, natural gas will be piped in instead.

Those who will be part of the management of New York Energy, as the new entity probably will be known, have announced that there will be no layoffs. Instead, the company will rely on attrition to help achieve cost-cutting.

In business, one plus one occasionally equals three. When that happens, financial analysts call it synergy. This deal is synergistic - for LILCO, for Brooklyn Union, and for the people of Long Island.

Tired? Creatively blocked? Unmotivated? Perhaps your surroundings are stifling the positive flow of your ch'i. Maybe what you need is a feng shui overhaul.

Feng shui (pronounced fung-SHWAY) is an ancient Eastern system of placing objects and molding one's surroundings to enhance well-being. Applied in the home, office, or even the garden, it is meant to foster creativity, create better relationships, bring luck, and generally harmonize one's existence with the metaphysical realm.

With the help of the East Hampton architect Eva Growney, feng shui has found a home in homes along the South Fork. Ms. Growney has incorporated its precepts into her house designs and interior designs for some 15 years, and she even makes house calls for consultations and blessings. Her clients have included a famous diet doctor, an Amagansett actress, assorted musicians, and all types in between.

Tweak The Forces

"Everything in the universe is made of energy," Ms. Growney explained. "On the simplest level, we have the powers of positive and negative energy, which can also be male and female, black and white. . . . One of the key components of feng shui has to do with the balance of both energies."

Basically, the architect said, the goal is to "tweak the positive forces" of a space.

That can be as practical as placing a lamp on the right table or as involved as an hour-and-a-half ritual blessing. It can involve an area as small as a study or as large as an entire property.

Meaningful Spaces

Feng shui traces back 4,000 years to when ancient Easterners carefully sited burial plots and their crops and farm sites to promote harmony with their geographic surroundings. It soon developed into a system for everyday life, one that incorporates fundamentals of Taoism and Buddhism - things like rituals, meditation, the I Ching, the yin yang.

"It has so much to do with the human psyche," said Ms. Growney, who practices what is known as Black Hat Sect Tantric Buddhist feng shui. "It addresses things that we need physically as well as psychically."

Besides spatial orientations, colors, and objects such as crystals and flutes are also thought to have enhancing effects.

Eight Aspects Of Life

So, then, how do all these metaphysical concepts apply themselves to a seemingly mundane concept like interior design? Feng shui actually provides a relatively tangible tool. It's called the ba-gua, an octagonal diagram whose points represent eight aspects of life: family, knowledge, fame, offspring, helpful people, career, marriage, and wealth.

Superimposed over a room plan, floor plan, or map, the ba-gua provides a guide for orienting the space with those life aspects in mind.

Ms. Growney's own office on Toilsome Lane was arranged with the ba-gua in mind. A lush painting of fish is placed in what the ba-gua dictates as the wealth or "abundance" corner, for example. Paintings of faroff places are grouped in the helpful people/ travel corner and examples of her better house designs are displayed in the career corner.

Other ideas were applied to the space, including the painting of the walls in black, green, and yellow tones - "colors of abundance and growth," the architect said. "If this is a room of knowledge, there should be fresh knowledge sprouting."

Earth's Emporium

Ms. Growney has designed entire houses using feng shui, including two in Springs and one in the estate section of Southampton Village. She has also incorporated its precepts into other, more traditional designs in Water Mill and on Shelter Island. Some businesses, like the metaphysical bookstores in Sag Harbor and Southampton, have called on Ms. Growney's talent.

In fact, the best example of the architect's work and the one most solidly based on feng shui is the interior design of Anne Harper's Earth's Emporium in Amagansett. From the carpet leading in from the front door to the massive yin yang in the center of the floor, the store is a breathing example of feng shui design.

Ms. Growney remembers when Ms. Harper, who is a friend of hers, called her in for a consultation. "It was horrible, and I think she will kind of admit it," said the architect. "When you went in, it was a mess. The arrangement of everything kept blocking the energy everywhere."

Out Came The Ba-Gua

The task turned to rearranging the entire layout of the store. Out came the ba-gua. In the knowledge corner went the store's collection of spiritual and health-oriented books, in the fame corner (directly opposite the entrance) Ms. Growney placed a large mirror and a space for displaying the merchandise Ms. Harper chooses to highlight.

