Bottom Left: Frantically Relaxing

Suppose you were an alien and suppose you were dropped out of your spaceship into the vortex of a Hamptons summer frenzy.

Frightening concept, isn't it?

You would, of course, need guidance. And God knows there's enough of that around here to help you decide where to leave your spoor this season.

I thought I would play tourist/ignoramus/alien and thoroughly immerse myself in all the shiny, glossy, pretty, extremely large informative publications about town. I even found something called "The Hamptons Video Guide, Your Exclusive Entree to the Hamptons." I must tell you now that the wisdom of trusting Country, Hamptons File, International, or Hamptons magazine is as ill-advised as permitting Humbert Humbert to drive your little Lo, Lola, Lolita to summer camp.

Granted this is an area of constant flux this time of year: Not all restaurants and relationships gel. One minute Hamptons File is proclaiming Ron Perelman and Patricia Duff as the hot, hot, hot must-have couple. Next minute, oops! One minute the shiny sheets promise that if you go to the Honest Diner you're sure to be rubbing cholesterol-laden elbows with Billy Joel and Steven Spielberg. Next minute, oops! Jeff Salaway and Toni Ross have closed it and are focusing on yet another establishment in N.Y.C.

Best of all are the graphs differentiating each Hampton or type of Hamptonite or how to know "you've really made it in the Hamptons." There seems to be a consistent obsession with membership in the Maidstone Club, any kind of visiting royalty, you know, like J.F.K. Jr. and his Prada-obsessed bride, Carolyn, the H. Classic, polo, Alec and Kim, Christie and Peter, Ron and Mort, Jann and Matt, Nick and Toni.

Hamptons File June 11 says, "You know you've made it in the Hamptons when Alec Baldwin asks you to be his eyes and ears at the East Hampton Town Meeting so he can keep those letters to the editor at the East Hampton Star coming while he's shooting on location." Better yet, "when Alec Baldwin asks you to write those letters."

Vanity Fair's August issue lists another cool, easy-to-understand summer guide with favorite restaurants, lust objects, toys, etc. Under favorite restaurants they mention the usual suspects, but under favorite stores they list Yama Q. Um, last time I looked, it was a restaurant. Perhaps Vanity Fair's writer was hoping to purchase that handsome Steve Hammock.

Someone named Dylan L.C. Brown has just produced "Brown's Activity Guide" to "help others find what excites them, what makes them have fun!" Dearest darling Mr. Brown, East Hampton is two words, Engel Pottery is long gone, and advising bike riders to cruise on 27 should be punishable by banishment from Sunset Beach for the entire 1997 summer season.

The Hamptons magazine Memorial Day weekend edition offered an endless guide of shiny-faced youngsters rated by such essential traits as womanizer, status seeker, social climber, been-in-Hamptons-forever, manipulator, etc. I, Pauline, am quite proud to say I have never laid eyes on any of these creatures and hope never to meet anyone with a name like Count Allesandro de la Ribbonstreich von Hohenswid.

One Philip A. Keith published "The Hamptons Survival Guide"

feeling enormously qualified because he has lived here an eternity of five years. When I saw the Amagansett Farmers Market listed as the Tiffany's or Saks of farmstands, I felt it would be prudent to wait until Mr. Keith has been here perhaps just a few more months before I bought his next survival guide.

Even the usually reliable New York magazine makes seasonable boo-boos. In their obligatory summer '97 blastoff to the Hamptons issue they suggested stopping by Pamela Fiori's Get Juiced in Bridgehampton. Well, gee, last time I looked, the lovely Ms. Fiori was too busy editing Town and Country magazine to be squirting parsley juice down the gullets of Donna Karan and Barbra Streisand.

Last but not least, I viewed with relish the 30-minute Sally Hansen Hamptons Video Guide. Armed again with my trusty stopwatch, I found the following items of interest. A total of 47 seconds was devoted to the history of the East End. Whew, got that out of the way. The rest of the video is devoted dotingly to cars, bars, cigars, Wilhelmina models, Jack Russell terriers, celebrities, horsies, cars, bars. . . .

The music throbs throughout and the camera pans menacingly along the beachscapes and Main Street, slowing down once to focus on the lone swan of Town Pond. Did he sign a model release?

The Hampton Classic gets four minutes 10 seconds, real estate two minutes 57 seconds, restaurants three minutes 57 seconds. At the end, local art history gets 52 seconds followed by two minutes and two seconds of "fresh new talent painter/poet" Carolyn Beegan, who informs us that William de Kooning was an artist who moved here long before she did. Right you are!

We are then treated to a snippet of Ms. Beegan's poetry, which strangely suited my mood after immersing myself in Hamptonia as seen through others' eyes and pens. I was somewhat distracted by her intriguing beauty mark but I think I heard her right:

"I, just newborn, lay inside soft skin,

ill-prepared for what breathes, slinks, and stirs

in God's jungle."

The video ends mysteriously with two models in thongs. They bend over. Is this a secret message to the aliens?

Why have Ruxford and his quadruped canine cronies been sniffing around the Morgan Rank Gallery?