Trials and Tribulations of Beekeepers..... pages 4,5
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JANUARY 2024 INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
2023 - Over Under Sideways Down, Over by Joe Enright
It was a year of downs with slight upturns that suddenly veered into downs that seemed to bottom out, only to tumble violently downward again.
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n real estate, NY State enacted a law requiring LLCs to identify their beneficial owners come 2025. Enforcement provisions are yet to be defined and there are 23 corporate exceptions and counting, so good luck with that…Gowanus brownfields continue to pop up hither and yon, leading some Canal-side condo residents to wonder whether the whole rezoning thing was a good idea…Landmarking was sparse throughout the region, although Suffolk County moved ahead to create a new historic district for downtown Bridgehampton. And in a comic footnote, the East Hampton Architectural Review Board denied a popular East Hampton eatery – Rowdy Hall, which had moved a mile down Main Street into the Amagansett Historic District – the right to paint its new home, a nonhistoric 1967 one-story building, black. Things got testy, local A-List architects criticized the Board, Rowdy Hall painted it black and opened anyway, stop work orders and fines ensued. Then the Rowdys sued the Town in Supreme Court and legal pa-
pers are now flying hither and yon. The most damning argument against the Board: they couldn’t find a local architect who agreed with them so, they had to pay some guy in Brooklyn $1,250 to offer up his agreement.
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appily, in NYC the murder rate was trending downward, yet most citizens reported feeling unsafe as mental illness, addiction and homelessness were visible everywhere, especially on the F, D, 2, 5, B, 1 and A trains. In Brooklyn, five-finger discounts became so common that most items were locked behind plexiglass barriers. This required shoppers to summon staff not busy bandaging overrun security guards to unlock access to precious items such as shampoo, deodorant and Hershey bars (just the ones with almonds – the plain ones aren’t as precious).
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n the world of weird, UAPs (née UFOs) were seized upon by both parties in Congress as another Deep State secret needing to be liberated, but only after polling showed UFOs had a tenfold higher approval rating than politicians.
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rtificial Intelligence software went mainstream as idiot savant idiots like Elon Musk warned of the danger while mere idiot savants argued, “Let’s see if it destroys us all first before we start rushing to conclusions.”
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hen not warning us, Musk fired most of his Twitter staff. Then, perhaps inspired by the UFO to UAP thing, rebranded his newly- acquired toy as X, thinking that less letters would save on ink. Genius!
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n cinema, Barbenheimer brightened our July. In music, Beyonce and Taylor Swift brought us much happiness. Swift also focused much attention on the Kansas City Chiefs, thanks to her romance with tight end Travis Kelce. But when the Chiefs started losing, fans complained that Swift should have known all too well she was distracting them from the deadly serious violence of pro football.
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n politics, God help us, Trump got indicted in four different jurisdictions up and down the East Coast. This should have been a 2022 Year in Review item, but we’re told that justice moves very slowly.
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gnoring public opinion, Biden decided that the best way to deal with the accelerating merger of the population of Central and South America into the United States was to ignore it because immigration reform moves even slower than justice.
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YC Mayor Eric Adams on the other hand, faced with the mass migration of the world’s asylum seekers to Manhattan, courtesy of free bus rides thoughtfully provided by the ever-compassionate politicians of Texas and Florida, tried to de-zombify Biden. No luck. Then Governor Hochul announced she wrangled thousands of jobs for migrants, who legally can’t accept them, plus they’re all located upstate where there’s even less affordable (and nonaffordable) housing than the five boroughs. Oh well, nice gesture.
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fter burning bridges with Biden, Adams tried to tunnel under the FBI who’ve been investigating his fondness for Turkish campaign donations. The New York press was elated: they could finally move on from reporting Adams’ fond-
ness for appointing unqualified pals to newly created managerial positions.
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ongressional Indictee George Santos, whose increasingly outrageous lies inspired the most jokes in the history of comedy, got expelled. And Rudy Giuliani, another gift to satire, got indicted, disbarred, and bankrupted. Apparently justice moves a tad swifter when there’s no army of aggrieved psychos threatening death and destruction on your behalf.
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orn out by the titanic effort required to boot Santos back to Queens, Congress tabled support for Ukraine and Israel until they could figure out how they ranked compared to support for UFOs.
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oving on to sports, the Jets once again rendered fans profoundly dumbstruck, gobsmacked and flabbergasted, leading many to wonder whether a tackle who majored in exorcism should be their priority in the draft.
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n weather, which many experts claim is driving migration on a global scale, there has not been a measurable snowfall in so long, don’t be surprised if kids who got sleds for Christmas in 2021 start using them to block playgrounds in protest.
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inally, despite it all, in 2023 weary locals once again proved to be reliant, resilient, inventive, helpful, generous and pretty damn good at dodging Porsches, BMWs and $25 cocktails. Hang in there – we’re all in this together. And remember, as the Beatles once joyously sang, with an optimistic Paul trading vocals with a pessimistic John: “I have to admit it’s getting better / It can’t get no worse.”
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January 2024
PUBLISHER'S COLUMN George Fiala
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The new economic basis of society effectively remade human nature itself in Bellamy's idyllic vision, with greed, maliciousness, untruthfulness, and insanity all relegated to the past."
henever I consciously try to predict something, I'm generally wrong. I think a lot of people end up being wrong, while some of us end up being right. That's because I'm guessing we are all kind of doing wishful thinking.
Even I would have never made those kinds of predictions, then or now. But of course what Bellamy said, kind of a distillation of socialism, without using the word, became highly influential among all sorts of people, inspiring political and social movements.
If I were to make 2024 predictions, I'd probably say that Trump will be soundly defeated, so much so that all the MAGA Republicans will have to retire, and we will return to having two sensible political parties again.
I'd predict the Giants in the Superbowl, and the Knicks as division winners. And in tennis, Nick Kyrgos would regain get healthy and win both Wimbledon and the US Open. Maybe I'd say that everyone would shift their advertising back to newspapers, but even I know that's a long shot. Now you can see how predictions can go awry, depending on who is making them. To further buttress that theory, I looked up some predictions of the past. In 1900, the Ladies Home Journal made some predictions for the new century. Here are a few, reprinted as they appeared:
What I would say is that Bellamy didn't actually understand how much human nature is such a big part of us all, and almost impossible to trump.
One of the more famous forays into predicting the future was published in 1888 by a journalist, no less. Edward Bellamy was a newsman in Springfield, Massachusetts and had also written a few ordinary novels, when he switched gears and concocted a novel something like the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. His protagonist fell asleep for 112 years. He woke up toa much different world, created by Bellamy. Wikipedia has a nice summary: "a non-violent revolution had transformed the American economy and thereby society; private property had been abolished in favor of state ownership of capital and the elimination of
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social classes and the ills of society that he thought inevitably followed from them. In the new world of the year 2000, there was no longer war, poverty, crime, prostitution, corruption, money, or taxes. Neither did there exist such occupations seen by Bellamy as of dubious worth to society, such as politicians, lawyers, merchants, or soldiers. Instead, Bellamy's utopian society of the future was based upon the voluntary employment of all citizens between the ages of 21 and 45, after which time all would retire. Work was simple, aided by machine production, working hours short and vacation time long.
