Hot Girl Summer? Nah. This year calls for a hashtag that’s a little more grounded in reality. For summer 2024, our preoccupations have less to do with bikini bodies (having one or desiring someone with one) and more to do with good, stupid laughs, heart-to-heart confessions, and a hard seltzer with our bestie by our side. Someone to talk to when the spicy political climate of a presidential election season makes us want to cry. Someone to tolerate our inexplicably nostalgic desire to buy tickets to the actual cinema and sit in the air-conditioning to watch Eddie Murphy reprise his classic buddy-movie role in the brand-new Beverly Hills Cop.
Jimmy Fallon has Justin Timberlake to invite to Sagaponack to write funny song lyrics with. Jerry Seinfeld has his best pal, Mark Schiff, to eat unfrosted Pop Tarts with on Further Lane. Martha Stewart has Snoop Dogg. We have Sarah, Antonia, Alison, Ashley, Lauren, John David, and Matt. “Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends,” said Virginia Woolf.
This issue of East is filled with stories of the South Fork’s legendary friendships. Irene Silverman remembers the brilliant culinary partnership of Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey, and their over-the-top dinners for a few hundred nearest and dearest back in the day in Springs (When Craig Met Pierre, Page 53). Biddle Duke explores the impact that Jimmy Taber Jr.’s near-drowning had on the longtime friend who rescued him, Frank Ganley (Emotional Rescue, Page 86). The life of Allan Weisbecker, the unforgettable author of Captain Zero — a classic memoir of the gonzo surfing lifestyle — is remembered by a passel of his old compadres in Montauk (The Cosmic Bandito by Nick Sambides Jr., Page 70). And Christine Sampson talks to Eiji Shiga and Colin Lillie, amigos for 35 years and bartenders side-by-side for 25 of them at the Stephen Talkhouse (The Beer Brothers, Page 27).
This is our pitch: make this your #bestfriendsummer, and tag us along the way. We wanna see the selfies.