The register and sales desk were moved toward the center of the floor, being the heart of business. Behind it, in the offspring corner, the vitamins and supplements Ms. Harper has recently incorporated were placed - "a child of her interests," said Ms. Growney.

Directly across the room items in the store's health food selection were chosen to occupy the family/health corner.

Writer Unblocked

One of Ms. Growney's most recent clients was an actress, whom she chose not to name, who divides her time between an apartment in Los Angeles and an oceanfront house in Amagansett.

"She was having trouble writing a book she is working on," Ms. Growney said. "She had been having writer's block for months and months - she was starting to panic."

The architect visited the Amagansett house, performed a ritual blessing, and suggested only a few general changes, such as covering a mirror in front of the bed and breaking up a long hallway with a cloth halfway down and a crystal to disperse energy. But it was what Ms. Growney did for the actress's work space in L.A. that did wonders for her troubles.

"She faxed me a layout of her work room," said the architect, who sent back a long list of suggestions. "She did all the things I told her, and a day later she called me crying. As soon as she put the chair up to the desk again she said it all flowed. She wrote for a couple days straight."

Trump And Johnson

Ms. Growney has also designed gardens for notables such as Chuck Scarborough and the famous diet doctor Bob Atkins, who has a house in Water Mill. With the Far Eastern version of a doctor's bag, the architect also makes house calls. She will visit for a consultation or perform a house blessing, complete with an altar, offerings, and participation by the whole family.

The architect, who also lectures and writes articles on feng shui, recently lectured to design students at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute. The fact that a by-the-books art school like Pratt would be interested in a metaphysical system like feng shui is just one indication that the practice is becoming more widely embraced, the architect said.

Even the megadeveloper Donald Trump and the well-known architect Philip Johnson are said to have called in a feng shui consultant to advise on Trump's new luxury tower going up by Columbus Circle.

"Here is a proponent of strict modernism and the glitziest developer on earth, who is completely on the Earth plane, more in the mundane world, both using a feng shui expert," Ms. Growney said.

"Now it's being taught in mainstream universities," she added. "It's not just an esoteric, holistic, hoopla thing. It's being embraced because it's sound."

For all those postal patrons whose mail goes into post office boxes rather than being delivered to street addresses, what a happy new year it would be if the United States Postal Service were to figure out a way to insure that all letters get where they are meant to go.

A few years ago an edict came down from Washington that no matter how small the community or well known the recipient, post office employees were not to place mail in a box unless it bore the proper box number. Not only that, but they were no longer to give out box numbers if asked.

Here on Long Island's East End, where many of us know each other, the rule is sometimes honored in the breach, for which residents are grateful. But ever since the rule went into effect things have gone from good to worse.

From the sender's point of view, the telephone book has become obsolete as a means of finding an address. Who has not sent off a birthday card to a friend who has lived in the same place for years only to have it returned for the lack of a box number? Who has not wondered why so-and-so failed to show at a party, only to have their invitation bounce back a week or two later?

Once upon a time, our local postmasters made sure a letter got where it was meant to go as a matter of course and sometimes with no more direction than "Jane Smith, Amagansett" on the envelope. Now, they have to balance the motto of the Postal Service - against counterproductive Postal Service rules.

Those who pick up their mail at post offices ought to be treated with respect: They are saving it the expense of delivery. Besides, if you are going to inconvenience the public, you ought at least try to mitigate the inconvenience. The Federal Government has an obligation to disseminate box numbers if it is going to insist they be used.

In small towns, post offices could keep up-to-date lists and give out numbers when requested. Where volume makes that inconvenient, post offices (or direct mail or telephone book companies authorized by the Postal Service) could publish directories for distribution to all residents. The method doesn't matter as long as the information is freely available.

But do it, and do it in 1997. At a time when the Government is worried about the proliferation of alternatives to the U.S. Mail, it would make good business sense for the Postal Service to be as accommodating as possible.

The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society celebrated the end of its 20th anniversary year with dramatically increased membership, a total of 94 guided hikes, new trails, a higher political profile, and plans for the completion of East Hampton's share of the Paumanok Path two years early.

High on the society's list of priorities in 1997 is the accelerated completion of East Hampton's portion of the Paumanok Path, the 100-mile system of connected trails stretching from Rocky Point in Brookhaven to Montauk Point. This year the society took a big step with the creation of the Point Woods Trail, a 1.5-mile section from the Camp Hero housing complex to the bluffs.

