SAY HI TO A NEW LOCAL PAPER!

Like a migrating algae bloom, a local newspaper that has been publishing on one end of Long Island since 2010 has now floated over to the ancestral summer home of its publisher. We thank you for picking up this first issue of the Amagansett Star-Revue

Yes, we know that there are already plenty of papers that you can pick up for free at the supermarkets around here. But we like publishing papers and we hope to become an enjoyable read for people who love it out here.

When I was a teenager I enjoyed reading The East Hampton Summer Sun. We didn't have the term "laugh out loud" back then (this was around 1970) but rarely could you read an issue without at least seven of those moments happening. Not to mention you learned about cool things going on.

Sometimes you didn't know what was real and what was not real. Not in the nefarious way of today where certain media parrot the delusional falsehoods of this or that politician, but, for example, one time where a scary headline about Nazis landing on our beach, accompanied by Dan Rattiner's drawings, seemed far-fetched. But in fact, he gave us a history lesson, as that did actually happen.

Flying saucers and alien sightings in places such as Watermill were also front page subjects from time to time. Rattiner, who started his East End newspaper kingdom in Montauk as a college student, is still actively writing for Dan's Papers, which is now owned by a NYC newspaper chain. At age 83 he is amazingly prolific, not only in the paper but as a published author of books. You might even know him.

I haven't met him in person, but my Brooklyn paper is a member of the NY Press Association as is Dan's Papers, and he once sent me a very nice note after I forwarded him one of our issues.

Let me be clear that I have no intention of copying the style or format of the Summer Sun, but it goes without saying that Rattiner has been one of the big influences in my life, along with Jean Shepherd, Peter Parker and the Rolling Stones. My other paper is called the Red Hook Star-Revue and with this paper we've given some of our talented writers another outlet for their work.

I'm hoping that more than a few writing geniuses from this neck of the woods will become interested in also reaching our readers. A paper is only as good as it's writers. If you are interested, or know some one who might be, see our ad on the back page. One thing that's changed from the olden days of newspaperdom is the monopoly it reaching potential customers with the classified ad section. A lot of the local readership of the Village Voice back then were people looking for apart ments. They would learn where the Voice would be first distributed each week to grab a copy and try to snag a place to live. Today's smartphone takes the place of all that. But we may bring back free babysitting ads that the East Hampton Summer Sun used to run. Those ads started my sister on her way to a suc cessful business career.—

George Fiala, Publisher