The prediction of the future I myself like best is the world of Star-Trek. In that world, people studied what interested them, regardless of money. In fact, money is rarely mentioned, except of course for the Ferengi, to whom profit was the be-all and endall. I felt this was because they had discovered how to use dilithium crystals for energy, and then ways to transform energy into all kinds of things, including food and clothing. Imagine a world in which survival is a given, where people could have as much or as little as they want, and anyone could study whatever they liked, whether it be science, art or just sitting around and watching TV. So I guess my prediction is that perhaps one day in the far future technology will actually trump human nature (maybe).
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I would also say that in that trouncing, Democrats would end up with solid majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. I would predict that Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would either retire or be forcefully retired due to corruption, and two excellent thirty-something judges would be appointed by Joe Biden.
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January 2024, Page 3
Believe it or not, now there is Spotted Lanternfly honey by Deborah Klughers
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ne of my most favorite things to do, besides tending my bees, is teaching children about honey bees. In December, I was invited to share my ‘Honey Bees and Honey’ presentation as well as a beeswax candle making activity with the entire sixth grade class at the Springs School. It was especially meaningful because all four of my children graduated from that very school. My youngest, who was in the class of 2009, asked me to say hello to all of her teachers. I chuckled and told her I would, but since it was so long ago, I doubted that any of her teachers would still be there. To my surprise, one of the current sixth grade teachers fondly remembered my wee one, so I passed on her message.
Teaching honey in Springs
Mission accomplished. A lot has changed in the twenty plus years since my kids roamed those halls. The building seems to have doubled in size, as has the number of students and staff, but the vibe was the same! The kids were so well behaved and happy. Although they were clearly excited to be gathered together in the ‘little gym” with about 100 of their classmates, they settled down quickly and were eager to learn about two of my favorite things to talk about; honey bees and honey. During the honey bee biology discussion I asked, “Who knows how many eyes honey bees have?” About half of the kids shouted out “FIVE!” I
couldn’t believe it! I was so surprised that they knew the answer! Then I asked if they knew how many wings honey bees have. More than half shouted out “FOUR!” I praised them for knowing so much and thanked their teachers for introducing their students to the wonderful world of honey bees. Well done, Springs School, and thank you for inviting me to share my love of honey bees and honey with the future of our planet. Not to be a buzz killer, but our planet and our bees are facing some real challenges. You may have heard of Varroa destructor, a mite who feeds on developing honey bee larvae, pupae, and adults, and while doing so, passes on multiple viruses to the bees. A highly efficient vector of disease, Varroa is one of the largest ectoparasites known, when considered in relation to the size of its host. The Varroa mite on a bee is similar to a dinner plate sized tick on a human. More than gross, right? Varroa is currently the greatest global health threat known to honey bees. But there is a new mite: a more insidious, disease carrying, bee killing ectoparasite lurking just around the corner. While Varroa hails from China and was first discovered in America in 1987, this new mite, Tropilaelaps, is native to tropical and subtropical Asia. Its range has been expanding over the past 50 years and researchers are not wondering if it will arrive in Noth America, but when. Both of these mites' primary hosts are not the western honey bee, our sweet Apis mellifera. Tropilaelaps' primary host is the giant honey bee, Apis dorsata, while Apis cerana, the Eastern or Asian honey bee, is Varroas’ original host. Each pair of pests and hosts coevolved together, and the hosts developed coping mechanisms over time. Our honey bees lack the behavioral or other defenses that Asian honey bee species have evolved to combat. It’s kind of like the mid-1980s Lionfish invasion, where the Lionfish prey have no defenses to a predator not previously seen as a threat.
SLF Hunting Springs Sixth Graders Learning about Honey Bees (photo by Klughers)
Which brings me to another invasive species from China, the Spotted lanternfly (SLF), Lycorma delicatu-
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The SLF excrement, or honeydew, covers the trunks of trees and vegetation and attracts honey bees. la. Striking in appearance, SLF was first detected in Pennsylvania in 2014. Not a fly, but a sap-feeding planthopper, it feeds on over 100 species of crops and plants. The SLF could be debilitating to our agricultural community, and especially our vineyards, as SLF is known to cause significant damage as it feeds on the vine, trunk, shoots, and leaves of grape plants.
Field Trips
Not my wine, you say! Well, I have solution. SLF hunting field trips for kids. First you have a classroom lesson on the invader and why it poses a threat. Then you teach the kids how to identify SLF adults and egg masses. And finally, during the field trip portion, you show the kids how to capture and kill the beast. Too much? Well, I think they’d like it, but maybe it’s not politically correct. So how about corporate sponsored SLF hunting retreats? Good for tourism, right? Or monthly contests where the person or group who captures the most SLF adults and/or egg masses wins a prize? Local environmental groups could identify where the SLF has colonized, and folks could be given a specific hunting area, kind of like how the deer hunting spots are currently allocated, but different. I have the best idea for a prize! Spotted Lanternfly Honey! Yes, it’s a thing, but different than flower nectar honey! After the SLF ingests sap from the plant, it filters the nutrients and excretes large amounts of a sticky, sugary waste product. This waste product is known as honeydew, and can be found dripping from plants in areas of
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SLF infestation from August through October. And guess what? Starting in August, our area experiences what is known as a dearth of nectar. Our main nectar flow is from mid-May through mid-July, and after that we go into a dearth. There is very little nectar in the environment for honeybees, or other species during the dearth. This is why, starting in July, all hell breaks loose with hornets and yellow jackets invading “our” outdoor spaces, and sometimes getting into the walls of our homes. I get more calls to “save the bees” during this time of year than at any other time! The problem is, about 90% of the bees in question are not honey bees, but hornets and yellow jackets. While I do perform cutouts, which is the removal and re-homing of honey bee colonies from structures, I do not offer this service for hornets or yellow jackets. It is heartwarming to know how many people want to “save the bees” (even though they cannot identify the species that need saving) not to mention it is illegal to kill them in Suffolk County. I’ll share more cutout details and stories another day; now back to SLF honeydew. The SLF excrement, or honeydew, covers the trunks of trees and vegetation and attracts honey bees. I mean, you can’t blame them, since the sticky stuff is everywhere and nothing else is available. The honey bees gather the SLF honeydew and bring it back to their hive, and the rest is history. SLF honey is perfectly edible, if you like bug poop. It is dark brown with a smokey odor and is not as sweet honey derived from flower nectar. And then there is the lingering aftertaste. It’s kind of like how folks have a preference for a certain wine. I am not a fan of SLF honey, but to each their own. A simple definition of honey bee honey is, ‘a mixture of flower nectar and honeydew collected by bees from plants. A more complex definition would include, ‘honey bees add enzymes that cause biochemical reactions to occur in the nectar. The bees place this nectar into beeswax cells and cure it by reducing the water content of the nectar from about 80% to just under 19%. The bees cap this (continued on next page)
January 2024
HONEY
(continued from opposite page)
“cured nectar” with a beeswax mixture. One pound of honey is the life’s work of about 1,000 worker bees who had to travel 55,000 miles, to gather nectar from two-million blossoms, in order to make just one pound of honey. Read that again. The bees have to ingest about eight pounds of honey to make one pound of beeswax. This means that 8,000 worker bees travel 440,000 miles to gather nectar from sixteen-million blossoms to produce one pound of beeswax. Now you know that beeswax is made from flower nectar! The bees make comb from beeswax and use it to rear brood and store food. One pound of beeswax can hold 22 pounds of honey or thousands of developing brood. Amazing. Here on Long Island, the average (surplus) harvest of honey is about 40 pounds per colony. The bees can produce more than that, but they need about 75 pounds of honey to make it through winter, so we leave their winter food on the hive and harvest the surplus. North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana have the highest harvests of about 75 pounds per colony, with a national average of about 55 pounds. Climatic conditions, available forage, growing season, colony health, and beekeeper knowledge all affect honey production. Sometimes the bees don’t make any honey at all!
