The Hamptons Has New Artwork To Get Pissed About!

In 2010 it was Larry Rivers' legs sculpture in Sag Harbor that got all the local blue hairs in a twist, diming the sculpture to Code Enforcement and getting it removed.

Now it's Westhampton Beach's turn to have a holy conniption over the one thing that might actually make Westhampton Beach interesting to visit again.

Photo: VICTORALCORN.COM

 This is "Walking Man," a 30-foot aluminum sculpture by New York-based artist Donald Baechler. The sculpture was erected in the roundabout located near Westhampton's Gabreski airport, a sort of welcome committee for those who get off the County Road 31 exit on Sunrise Highway.

It's "Peanuts" meets Jeff Koons, in our Joe-the-Plumber approach to art appreciation.

"Balloon Dog" by Jeff Koons

 The installation was made possible by a commission from Rechler Equity Partners, the development company that is doing a lot more landscape-altering shit to the Hamptons than this walking Charlie Brown character rising up out of the middle of an air force base. But no matter, the residents are in a tizzy and they want it taken down.

Describing the sculpture as "ugly" and "in your face," one resident in the New York Post article from Taylor Vecsey of the East Hampton Star even volunteered to donate a crane and wrecking ball. Slow down, Rob Swanson Jr. We all know there hasn't been a wrecking ball in the Hamptons in some time and all you contractors have the foreclosure proceedings to prove it!

Which brings us to our finest point. In his stand-up routine Lewis Black talks about how small towns ought to build a "big fucking thing." Doesn't matter what it is, so long as it's big, and it's a fucking thing. Because everyone will drive out to see the big fucking thing, and then want to spend the night, which will lead to a Big Fucking Thing Hotel, and then a Big Fucking Thing-themed restaurant, a Big Fucking Thing Spa! And that's how you stimulate the economy.

Ever stop to consider, Westhampton, that this might be your big fucking thing?

"Where is the public forum?" wrote Cynthia McAvoy Schunk on the Westhampton Chamber of Commerce Facebook page.

Oh shut up, Westhampton.

How Many Dead? So Sad. Hey, Buy My Album!

File this one under "unimpressed releases." We want you to meet Michael Weiskopf. If there is a poor man's Bob Dylan, Michael Weiskopf is that person's poor man. Oh the plight of musicians; they grind it out for years hoping to get their big break. Fortunately the internet has provided a myriad of opportunities to expose that desperation. It's hard to draw attention to your work. And when the going gets tough, the tough capitalize on mass murder in the form of a badly written press release to increase SEO, draw people searching for information on the crime and get them to check out your latest song that's loosely related to gun violence.

What? Isn't that what they do?

So Michael Weiskopf, whose website is here, wrote a song in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre called "Guns Don't Kill." From what we've gathered after spending literally dozens of seconds researching this guy is that he's based out of the Hamptons. His website is created by Hamptons Web Design, and he has radio appearances centered out east.

Today, he accidentally decided to promote his music with this headlined release: "Latest Shooting Underscores New Anti-NRA Rant." 

OK, first: calling your song a "rant" is probably not the best tactic. Secondly, the lead graf calls attention to the recent shooting in "Santa Monica."

On May 23, a young man in Isla Vista, Cal. went on a shooting and stabbing spree reportedly because he kept striking out with women. Whatever the matter, he senselessly took six lives and wounded a number of others before finally turning the gun on himself. He committed this crime near UC Santa Barbara and one of his targets was a sorority house off campus.

Santa Barbara. Not Santa Monica. Which is not that bad of a mistake unless you're writing this press release as your attempt to mark your solidarity and empathy for the victims. Oh wait.

Then there's this to consider. One year ago this week, there WAS a mass shooting in Santa Monica, where another six people were killed, (including the shooter) making it entirely plausible that this "gaffe" was in fact, no mistake, but a press release that was repurposed and sent out again in the wake of the Santa Barbara killings.

So you're capitalizing on TWO mass murders? And you don't even have the decency of a proofreader to make sure your opportunism isn't so transparent?

Oh self-promotion: I love you. Oh Hamptons: I love you more!

Why Can't 'DASH' Go Through What Bookhampton Is Going Through?

Oh, this damn illiterate country. There's something just gut-cringing and teeth-gnashing about witnessing first-hand as people who either haven't earned, or don't deserve financial success celebrating their windfall, while earnest people have to beg in the streets.

