Guestwords

We can imagine . . . that happiness is real and that the sorrows and suffering of the past have been forgotten. Such a condition can be imagined, but it has never been seen. It has never been seen.     — Leszek Kolakowski

    I don’t own any firearms. Until last year I had never fired one. Two of my co-workers are enthusiasts who attend gun shows in Virginia and Pennsylvania. They have invited me to join them and I have.

   The second week of December I was talking with a boy in Guines, Cuba. Guines is about 60 kilometers southeast of Havana. We were standing just outside the Presbyterian Reformed Church, where I was a guest along with Barbara D’Andrea of Wainscott. The boy, Nathaniel, just now 17, asked me, “What day was Jesus Christ born? The date.”

    I was startled by the question, first that he didn’t­ know the date of Christmas, and second that he asked me. I answered him in an adult way, registering no surprise.

    Two thousand and twelve has turned out to be a banner year for succession, at least as far as Asia is concerned. The Times recently reported on the politics of the ascent of China’s new leader Xi Jinping, a follower of the former president Jiang Zemin (“How Crash Cover-Up Altered China’s Succession,” Dec. 4).

    Yes, Virginia, Santa’s North Pole is covered with snow and ice. But this just in: Trillions of tons of ice really exist at the North Pole of Mercury, our Sun’s hottest companion.

   Women lie about their age; men lie about their height. Any man who is 5-foot-11 says he’s 6 feet. There is no such height as 5-11 unless the man is 5-10.

    I’m 5-foot-10 — or at least I was — so I naturally said 5-foot-11. I especially liked saying 5-11 because people thought I was being honest. They thought, here’s a guy who could say he’s 6 feet but he tells us the truth.

    I know you don’t believe that all men lie about their height but it’s true. Unless you’re over 6 feet you automatically add an inch. Guys who are under 5-8 sometimes add two inches.

   Aside from the familiar (sometimes over-familiar) carols, nothing suits the Christmas season better than blazing choral music of the Baroque. The Choral Society of the Hamptons, under Mark Mangini, has made something of a specialty of music of the 17th and 18th centuries, with a recent focus on the English anthems and oratorios of George Frederick Handel. But Sunday’s concert — actually concerts; there were two of them back to back — at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church moved the musical scene across the channel from the sterling zone to the home of the euro.

    One glorious and balmy summer weekend in the late 1990s, I sat in the house my parents built for their retirement, enjoying the spectacular view of Gardiner’s Bay. A flotilla of sailboats lilted in the wind, guided by red buoys that demarcated a channel in the otherwise shallow waters. My gaze shifted southeast, toward Napeague, the spit of land that separates the bay from the ocean. The air was so clear that beyond Napeague I could see cobalt and sapphire streaks of horizon. Giant, precise brushwork heralding the Atlantic.

   I once came dangerously close to becoming a cat hoarder, one of those strange individuals featured in reality TV shows whose homes and yards are overrun with cats of all sizes, shapes, and colors. I never thought I had anything in common with those unfortunate people. Why would anyone ever choose to live like that? How could anyone ever get to that point? They must have tremendous psychological issues. They must be deeply disturbed. Well . . .

   Everything about this city, country, and culture is new — the food, the language, the transportation, the smells, the religion, even down to the sweetened condensed milk in every beverage, causing me to learn one of my first Thai phrases, mai wan (not sweet).

    We had spent two days preparing for the storm — getting the lobster house ready for a hurricane is not easy, especially when there is furniture outside on the Lobster Deck.

    Everything we could move out of the lobster house got moved, or relocated to a higher position. I remember thinking that we were being overly cautious, that there was no way water would reach a platform scale four feet above the floor in the retail room, which itself is two feet higher than the lobster house floor — six feet in all. Time and events would prove me wrong.

   The Salem witch trials, portrayed in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” currently at Bay Street Theatre through Nov. 24, show only one in a series of unfortunate periods in our history where mob mentality overcame common sense.

    It may seem ridiculous to us now that a few young girls in a Massachusetts town could point the finger at others — others who had caused them real or imaginary offense — and send those people to the gallows for witchery. But it happened. And, in the grand scheme of things, not really that long ago.

    We are profoundly saddened by the deaths of 8,000 American, coalition, and NATO soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan during our 10 years at war there. We dwell on the loss of so many young people and feel the despair it brings to the families, friends, and partners with whom they shared their short lives.

   Who says you can’t go home again? We may try to relive a time of our lives, but people, places, and experiences evolve, and memory is not always accurate.

    Of course things change, they never stay the same, like the Morgan Library. It’s now called the Morgan Library and Museum. It’s not just a repository of J.P. Morgan’s collection of rare books, like his three Gutenberg Bibles and inspiring original manuscripts with handwritten corrections and plot notes of writers like Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Mark Twain. It’s more than that.

   One thing I learned about Larry Rivers in speaking to some of the people who knew him best throughout his life a few years ago is that the musician, artist, and bon vivant simply loved people. Be they friends and ever-evolving family, fellow artists, or a parade of girlfriends and wives, he never let a relationship go if he could help it.

    A heartfelt thanks to East Hampton citizens for supporting our efforts to import coyotes from Maine to the Hamptons. You are right that coyotes will go a long way to cleaning up the present summertime mess that one resident described in a letter to The Star as a climate of “hell.”