Fake Honey
Did you know that honey is the 3rdmost counterfeited food item after milk and olive oil? Known as honey laundering, this food fraud floods the market with cheap or fake honey, out competing American beekeepers and ripping off the public. For a well-done synopsis of the issue, check out the Netflix production called Rotten, series 1 episode 1; Lawyers, Guns, and Honey. It speaks to the global issue of honey laundering, with large corporations and business perpetrating well thought out methods to not only counterfeit honey, but they are adept at beating the tests meant to detect the tainted product. It’s a huge issue that has been occurring for years. What most people do not know, is that honey fraud exists on a very local level. There are many companies right here on Long Island who are either outright lying to the consumer about the origin of their honey, or who are (unintentionally) misleading the public, simply by following the “rules”. You’ve heard the phrase, don’t believe everything you read, right? Well labels can be very misleading, espe-
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This means that 8,000 worker bees travel 440,000 miles to gather nectar from sixteen-million blossoms to produce one pound of beeswax. cially when it comes to honey. Let’s say the honey label reads, “Home Town Honey” with an address of “Home Town, Long Island”. The label also states, “Product of USA”. This means that the honey is commercial honey from the USA, and not from Home Town. It might say “Product of Canada and Mexico” or any other country for that matter. There’s nothing wrong with that, except most consumers think the honey is from “Home Town”, but it’s not. The Home Town Honey company doesn’t even have bees, just a business address and a pretty good marketing plan, because they are in almost every retail store with prices almost half that of small-scale area beekeepers who can’t compete. Just because a label has a local name, does not mean the honey is local. Next example. The label reads “Home Town Honey Two” and the back says, “This honey is from our colonies located in an area really close to “Home Town”. You see this honey in many small retail establishments, weekly farmers markets, holiday fairs ,and pop-up markets. Sounds good, right? Well, it would be if it were the truth. There are many people on Long Island who claim to manage the bees who make the honey that they are selling, but they are lying. Some might have a few colonies, or more than a few, or no colonies at all, but none have the quantity of colonies necessary to produce the volume of honey that they put on the market. There’s no money in honey if you are a beekeeper. Beekeepers have stopped producing honey altogether and are leaving the industry due to depressed
honey prices (the wholesale price of honey is being held down by the imports of cheap and/or adultered/ laundered honey); sick bees (varroa, immune issues, pesticides, nutrition deficiencies,queen failure); and the cost of doing business. They say if you want to make a million dollars in beekeeping, you should start with two million. There is money in honey if you are a repacker. It’s pretty easy; you purchase commercial honey and rebottle it. The repacker pays the honey wholesaler a few dollars per pound, and there is no oversite as to what the honey company does with it from there. No bees to worry about... just an unlimited supply of “local Long Island” honey. Both scenarios above are affecting not only small-scale beekeepers who try to recoup some expenses through the sale of their own honey, but also the consumer. The consumer (and probably also the repackers mentioned above), do not know anything about the management of the bees. What were they treated with and when? Synthetic or organic treatments? Was it properly applied, and removed? Were any antibiotics given to the bees? When was this honey harvested? Was the honey cured or harvested prematurely? We can’t ask where it is from, because we have already been fed a falsity regarding the origin.
There is good demand for honey; especially raw, local honey, which is not cheap or easy to produce. When the label claims that the honey is from a specific area and it is not, it is fraud. According to Codex Alimentarius: “Food fraud is the intentional adulteration of food for financial gain. This can include deliberate substitution, dilution, counterfeiting, or misrepresentation of food, ingredients or packaging; or even false or misleading statements made about a product. All these examples of fraud can have a negative impact on the quality and safety aspects of foods. They can also damage consumer confidence and harm food businesses.” While global honey laundering is harmful to the American commercial beekeeping industry and consumers, local honey laundering hits the small beekeeping businesses just as hard, and maybe even harder. As more beekeepers exit the industry, the fake and fraudulent honey problem worsens. Since the demand for honey remains high, the adultered honey may be the only item available! And then there’s that one small detail regarding the fact that honey bees are necessary for food production. Remember, beekeeping is only important if you eat food or know someone who eats food.
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Canon vs. Choice by Kelsey Sobel
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s a full time teacher, I spend a lot of time considering the question: what should teenagers be reading in 2023? In modern education speak: canon vs. choice. Increasingly, and dishearteningly, I find today’s youth aren’t reading for pleasure. I’ve noticed many of my students lack the ability to imagine worlds beyond the literal and immediate realities they inhabit. Furthermore, I’ve noticed students struggling with vocabulary, syntax and inference. I have 102 students, and of this group, approximately five read on their own. According to a study done by the American Psychological Association, in the 1970s, 60% of high school seniors read from a book or magazine every day. By 2016, this number had dropped to 16%. This percentage appears to be holding steady, with 80% of teens reporting using social media daily. But we already know this. Is decreasing literacy simply due to technology? Is reading too slow for a mind addicted to snapchat and Tik Tok? I place no blame on this generation (they’re children, after all) for faltering over words like “sniveling” and “titillating” (both examples taken recently from my own classroom) at seventeen years of age, but I do wonder about the future for Gen Z-ers, who appear, from my observations, to have lost the art of imagination. What does a society devoid of imagination look like? Pinpointing the steady decline in reading feels both overwhelming and nuanced–about as fruitless as imagining a world where we aren’t all addicted
Silent Book Reviews: An Oxymoron?