Designed by Mike Bottini, a society member, the section is part of a double-loop trail that one day will connect Camp Hero with Montauk Point. Elsewhere in Montauk, short links were added along the Talkhouse, or Coastal, Trail, which winds along the north coast of Hither Hills State Park. The state has asked the society to help name the trails within the park, as part of a $12,000 effort to place trail signs throughout the woods.

New Link

Another link in the Paumanok Path was recently completed in the Devon area just east of the George Sid Miller Jr. Path.

Richard Lupoletti, president of the society, said that next year's goal was to finish designing and preparing trails between Cranberry Hole Road on Napeague and the Point, the last section of the Paumanok Path in East Hampton. This would mean the entire 30-mile trail system within the borders of the town would be created in time for the 350th anniversary of the town in 1998. The entire trail is not expected to be completed until 2000.

"It's no longer just a walk in the woods for ladies and gentlemen," Mr. Lupoletti said of the society. He said the 120 members added this year brought the membership to 200 hikers dedicated to the cause of open space preservation.

Political Role

"We had become a quiet, private walking club, but we broke open this year by nearly tripling our membership. There were 20 guided hikes in 1995, 94 this year. We had approximately 1,000 hikers during the season, and we learned that we could be a political as well as recreational organization," Mr. Lupoletti said.

The society's president said that at the start of each hike, the cause of preserving open space was talked up. And, prior to the November elections, members handed out 1,500 brochures advocating the state's Clean Water, Clean Air Bond Act to pay for land acquisition. It passed, and Mr. Lupoletti said he liked to think the society played a role. Two members of the organization now serve on the town's open space advisory committee.

Also in 1997, the society intends to "adopt" Montauk County Park and organize a "March of Parks" on Earth Day to raise money to be used for maintaining trails within the park. The society has also undertaken the revision of trails maps for East Hampton.

"Movable Feasts"

On Jan. 5, the society will begin the first of its winter hikes with a trek through Hither Hills. There will be some different kinds of hikes offered in the near future. The society is about to kick off its "movable feast" hikes. After each, hikers will repair to a member's house or a nearby bistro for a little socializing. "Guest speaker" hikes are also planned.

Mr. Lupoletti described the society's most dramatic project for the coming year: getting an Army helicopter to lift junked cars out of Hither Hills. A society member, John Benedict, conceived of the idea, which will involve lifting old heaps and carrying them to a junk dealer's truck at the Montauk landfill.

AMAGANSETT

Schwarz to Bruce and Heidi Coppols, Canvasback Lane, $178,500.

Goldstein to Serena and Monroe Seligman, Schellinger Road, $345,000.

BRIDGEHAMPTON

Woodridge Homes Bldrs. to Joan Donnelly, Sea Farm Lane, $277,500.

Limongello to Lynda Greenblatt, Norris Lane, $322,500.

D'Alton to Jessica Irschick, Newman Avenue, $300,000.

EAST HAMPTON

Kane to Bonny Smith, Accabonac Road, $420,000.

Prudenti (referee) to Paul Nickolatos and Katherine Ryden, Cloverleaf Lane, $650,000.

Jahrmarkt to Jeffrey and Cynthia Frankel, Jericho Road, $300,000.

MONTAUK

Wells to Philip and Andrea Mandel, South Fairview Avenue, $249,000.

SAG HARBOR

Ferguson Jr. to Gail Tiska, Cliff Drive, $245,000.

Welter to Raymond and Adrienne Farry, Island View Drive, $168,500.

Estate Beyer to Tenco Holdings Ltd., Madison Street, $355,000.

SAGAPONACK

Minte to Stephen and Cynthia Trokel, Meadowlark Road, $585,000.

Filler to Joel and Julia Greenblatt, Daniel's Lane, $2,350,000.

SPRINGS

John Conner Profit Sharing to Nicholas Havens, Malone Street, $159,000.

Marcus to Faith Dash, Sunburst Lane, $300,000.

Katzenstein to Dorothy Gardner, Sycamore Drive, $190,000.

Keating to Mary Eddy, Camberly Road, $212,000.

WATER MILL

Mannink to Allison Edwards and Dorothy Hively, Mecox Road, $525,000.

MPM Farm Corp. to Lawrence Martin, private road off Cobb Road (21.6 acres vacant land), $3,400,000.