    I have lived in the Hamptons for 40 years and watched our town degenerate from paradise to a sweating, ill-mannered, noisy, deer-and-tick-infested traffic jam. Something must be done — but what?

    Our answer: coyotes.

    He has a youthful face, a ready smile, is charming and kind, and like many men over the age of 70, he has lived through a trying time brought on by prostate cancer. His name is Steve Patterson, and he is grateful to be a prostate cancer survivor.

   The architect’s plan was impressive. A three-span suspension bridge connecting island to mainland. A big dream, a multimillion-dollar project when first envisioned, but never to be. At least so far.

    New York State Route 114 connects Greenport and East Hampton on Long Island’s East End, but with the route crossing Shelter Island, the drive requires two ferry rides. Connecting that island with the North and South Forks by bridge was a dream of many influential politicians during the first four decades of the 20th century. But not everyone supported the grand scheme.

   In his 70th year, the remarkably youthful John Hammond opened the second annual Sag Harbor American Music Festival with a memorable set that spanned a wide breadth of the blues. There could hardly be a more suitable choice than Mr. Hammond, a former East Hampton resident who is also marking his 50th year as a professional musician.

   A piano recital by Tanya Gabrielian on Saturday marked the beginning of the 10th anniversary season of the Rising Stars piano series at the Southampton Cultural Center.

    Ms. Gabrielian has performed on four continents and in many top-name venues, has won a number of highly respected competitions, and recently completed studies at the Juilliard School as the only candidate accepted for the artist diploma program, which is a very selective postgraduate residency program.

    Our society has created an environment where beating women and children and violating their civil rights are acceptable. In fact, we have actually created an industry — the violence against women movement. This movement thrives on building “safe houses” and places of “retreat” to protect victims, as opposed to enforcing on-the-books laws against the men who abuse.

   I think when my older brother, Tommy, was born, my parents had a chorus behind them, singing their own rock opera — “It’s a Boy!” He came out of the womb wearing a red cape. After I was born two years later, they changed their tune to the Stones’ classic “Stupid Girl.”

    If only I had been born the boy, then I would have gotten all that power. My brother was like a giant Hoover vacuum cleaner that hovered over me my entire childhood, sucking the energy out of me. He was electrified; sparks shot out from him as he passed by. With me, batteries weren’t even included.

   We move swiftly across the glittering water, waves lapping at our boat. Our majestic white sails catch wind and cause us to glide closer to our destination. Wind sweeps across the water, rippling the surface. The summer sun shines its glorious rays on Gardiner’s Bay.

    We were invited to a wedding in Jerusalem. It’s impossible for me to go to the Middle East without a stop in Lebanon, my mother’s homeland, for which I have a real fascination and emotional bond. So, with a friend, I left the beautiful, verdant, and conflict-free environment of East Hampton for Beirut, en route for Israel.

   “A picture’s worth a thousand words.”

    On Saturday night at Guild Hall in a special benefit perform  ance, we heard about 5,000 well-crafted words in staged readings of five short plays, inspired by four paintings and one photograph, all by East End artists. The result was a delightful mix of comedy and drama.

Surfing the Net recently, I finally figured out what’s gone wrong with baseball. The cheapest seat at an upcoming Yankees-Red Sox series was $55, about four times the cost of an official major league baseball, which goes for $13.99. In my baseball days, back in the 1930s, the cost of a baseball was four times that of a bleacher seat, about a dollar for the ball, 25 cents for the ticket, and only 10 cents for kids under 12, which is what my friend Dick Warren and I were in 1937, when Boom-Boom was pitching for the San Francisco Missions.

    Is there any more prominent and trenchant depicter of the not-so-secret life of contemporary haut bourgeoisie than Eric Fischl? Aside from his latest bullfighter paintings, which have held a prominent place in all the right art fairs in the past few years, it has been awhile since I have seen the artist in any type of concentration, and certainly not in his more familiar milieu.

“Beautiful Highway, Excellent

Service Plazas, No Traffic Jams”

5 Stars

   If your sun-spotted hand has ever held a tennis racket, put this on the bucket list. Die-hards: Skip the miscellany and go straight to Saturday.

    Brilliant advice from Debbie Mays, a former Londoner, who advised me to prepare for all kinds of weather, which I did. It was 60 degrees and rained a bit every day. Sometimes more than a bit, but I was well jacketed and never left the hotel without an umbrella in hand.

    Transportation: District Line tube. Exit at Smithfields. Brilliant, again.

The film “Kook Paradise” started as an inside joke between two veteran surfers who live, surf, and dodge the crowds at Ditch Plain in Montauk.

    Something always needs tweaking or tightening at the restaurant, so I am a regular at True Value and Riverhead Building Supply, Thayer’s Hardware, Herrick Hardware, Kmart, and Lowe’s. Greeting you in most stores is a multi-headed monster that dispenses candy and jawbreakers and gumballs. Even at 3 or 4 in the afternoon, when I am flagging and could use a pick-me-up or a lay-me-down, I can resist most caloric temptations.

    Not Peanut M&M’s. They stop me in my tracks. They trigger salivation glands and cause mild palpitations.