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by Taylor Herzlich
ook reviews have morphed in form, from formal reviews in print newspapers to online editions to informal blogs by independent writers. Now, anyone and everyone can review books — so long as they can find an audience. While the publishing industry is experiencing a boom, Americans are reading less than ever before, according to a Gallup poll from 2022. But Stephanie, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mother based in Hawaii with her military husband, has accrued a base of more than 200,000 people who can’t get enough of her book reviews. Her secret to a good review? She doesn’t say a single word. Stephanie, also known as @stephreadsalot on the social media platform TikTok, has amassed a substantial following due to her uber-popular “silent reviews.” These silent reviews are short videos that begin with Stephanie slamming a tall pile of books on a table on her back porch or on her bathroom sink, in small moments of time when she can sneak away from
to our phones. The question becomes, what real solutions can educators propose to draw teens into the literary world? Canon or choice? I work at a traditional public school where we read the classics: The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Crucible, Lord of the Flies, Julius Caesar, Crime and Punishment, Great Expectations. You get the idea. I recently rooted out seventeen copies of Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of A Part-Time Indian (now problematic for the 2018 allegations of sexual assault by Alexie) which is one of the more current novels in our book room. It was published in 2007. I’ll go out on a limb and say, on the whole, adolescents find another teenager who plays basketball and likes girls easier to relate to than a conch wielding British boy murdering other little boys on an island. Our book room is certainly not a glowing example of diversity in either content or authorship. One AP instructor does teach The Glass Castle (2005) and Just Mercy (2014) but these books are taught to approximately fifteen students per year. In my current core curriculum for junior level American Literature, every author is male. Of course the classics themselves can’t be blamed for being white and male. These books represent long held beliefs of the voices we collectively believe(d) we should be listening to. The standard argument for teaching the classics is application later down the road - you might know a thing about Jay Gatsby when you arrive in your college level English course. You might appear more literate at a par-
her five and six-year-old children. Stephanie then holds up each book individually and silently shares whether she liked or disliked the book, with a smile, a frown, a wince, a flirty sigh or sometimes even by tossing a book out of her front door. “I’ve never been one to shy away from abusing my books,” says Stephanie with a laugh. “A lot of people feel very strongly about [a book, that] it’s sacred … and I’m like, I bought it. So I’m allowed to do whatever I want with it.” In her most controversial video, Stephanie even ripped a copy of “The Silent Wife” by A. S. A. Harrison in half. While one user commented that their “whole body reacted” when Stephanie tore apart the book, another commented, “I’m a speech therapist and I am saving this [video] to teach my students about nonverbal communication!! Amazing!!!” Stephanie stumbled across BookTok, a subset of the TikTok community consisting of users who post book content, in 2019. “I remember talking to my husband about [posting my own TikTok content] before I did it. And I was like, you know, like I feel like this could be something that’s just for me,” says Stephanie. “You know, I’m a stay at
Page 6 Amagansett Star-Revue
ty, you might make a connection to a theme or motif, or recognize a reference you come across in a song years later. Maybe you’ll be more American, joining the ranks of students who either a. rely heavily on sparknotes or b. have no idea what really happened in the book. In a sense, reading the classics is a rite of passage in American classrooms all across the country. Research shows the humanities and
"Is reading too slow for a mind addicted to snapchat and Tik Tok?" liberal arts degrees are at risk of being completely eradicated from colleges and universities across the country. My own alma mater, West Virginia University, nearly axed the MFA in creative writing this past fall. Both personally and professionally, my graduate experience changed my life, and I was relieved to see the outpouring of support to preserve the program. Paired with a lack of reading in general, and so few students going on to pursue the humanities, is teaching the classics worth it? Are we hanging on to antiquated pieces of literature that will one day be forgotten by the human race living on Mars? In light of so many liberal arts programs being cut across the country, I marvel at my immense privilege in my parent’s unquestioning support of my
bachelor’s degree in English-on the other side of the equation, I find myself wishing they’d pushed me towards something more practical. Of course this very line of thinking is adding fuel to the humanities burning fire - universities are focused on offering more clear cut majors such as nursing, hospitality or tech. I don’t think if my school suddenly started teaching more graphic novels or books such as Thirteen Reasons Why or The Hate U Give, we’d convert our population to English majors or library go-ers. Many schools have made a concerted effort to move towards a more innovative and progressive curriculum and with book banning on the rise, I applaud these choices. All of this is to say-I don’t know which side of the canon v. choice aisle I stand. I would like to see some joy in reading. Perhaps the question is not what students should be reading, but how can we continue to foster the habit of reading? How can we emphasize the importance of seeing into other’s lives? Without imagination and empathy, the fabric of our society starts to fray. Whether you find meaning in Of Mice And Men or The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the point is - you’re finding meaning. You’re reading. You’re thinking. You might be learning along the way. I’m hopeful that some day, the liberal arts degree will rise again. If for nothing else, to allow young people the space and time to wonder and dream. Through reading we learn to empathize, and without empathy, what type of world would we live in?
home mom, and I am also a military spouse, so we live very far from everyone we know in real life … I was like … this could be, like, my social life.” Stephanie took her TikTok account seriously in 2021, posting three videos per day for three months in an effort to gain a loyal following. Early videos show Stephanie crying while reading a book or shaking a book in frustration, short seconds-long clips that clearly convey her opinions on the books. Fast forward to the end of September, when Stephanie made a video of herself reviewing some of her recent reads. Before she could even begin her review, she dropped a book, knocking it off the table and throwing her head back in jokey frustration. Stephanie says that one of her followers commented on the video requesting that Stephanie make an entire video of non-verbal book reviews, and thus, the silent reviews were born. Since her first silent review in September, Stephanie says she gained around 80,000 followers in just five days, and two of her silent review videos have been viewed more than 2 million times each. Now, silent reviews are taking over TikTok, from silent reviews of books to cosmetics to fragrances and more. “I
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Stephanie
saw one [video] the other day that was [a guy] silently reviewing [his] hockey equipment,” adds Stephanie. A quick search of “silent review” on TikTok reveals endless videos, many with millions of views. While this may seem like just another superficial social media trend, these silent reviews are just another example of the powerful impact that social media has on real lives. (continued on next page)
January 2024
Inspiration for Combating Winter Loneliness … or Finding Yourself in Combat
T
he blank page I begin to fill with these words reminds me of the emptier streets, shops and restaurants in the Town of East Hampton, as we task ourselves with Christmas tree removal, thank you notes, sending sons and daughters back off to college with, we hope, warm, newly formed memories and greater appreciation for family, old friends and the beloved place we call home. (A man can dream). Will Rowdy Hall remain sardinepacked as it has every night since opening with great anticipation and controversy a couple months ago? Will Truth Training, with their wonderfully addictive cross-training classes, see sign-ups recede to the handful of loyalists? Will Montauk be rewarded with monster surf like New Jersey got in late December, the most epic the Garden State has ever seen? Things come into finer focus and with the opportunity for keener observation in January, when the freight train of holiday-ing settles into the rearview mirror. Our Village of Amagansett gets even smaller in January as we perhaps take more notice and dare I say delight in the tough love, have-yourshit-together experience that is Terry the Postal Clerk, the pickleball volleying patois of the Jamaican baristas at Jack’s Coffee, or that certain grumpy fellow manning the cash register at Amagansett Hardware juxtaposed by his unsettlingly joyful sidekick smiling at you from 20 yards down the main aisle, readying to pull his trigger on helpfulness. In a world gone haywire, and with brains that naturally try to create the allusion of order from entropy, the consistency these mundane exchanges offer should be a soothing balm. They should also be an invitation for
SILENT REVIEWS (continued from previous page)
Stephanie says that the silent reviews help users from around the world to communicate with a universal language. “I get so many comments [now] from people outside of the U.S.,” says Stephanie. “I understand [these
Amagansett Star-Revue
by Joe Caccamo
