Columnists

Bestirred by televised yule log nostalgia.

It is fascinating to see how a tragic event 200 years ago helped advance science.

Until December 2025, my children had distinguished themselves by not getting me proper gifts. Ever.

The recent spate of injuries to football’s biggest stars makes it hard to justify a 17-game schedule, let alone extending to 18.

Life was slower here in the 1970s, and streaking, of all things, more prevalent.

The holiday is a good time to remember that life was more communal centuries ago, lived out in the street and on the commons, often with alcohol.

When readers struggle to escape the gender trap.

I have generally stopped overnighting at hotels of the Holiday Inn sort and instead tried when possible to book short-term rentals. It has been an education.

I have a psychological profile that prefers to cling to old ways.

Time for new blood, time for brains, time for a more clearly articulated moral argument.

Marigolds are survivors, deterring deer and cold and coming back year after year when the seedpods are left among the leaf litter at the end of the growing season.

The bicentennial year, 1976, was a high water mark for everything the current American president and his followers love to loathe.

Memories of kid walkabouts downtown.

Fast times and otherwise at the 2025 Montauk Turkey Trot.

In the days since news of the illegal air attack that killed two men clinging to blown-up wreckage in the southern Caribbean, I have been thinking a lot about Lee Zeldin.

Looking for wisdom in parlous times.

I wonder what humankind might turn to now that the already shallow credibility of the internet is draining away to nothing.

Chocolate sundae pie is a rigorous test of culinary skills, and for every 10 times I’ve produced one, I’ve succeeded perhaps twice.

I do hate birthdays on the one hand: Who wants to be another year closer to death? But on the other hand, I love ’em.

The Buffalo Bills: a fan’s notes.

The key to picking cranberries is to think about other things, let the mind drift, and let the hands do the work.

An eventful final meet of the season at Sunken Meadow State Park sends four Whalers to the state cross-country championships.

Eelgrass has disappeared and warmer water has brought a certain parasite, but there is some hope.

Sometimes I have these memory visions in which I recapture for a moment very clearly the feeling of stability and permanence of American life in the late 20th century.

Adventures in stinking up the place.

My gut tells me that storms are coming from unfamiliar directions.

Autumn is the most magnificent time for upward-gazing.

From one Greene to another: Keep up the good fight.

During George W. Bush’s second term, a sculptor friend made a model of the White House from driftwood, with one purpose in mind.

October and November are pleasant months if you, like me, enjoy the preparation for a social event as much as, or more than, the event itself.