And that's just what booksellers across America are doing. Recently the New York Times published an article on the absolute endangered species that bookstores in Manhattan have become, as each one falls victim to the $40,000 per month rent vs. two people bought something this week paradigm. In Manhattan, bookstores are down by 60%.

We initially rejoiced when Borders went belly-up, thinking that this would reopen the market to independent, mom-and-pops stores. No. People just don't read anymore. That's an overstatement, but you get the point. You know there is a cultural brain drain when it comes to the written word when Snooki's novel outsells Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison. It seems "You've Got Mail" only got it half-right. Perhaps the chain stores were our enemy in the late 90s, but a greater enemy seems to be our complete antipathy toward the written word unless it has been ghost written for movie stars and reality TV bimbos.

Which is why we are not surprised, but greatly saddened to receive this plea from the owner of Bookhampton, Charline Spektor:

Dear Friends and Neighbors and BookLovers: 

The most wonderful part of owning BookHampton has been the discovery of 
new books and the camaraderie of fellow readers. The saddest part is the 
awareness that all things, even those we cherish most, have days that are 
numbered. 

The frozen Winter and this very chilly Spring caught BookHampton in a 
grip that has brought us to our knees. We’re fighting to have one more 
Summer, and not to be bowed by the writing on the wall that forced our 
colleagues to close their doors. In NYC alone: Coliseum Books, Gotham, 
Endicott, Shakespeare & Co., Murder Ink, the lovely Madison Avenue 
Bookshop, the incomparable Books & Co., BN Lincoln Center and now 
Rizzoli – all gone. 

A good friend asked if there’s anything that we can do to hold on to 
BookHampton. As I tried to find one more answer, the brilliant metaphor of 
the great writer Anne LaMott came to mind. “My brother,” she wrote in 
Bird by Bird, “was trying to get a report on birds written that he'd had three 
months to write. It was due the next day… he was at the kitchen table close 
to tears… immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father 
sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother's shoulder, and said, 
'Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.'" 

So here then is my answer and a heartfelt request: Could you please help us 
take on the enormous challenge of saving BookHampton book by book. If 
every one of our friends, neighbors, and booklovers would be so kind as to 
buy one book today, it would make a true and immediate difference: 
bookhampton@bookhampton.com 

Please take a moment to order just one book right now from BookHampton 
Any book at all. bookhampton@bookhampton.com 

Tell us the book you’re looking for or let us make a great recommendation. 
We’ll hold it in store or ship it anywhere! 
Email: bookhampton@bookhampton.com 
Or call us : (631) 324-4939 or (631) 488-5953. 

BookHampton is the literary cornerstone of our community; 
the beach, the farms, and this bookstore enrich all our lives 
and nourish our souls. 

Thank you, in advance, for taking the time today to save BookHampton 
book by book. 

Charline 
 and Chris, Billy, Kim, Taylor, Mary, Sarah, Greg, Kate, Ken 

But, you know. Go ahead and shop at DASH. The Kardashians could use the money.

Hamptons Architect Sentenced In Child Porn Case

Call him creepier than your average pedophile, which is quite an accomplishment. Jay Lockett Sears, the architect who reportedly designed homes in the Hamptons for Michael J. Fox and Clint Eastwood among others, was sentenced a few day ago for his nastly little child pornography photoshopping habit.

Photoshopping, you say? Yeah, apparently this creepster with a Mark Twain-Tom Wolfe-Santa Claus fetish vibe, was taking pictures of kids in public and then photoshopping himself and other adults into the harmless photo, making it, yeah...really not harmless anymore. Yick. This strikes us here at Hamptonyte as oddly creepier than a guy in a van with fists full of candy.

In either event, Sears was sentenced to six months house arrest and five years probation, according to the Associate Press.

Looks like the judge was on his own "Mission of Kindness." See what I did there? For background, check out this article by Erica Jackson at the Westhampton-Hampton Bays Patch, back when there was an Erica Jackson at Westhampton-Hampton Bays Patch. Or any Patch for that matter. The best is the closing quote from Vincent Cinque, who had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Angel's Wings back in the 5th grade.

"When he came to talk to us back in elementary school, he was just plain creepy," he said.

Creepy? What gave it away? The all white suits? The wings? The Cheshire grin? The cane? The camera snapping away pictures of girls at beach parties? What shocked us here at Hamptonyte is that anyone could see this guy around and NOT think he's a pedophile.Yes, we're shocked by people's shock.