us to flex the very important muscle of fostering deeper connection to our fellow humans, which I’m sure scientists will soon reveal, if they haven’t already, has a host of health benefits that even Ozempic can’t challenge. Despite my many years in California doing some serious woo-woo stuff like drum circles, men’s retreats, sacred geometrical crystal healing and sounds baths out the wazoo, I’m not talking about being a Space Invader, Burned Man and going in pelvis first for unwanted hugs. I’m simply suggesting there’s an element of possibility in a little more than a grumbled “hello” and “thank you.” People are interesting. Everyone is interesting, if you give them a chance … even the guy who is bearing down on your Prius in his massively macho, F-1250 dual exhaust, steroid-injected, truckbed storage-boxed, bull bar-hooded, cargo-bed slide buttressed pickup truck on Three Mile Harbor Road for no other reason than you’re going 5 miles over the speed limit in a later model luxury SUV. Never mind, he’s an asshole. (Digression: why the hell are all pickup drivers on Three Mile Harbor Road so angry at the Universe and why do they always have to ride up my ass like I just shot them the bird? Actually, I did reach my hand out the window once, flashing the international symbol for “you have a three-inch dick” to the Ram 1-zillion-50 trying to perform auto-anal, and the driver ended up tailing me all the way to a service station where he got out of his car and threatened to kill me, so perhaps this might be the one crowd of humans for which anything beyond a “hello” and “thank you” would be wishful thinking … but as I said, I digress.) I think being present in our interactions, seeing the individual in front
people] even though we don’t speak the same language, and I think that’s so beautiful.” If the removal of language barriers by a simple social media trend isn’t enough to impress you, think about the concrete impact that this trend has had on just Stephanie’s life alone. Stephanie says she is now a part of
of us, and offering even the most remote extra but sincere interest in our fellow humanity could lead to magical things, or simply feeling slightly less disconnected from the world when the temperature drops below 35 degrees and Main Street looks and feels as deserted as Nicki Hayley’s African American voter coalition. Case in point: a couple weeks ago, I closed on a closet-sized studio apartment on Gramercy Park in Manhattan. The evening of the closing, I strolled by a gorgeous building brimming with folks enjoying pre-Christmas cheer, including a few having cocktails on the patio. I leaned over the wrought iron gate, and said, “excuse me, may I ask … what is this place? It looks amazing.” Turns out I was asking one of the admission committee members about the Players Club, a social club founded in 1888 by the actor Edwin Booth, whose mission was to elevate the position of artists of all stripes by providing a venue for them to mingle with respected business and civic leaders. The admission committee member, Carrie, generously offered me a tour and 30 minutes later, I walked out the door with a membership application and a date to have drinks at the club two nights later. Three days later I was handed my trial membership card and put it to quick use that night, drinking beers and playing pool in the Grill with some wonderful members. Minutes into my second game, I startled to see an old friend from Sausalito, CA, a highly accomplished harmonica player named Joe Conte. Joe had flown to New York that day and was sitting in with a Jazz quartet in The Great Hall upstairs. Turns out the saxophone player from the quartet was the guy who sold me his Amagansett home four years ago, and that all of the quartet members and their entourage had spent a lot of
the TikTok Creativity Program, which pays users for highly viewed, viral videos, and she has also filmed her first two sponsored posts this year, both for major publishing company Penguin Random House. In the past, Stephanie says she relied heavily on the generosity of her friends and family to give her children
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time there! Of course, the sax player could hardly look at me, as he knew he had made the mistake of his life selling the place (one month before Covid shut the world down), but I ended up making fast friends with several of his friends, as we shut the place down, strolling out arm in arm, hangovers readying to greet us like flower girls at Honolulu International Airport. All of this, because I reached over a gate and asked a question. This is not to pat myself on the back but to remember that loneliness can be a factor in the winter months, especially in the Hamptons, so the best way to combat it is with a little bit of extra inquisitiveness, kindness, presence and effort to be a little bit more … human. One never knows what kind of magic awaits those who spark connection, who lean over the proverbial wrought iron gate. And a small world is a better, more peaceful world. So, the next time you’re driving 31 miles per hour down Three Mile Harbor Road at four in the afternoon in your white, 2023 Range Rover Evoque listening to Kenny G, and you look in your rearview mirror and all you see is the grill of a Chevy Silverado staring at you like the jaws opening on Captain Quint, hit the brakes, wave at the driver behind you to pull over on the shoulder with you, and approach the driver with a friendly smile and say something like, “I just wanted to make sure you’re having a nice day,” or better, “Gee, I bet you make love like you drive … in a real hurry, huh?” Those conversation starters should really break the ice. Namaste.* *The writer is not responsible for any mutilations or other bodily, psychic or automotive harm that may come as a result of his suggestions. Heckle pickup drivers on Three Mile Harbor Road at your own risk.
Christmas presents because she and her husband have struggled financially. “TikTok funded my kids’ Christmas [this year],” says Stephanie. “I cried when I got to hit purchase on my kids’ Christmas [gifts]. My husband and I have never been well off. He’s in the military. We’ve scraped by … And so, this is the first time that I got to buy real gifts not from the dollar store for
January 2024, Page 7
SUN SIGNS JANUARY FORECAST Julie Evans
T
he year begins with Mercury, the planet of communication, stationing direct on New Year’s Day in Sagittarius, the fiery sign of lofty plans. However, Mercury will not fully begin to move forward until January 20th. For everyone, use these first three weeks to set up the habits, practices and structures you can easily fall back on when the world becomes more volatile in April and May. We will soon experience the winding down of the Age of Earth as Pluto, the powerhouse planet, moves from the sign of Capricorn, into the sign of Aquarius initiating the Age of Air. This major planetary change also happens on January 20th. The energy of 2024 is mostly forward moving and we will all have to adapt. As David Bowie sang, “Turn and face the strange changes”. We will decide how we feel about artificial intelligence as it is thrust into many areas of life this year. Capricorn - Happy Birthday to the Sea Goat! Since 2008, Pluto has had its way with you, but now as Pluto leaves your sign everything feels lighter. You might consider making new plans for the future with Mars in your sign giving you an energetic lift. Since you are really good at keeping your feet on the ground while others lose their heads in the clouds keep an eye on any financial investments especially in the commodity markets. Pluto entered Capricorn during the banking crisis if you remember back then. Aquarius - The dawning of the Age of Aquarius is still in the future but Pluto will stay in your sign for the next twenty years. New technology like AI will reach the masses. Your future could include these applications to your present field. Starting a spiritual practice that includes meditation will help keep your monkey brain centered. The last time Pluto was in Aquarius the colonies fought a Revolutionary War with Britain. Expect more mass uprising around the world as people clamor for justice. Pisces - The creative quality that Neptune imparts to your sign has a few more useful years left. Neptune moved in during 2011 and leaves Pisces in 2026. With Saturn cohabitating in Pisces with the planet of dreams and mysticism it is possible to manifest your dream state through the arts. Saturn will give Neptune the needed structure. Painters, musicians and writers may produce important works as the planetary
weather is similar to the massive culture change of the mid-sixties. This is the month to remember your dreams, so keep a pen and pad by the bed. Aries - Take a time out now, all of you Mars ruled folks. Get that schedule streamlined. Catch up on the loose ends. Think twice before speaking as leftover issues from the holidays may still irk you. But remember no one does what you do with as much gusto. Exercise is the way to work that energy out. Cleaning out the attic and garage can be healing. Taurus - If you are not feeling well head off and get it checked out. With Uranus, the planet of changes, moving forward in your sign you may experience more or new sudden positive or negative moments professionally, financially or in relationships. Jupiter, the planet of luck and going bigger, may inflate situations. However, the bull’s love of a slow walk through nature can calm frayed nerves. Gemini - You can keep up like no other sign. Use this month to take a needed break. The emerging Age of Air will have you working double time later this year. You would benefit from employing a daily schedule of meditation and yoga. Put the electronics away at night and turn the phone off. Cancer - The Cancer Full Moon in December brought pending issues to a peak. You cannot ignore the facts any longer nor can you hope things change on their own and just go away. A considered plan is
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needed but you must do your due diligence. Check references and costs for all possible candidates. Leo - A Full Moon occurs in the sign of the Sun later this month just after Pluto enters Aquarius. Warmer and sunnier climates beckon to the Lions of course. Let the sun touch your flesh as much as possible no matter which latitude you find yourself in. Later this Fall, Pluto will move backwards into Capricorn for a short period giving those Leos born in July, some respite from the opposition to the planet of transformation. Virgo - You are so good at the details and keeping on top of the numbers. But not everyone is like you. There might be problems this month with partners who resent your criticism concerning their lack of your personal type of expertise. Partners have their own niche of excellence otherwise you would not be involved with them. Take time to relax.
