The dead adult humpback whale towed to the Montauk ocean beach last week is just one of several humpbacks that we have been reading about this year in the local newspapers. There have been many sightings offshore and even in Great South Bay and other estuarine water bodies.

On the drive east to Montauk early Friday morning, pale pink hues of the developing sunrise could be seen over the sand dunes alongside the Napeague stretch. Would the fish be on the chew? Only time would tell.

Although Helen Frankenthaler spent some of her formative years as an artist in Springs and East Hampton, she developed a more lasting relationship with Provincetown, Mass., during her marriage to Robert Motherwell. The decade she kept a summer studio there had a profound impact on her work.

Six pianists gathered last week to talk about their experiences participating in Pianofest, a summer festival that offers concentrated study to a small group of auditioned and very talented young artists, who live for four weeks in a large house in East Hampton and present concerts to the public in venues in Southampton, East Hampton, and Westhampton Beach.

With “American Moonshot,” Douglas Brinkley has written a magisterial history of the space age and an affectionate valentine to those brave astronauts who flew to the moon, the politicians who dealt with the art of the possible, and above all to John F. Kennedy. He'll be at Authors Night in Amagansett on Aug. 10.

In “The Urethane Revolution,” John O'Malley tells “the greatest story never told in extreme sports history,” the 1975 birth of skateboarding, courtesy of a “hippy skunkworks of garages and shacks” in the Southern California sunshine. He'll read from it at a book launch at the Montauk Beach House on Friday, Aug. 9.

It’s unusual to have so many happy, enthusiastic diners who truly love everything placed in front of them, but such was the case at Morty’s Oyster Stand. I believe Mr. Cyril Fitzsimons would approve.