at three pm letting love fill our hearts we can change the course and forge a new earth. I hope as many of us as possible can join this already in-progress movement to project love to the world. Like many in our watery east end world, my healing place is at the beach. So that is where I will be trying to change the world every Sunday. If you know your rising sign or where the moon falls in your natal chart, you should read the forecast for that sign also. If you do not know your birth chart and want to know about the promise of your Natal chart, I can be contacted at jevansmtk@gmail.com. I am giving one free reading away to the first person who contacts me. Please add the words January Star Ledger Reading in the subject line. Look up, the stars are all around us! Copyright Julie Evans 2024
Libra - Sometimes you need to shout and let it out. Trying to be the peacemaker is admirable until you can not sleep at night. Journal your feelings and let them go. If you have never taken a deep dive into your own psychology perhaps it is time to see a professional. Scorpio - You are a natural detective. You do not let many people in very closely. You are the keeper of secrets, especially your own. Rethink the secrecy in your life because sharing is liberating and leads to common ground. Keeping people in the dark will not lead to closer relationships, but maybe that is the way you like it. Sagittarius - With both Mercury and Venus in your sign this month expect positive communications. You may get a message from far away or you might take a trip. Either way the post holiday season would be the perfect time to travel or to plan a cosmetic makeover. Be careful not to blow the budget on beautiful things. If we all spend just fifteen minutes every Sunday afternoon
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January 2024
The Year I Fell Back In Love with Cinema, in 10 Moviegoing Experiences
I
t was in September, sitting in the big auditorium at BAM, packed with people, watching Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 sci-fi masterpiece Solaris. Near the beginning of the film is a shot of rain dropping into a pond, the water rippling out into green shards of wetland flora — nothing special, necessarily, but the kind of pastoral lyricism Tarkovsky routinely leaned on. But he holds on the shot just long enough, and watching it felt like a devotional experience. This was church. This was worship. And I was flush with the spirit. I also almost forgot what that felt like. Moviegoing is encoded in my DNA. My earliest memory is squirming in my theater seat, my parents on either side, as Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis try eating each other’s faces during the sex scene in Top Gun. (I would have been 4 and a half years old.) Every other week, my brother and I would hit the multiplex during our Saturdays with Dad; the other weekends I was probably going to movies with friends. I drove to the theater to watch a film, clear my head, try to make sense of my world. I worked at a suburban multiplex. After moving to New York, I all but lived at Film Forum and BAM. The movie theater was, is, and — as the last year made clear — will always be my happy place. But over the last decade or so, the connection frayed. Part of that was life. Work got tough, the world got tougher, I had a child, there was a pandemic. Part of that was also Hollywood. Superhero movies are fun for a while, but the mind needs more than the Avengers or Batman. The great big blockbusters and great mid-sized dramas that sustain a healthy cinema diet disappeared. I drifted away. But in 2023, quite by accident, I went to the movies more than I had since 2011. I found myself going to a movie here and there and, before I knew it, I could feel the tug of that magnetic pull, so long dormant. I remembered what it was like, and why I went, and realized what I missed. It’s not just the movies; it’s seeing movies with real live humans. Say what you want about the phones and the chatter and all that. Nothing beats being in a theater with a bunch of people experiencing the same film, laughing at the same jokes, gasping at the same twists, cheering at the same triumphs. Cinema is the most democratic art because it levels it all out. We’re in that room, together, most of us strangers, sharing this space and experience and, hopefully, walking out, together, fuller and more tuned in to our world than before. So many people in positions of power want to keep us segregated, sequestered, and streaming alone. But to lose movie theaters would be to lose something essential, not just a nec-
Amagansett Star-Revue
by Dante A. Ciampaglia
the new black-and-white film stock Kodak developed for the film: so crisp, so pure. (There wasn’t one that could handle what director Christopher Nolan wanted by shooting IMAX.) But the whole thing was worth the hype — and schedule management.
"Nothing beats being in a theater with a bunch of people experiencing the same film." The Hairy Bird
(August 11, Metrograph)
essary third place, as Robert (Bowling Alone) Putnam would call it, but a necessary place, period. I knew that before, but the past year hardened my conviction. I’m a born-again moviegoer, and like those most zealous of all believers I will go to the barricades for this art and this experience. In that spirit, rather than collate yet another top 10 list I’m sharing the 10 best moviegoing experiences I had in 2023. Hopefully, something here will connect in a way that gets you back out to the movies in the new year. (But if you really want a 2023 top 10, in alphabetical order: 65, American Fiction, Asteroid City, Barbie, Fallen Leaves, The Holdovers, The Boy and the Heron, Oppenheimer, Past Lives, Perfect Days.)
My Neighbor Totoro (January 4, Metrograph)
One of my 5-year-old daughter’s favorite movies is My Neighbor Totoro, so I jumped on tickets to see it on Metrograph’s largest screen. When it started, we realized it was subtitled, not dubbed. Not ideal for a child who can’t yet read. But when I asked her if she was OK with it being in Japanese, she simply said, “Yep,” and locked into the film. It helped that she knew the movie so well, but still, I was one proud dad.
Nashville
(April 15, Metrograph) The best seat in any house in New York is Metrograph’s balcony. Besides being a balcony — in desperately short supply in this or any city — it puts you at the ideal eye level (and headspace) for a movie. That’s especially true if you’re catching a classic. I hadn’t fully appreciated that fact until watching Robert Altman’s masterpiece Nashville, and now every other viewing of it will compete with the Metrograph experience.
Oppenheimer
(August 1, AMC Lincoln Square) There are only 30 IMAX 70mm theaters in the world; 19 are in the U.S.; one is in New York, at the AMC Lincoln Square. There was no way I wasn’t seeing Oppenheimer — shot in IMAX 70 — in its native format. The realization that my old-man knees can’t handle three-plus hours in a cramped IMAX theater seat aside, this was as good as moviegoing gets: big, immersive, total cinema. The standout was
It’s not often you experience a resurrection at a movie theater. But that’s what happened the night Metrograph screened Sarah Kernochan’s 1998 coming-of-age 1960’s-set boarding school comedy The Hairy Bird (a/k/a All I Wanna Do, a/k/a Strike!). The film stars Kirsten Dunst and Rachael Leigh Cook just as they became huge stars, and boasts a loaded supporting cast that includes Lynn Redgrave, Gaby Hoffmann, Vincent Kartheiser, and Heather Matarazzo. And no one saw it. Because legendary scumbag Harvey Weinstein acquired it, then buried it for… reasons. Kernochan emptied her bank account to secure a one-screen, one-week release in New York, but it was otherwise dumped onto home video. A Metrograph programmer, who discovered it on VHS, secured a 35mm print to screen at the theater. Kernochan, producer Peter Newman, and cinematographer Tony Janelli were there to talk about the film — and experience a soldout crowd belatedly fall in love with their hilarious, pitch perfect film. It was a long overdue victory lap for Kernochan, who was overcome with emotion. “I never got to have this experience,” she said, choking back tears. It was hard not to be overcome, too, as an audience member, cheering this filmmaker and her work and helping her reclaim some of what was stolen from her.
Winter Kills
(August 16, Film Forum) Nearly every scene in William Richert’s gonzo 1979 pitch-black-satire adaptation of Richard Condon’s JFK-assassination-conspiracy thriller novel has an I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-seeing moment. Seventysomething John Huston in a silk robe and red bikini briefs. Jeff Bridges in the loudest, most uncomfortable sex scene ever. Huston imploring son Bridges to return a pair of brass knuckles because they have “sentimental value.” (Honestly, anytime Huston is on screen, pay attention.) Elizabeth Taylor sauntering into the film for an uncredited cameo. “Expect anything” should be the film’s tagline. That goes for watching it, too. When Taylor shows up, a guy sitting two seats away stretches over, slaps me on the arm, and says, “Know who that is?!” (Uh, yeah. And please don’t touch me.) A lifetime of moviegoing and that had never happened. It takes a special kind of film to make someone actively engage a total stranger, in the dark, in a fit of Liz Taylor fanboy excitement. And it could only happen in a movie theater.
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Solaris
(September 1, BAM) I touched on this in the introduction, but seeing Solaris on a giant screen with a full crowd of rapt cinephiles was the first time (that I can remember) of moviegoing existing for me as something like churchgoing. It’s a rare experience that I’ll chase for the rest of my days.
Perfect Days
(September 27, IFC Film Center) There’s not much to Wim Wenders’ film, plot-wise: middle-aged Hirayama (Koji Yakusho) in Tokyo wakes up in his spartan apartment, goes through his morning routine, jumps in his van, pops on a cassette, and heads to work cleaning the city’s public toilets. Others come and go — a co-worker; Hirayama’s niece; his estranged sister — and they each wobble the delicate equilibrium of Hirayama’s existence. We learn little about his life before these few days we spend with him, and at the end there’s not so much resolution as an expansion of what constitutes living. It’s a humane film that hit me between the eyes. There’s rarely a day that goes by since seeing Perfect Days that I haven’t thought about it or felt it resonate in my material, corporeal, and spiritual life. This is art built for the publicly private introspection and empathy that comes from watching a film with others in a dark theater.
The World’s Greatest Sinner (October 7, Anthology Film Archives)
It’s easy to forget that not everything is available via streaming, or that it ever will be. Some stuff is just too weird or niche or marginal to make the investment worth it for Netflix or Amazon. Sometimes you need to leave the house and experience a film in a theater or it’s gone forever. The World’s Greatest Sinner, from 1962, is just such a film, a truly wild piece of folk filmmaking from ur-character actor Timothy Carey, who wrote, directed, and starred in what I can only describe as a live-action version of one of those pocket-sized arch-religious mini comic books you find in Port Authority bathrooms. (They’re called Chick tracts, FYI.) An insurance salesman has the mother of all midlife crises, rejects his sleepy suburban life, calls himself God, starts a cult, swells his ranks via rock ’n roll revivals, turns the cult into a fascistic political machine, and gets close to taking total control before being zapped by the righteousness of actual God’s light. It is insane in all the right ways, and insanely prophetic in others. A rally goes off the rails and fake-God’s acolytes storm an arena in a scene that eerily parallels the January 6 insurrection. Sinner should only exist as a beat-up bootleg, yet the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences restored the film and Anthology, bless them, screened it. Seeing it with a bunch of other weirdos on the same wavelength was just the best kind of time at the movies.
To Be Continued! January 2024, Page 9
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January 2024
two of Warnaar’s own tracks and one with her band Infinity Shred.
The beginning of another new age. The year that’s just passed might go down in history as the one in which New Age music at last made its triumphant return. The media likes nothing more than a counterintuitive tale, and so a rapper long off the scene, André 3000, of the groundbreaking Atlanta duo OutKast, releasing a new age record—New Blue Sun (Epic)—in November, and playing flute of all things, was practically made to order for hype and saturation. And, since there’s no place for mediocrity in the realm of clickbait and quick takes, what is really just an OK record quickly became a bold move, a stroke of genius, and a laudable breaking of racial boundaries. See? Black people can make boring music, too!
But Dré ain’t alone in championing a form that was termed “air pudding” in a 1987 Doonesbury strip. Drummer Clara Warnaar has been staging a New Age revival at least since 2019, when the first of her A New Age for New Age compilations came out. As of last August, the series is up to six volumes. The definitions of “new age” seem to vary from one artist to the next. With more than 60 tracks in the series, it doesn’t all constitute pudding— some are more like flan or yogurt with granola—but there’s certainly something meditative, if not always ruminative, about the albums. Along with many other not-necessarily-new-age artists (pianist Pascal La Beouf, bassist Tristan-Kasten Krause and Travis Just of Brooklyn’s Object Collection, to name a few), the series has included
Infinity Shred’s synth pulses lean a little toward the movie themes of Harold Faltermeyer (Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun). The band—Warnaar with Damon Hardjowirogo on synth and Nathan Ritholz, guitar and synth—marked its 10th anniversary last summer by rerecording their debut album. Sanctuary 2023 is out on January 26 (self-released download and double LP). It’s not just the pulse but the energy that makes this a new kind of new age— they’ve absorbed and developed the tunes for the last decade— but it still has the sort of gloss that makes it easy to let float by. That’s not a detriment, it’s more like the point, but by no means does that mean it’s simplistic. Those intrigued but unconvinced are encouraged to check out Shred Offline from 2022. The album documents a short set of five Shred tunes arranged for a chamber orchestra of strings, wind and brass pushed by vibraphone and Warnaar on marimba, nicely underscoring the intricacy in their tunes.
Few might seem less new age than Lou Reed, but his public persona was at least a little removed from the yoga and tai chi practice of his later years. In 2007, he released a soundtrack for such occasions. Hudson River Wind Meditations came out as a limited run CD from the Colorado publishing company Sounds
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True, which claims to be “the world’s largest living library of transformational teachings that support and accelerate spiritual awakening and personal transformation.” It came and went with little notice, a diversion by a rebel deemed no longer relevant. The album is being reincarnated by Light in the Attic (CD, 2 LP, download, January 12) and is worth hearing. The cultural context might be a far cry from Reed’s 1975 double album, Metal Machine Music, but the end result isn’t so different. Both are built from waves of drones and pulses and difference tones, guitar feedback on the first and what sounds to be synthesizers on the second. And while neither was designed specifically to piss off the rock’n’roll animals of the world, both have the capacity to achieve as much. Likely enough, some will only listen once, but it’s a great bit of insight into an often misunderstood rock icon who rarely seemed concerned with being understood anyway.
Death to false metal, long live the holograms, robots and funnymen. After years of goodbyes, KISS played their final concert in December at Madison Square Garden—as such. Anyone paying any attention already knows that at the end of the concert, they introduced their hologram replacements, which will carry the digital torch for them in artificial reality concerts beginning in 2027. The show is being produced in association with Pophouse Entertainment, the Stockholm company not only responsible for the ABBA Voyage virtual reality concerts but founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus. The teaser for the KISS hologram show, however, just suggests a missed opportunity. They could finally be anything
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they want. They don’t have to be a foursome. They don’t even have to be human. They could really be a demon and a spaceman and a catman and a foxman and, um, the Ankh warrior and, well, a guy who likes to have sex, I guess. They could be larger than life. They could become the heroes of their 1977 Marvel Comics Super Special or the 1978 TV movie KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. They could even, finally, make the abandoned feature film of 1981’s Music from “The Elder,” their ill-fated project with producer Bob Ezrin and Lou Reed as song cowriter. (OK, maybe not that one, pretty much a low point for everyone involved.) But it looks like, as always, they’ll fall short of their cartoon epic promises. “Death to false metal,” was, not incidentally, a rallying cry for the long-lived upstate metal’n’muscles band Manowar long before it was taken as the name for an album of outtakes and rarities by the cheekygeeky indie band Weezer. And speaking of cheek, director Rob Reiner announced in November that he’s beginning shooting for a sequel to the classic heavy metal parody movie This Is Spinal Tap in February. All of which might raise the question: is the future of metal all jokes and mirrors?
videos and imagery are all AIgenerated. Rather than training an algorithm with all the metal that exists on the Internet, however, the company brought in musicians to play riffs and blastbeats, creating its own tutorials for the robot to work from.
The result is pretty rote to my ears, but it’s not like most human-generated heavy metal is all that unique. Figuring I might not be the target audience for the album, I asked AI to write a review for me. It delivered a 400-word critique, complete with an invented rating system (“4.5 out of 5 axes”), finding that “Frostbite Orckings have crafted a monstrous debut with The Orcish Eclipse. It’s not just good melodic death metal—it’s an immersive experience, transporting you to a world of frost and fury. The crushing riffs, potent vocals, and surprisingly nuanced storytelling make this a worthy addition to any metalhead’s playlist. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran of the pit or a curious adventurer, The Orcish Eclipse offers a satisfyingly savage adventure.” The AI review didn’t mention that the album is AI generated. Is that some sort of professional courtesy? Maybe there are some things you don’t mention in polite robot company. Or maybe Kraftwerk had it right all along.
Fortunately, we have Frostbite Orckings to carry the torch. The band released its first full-length, The Orcish Eclipse, (download, LP in frost blue or eclipse pink, CD or CD with oversized digipack and bonus tracks) in December, after a couple of digital singles and a digital EP earlier in the year. The band is the creation of the Bingen, Germany, company Musical Bits and their music,
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Better late than never, I discover a great hangout
I
received a nice reaction from my neighbor last month about the story of my article about Montauk's Shagwong restaurant, so I decided to do it again. I asked another neighbor for a suggestion. Which is what sent me to Sag Harbor during Christmas week to The Corner Bar. Sidebar—of all the places I've been to this December, Sag Harbor is the best decorated Christmas village. I parked in Village Parking, and walking down Main Street I ran into a couple I hadn't seen for a long time, but who I've known for decades, ever since I sold them an ad for their travel agency in SoHo back in the 1970's.
Nick and Penny run Turon Travel, now in Long Island City, and for many years have been coming out to Sag Harbor. I have a vague memory of their original travel agency as being on the second floor of an unusually decorated office replete with free flowing wine. Things were somewhat different in the older days when rent was less the point. It was great to run into somebody unexpectedly, and when I told them where I was going, they told me that's
by George Fiala
where the locals all go, which is exactly what I was looking for. My neighbors are themselves locals. I wouldn't have known because Sag Harbor was the one place my parents never took us to when my sister and I were kids coming out to Amagansett in the summer. My family liked Gosman's Dock and also Ma Bergman's, which was a family pizza restaurant located where Nick and Toni's now is, I think. Coming out to Sag Harbor for my restaurant review this issue included another coincidence. A few weeks earlier, at a holiday gift show in Brooklyn where I had both this and my Brooklyn paper on display, my doctor showed up at the table with his family. I'm pretty lucky in that so far in life, I've only really had to see my doctor for checkups. Dr. Romanelli, who I first met while reporting on the demise of the Long Island College Hospital, turns out to also have a place in Sag Harbor. He picked up the Revue and asked if I leave them at Cromer's Market. I told him no, but I will. So now I had two reasons to get to Sag
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Harbor, and it seems I'll be going every month, as Cromer's seemed happy to have the paper.
pretty quiet, but they filled up by the time I left. The bar was busy and seemed very friendly.
Anyway, this is about The Corner Bar, not Cromer's. I walked over, and in.
I didn't then know anything about their seafood history, but as they are right across the harbor, I chose the broiled flounder and clam chowder. I picked a baked potato and the vegetable turned out to be asparagus.
There's a big photo of their late founder, Jim Smyth. It says underneath "His true wealth was his generous heart. And what endless wealth he did have." From the sign outside I see that he founded the place in 1978. I did a little research, and see that's it's always been a local hangout, and always been popular, and always had good food. Smyth's obituary mentioned that bands like the Pure Prairie League used to play there. He was a big sailor and even an interim mayor. A story from 1988 about a remodeling they did emphasizes the fresh fish, and an ad from 2003, in addition to promoting the fish and hamburgers, touts free parking "anywhere in town." Further research revealed that parking was an issue with the town in 1985 when Smyth tried to expand the place. I got there around 6:30 on the Thursday before New Years, and it was still
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The fish was fresh, well seasoned and the potato and asparagus cooked just right and very simple. There were more clams in the chowder than potatoes, which is special. That's about all I had and it was just right. I think next time I'll try the "Famous Corner Bar Burger," which gives you 8 ounces of "Cromer's Fresh Ground Sirloin topped with their Special Mix of Sauteed Mushrooms and Onions, your choice of cheese and a side of Fries," all for just $17. With a large draft, sounds like a perfect way to spend a late afternoon. The Corner Bar, 1 Main Street, Sag Harbor, serving lunch and dinner every day, (631) 725-9760.
January 2024