On the bright side, if you're looking for an architect in the Hamptons, we know one who'll be home every day until December.

Dan's Pumps Up Local Authors

Still smarting from literary events getting hijacked by movie stars with ghost-written cookbooks, to quote Jay McInerney?

Just a few short months after the East Hampton Library's 9 Annual Authors Night, which looked more like Black Friday at Walmart USA when Gwyneth Paltrow and Alec Baldwin showed up, Dan's Papers put together a nicely researched poster of local authors whose books might make for some stocking stuffers.

Oliver Peterson drafted "5 Picks For Readers and Writers," and it was impressive not only to see some of the old guard (Steinbeck, Vonnegut) but that serious contemporary writers got a mention. Kaylie Jones' novels "Speak Now" and "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries" features along with Hilary Thayer Hamann, whose novel "Anthropology of an American Girl" saw more resurrections than an episode of AMC's "Walking Dead."

Jones used to teach at Southampton College and continued on as a professor in the MFA in Creative Writing program when Stony Brook University took over the campus. Not sure if she's still there, but she recently stinted as the editor of Akashic's Noir series where she contributed a short story based in the Hamptons. Translation: her Hamptons ties run deep, unlike some others we won't mention. (Ahem--tomwolfe-Ahem) Excuse us.

AWESOME: Not seeing Nelson Demille's cover on the tapestry

NOT AWESOME: Seeing Dan Rattiner's "In The Hamptons" on the tapestry. Come'on, man. I know he's your boss and all, but...

ALSO...surprised to see James Frey on the tapestry, as I had no idea he spent any time in the Hamptons. Good for him. (Always thought he got a raw deal over the whole Oprah thing. There's truth and then there's emotional truth.)

Albanian immigrant arrested for wrong reason

Meet Praq Rado. His story is told by Taylor Vecsey in the East Hampton Patch in an article that went up last week. Rado is awaiting his fate in Los Angeles while the American government decides whether or not to deport him back to Albania, from which he fled 11 years ago.

Rado had been happily bobbing along, modeling, acting, writing, dancing in gay bars...until one day he made the all-too-common mistake of taking the Hamptons International Film Festival seriously. He put together a 25-minute short film about his immigration experience and then accidentally entered it into the HIFF.

He further compounded his mistake by trying to attend the HIFF in October, and was summarily scooped up by immigration police and is now out on bail pending a decision. His lawyers are arguing that he should have been arrested for impersonating a serious person who entered his film into a serious film festival.

According to the article, which is well-written by the way, Rado belongs to the minority Catholic population in the largely Muslim Albania, and we needn't think about what might happen to Rado if he should be returned there, after living out of the closet for so long.

So yeah. We pray for Rado. And we hope the story inspires in all of us a lesson about the Hamptons International Film Festival.

If forced to choose between entering and attending the HIFF or being sent to Muslim-controlled Albania...

We would have to think on it for a while.

Hamptons Hosts Ridiculous Hat Convention

We're not sure what this is but our friends at Guest of a Guest captured a photographic essay of people being huddled into a tent and apparently forced to wear ridiculous hats. Our only guess is that it's some sort of Hamptons hazing gone horribly wrong. You have:



Just keep smiling and don't turn around. Do Not Turn Around.











 

 

The hat made from leftover ribbons at the bridal shower.

Air Syria flight attendant flushed accidentally as plane passed over.

After his refusal to wear the baby blue fedora, his captors acquiesced and handed him the equally shameful peach blazer with a handkerchief sticking out of the pocket.

It's not a hat if they have to pin it to your hair. Or, as in this case, allow the bird to keep his talons so he can grip firmly down on the scalp. Her smile is one of controlled pain.

This group tried its best to camoflogue the little one as a white girl by squishing down what was left in their flower garden on top of a nest of lace. Oh, when rich people adopt.

Bride of Barney

You can actually SEE her wondering how ridiculous she looks.

This 4 Non-Blondes wardrobe sale came with a miniature-sized replica of the Mayor of New York City. She wouldn't stop bragging about how much of a steal it was.

She brought enough hat for the two of them, but he kept insisting.

Okay, that's actually Edith Beale, but so long as we're documenting batshit crazy....





 

Rule #121: Hamptons.com Must Tell Us What "Inno-Trendy" Means

Does Hamptons.com actually have writers on staff? Or is it just a few trained monkeys uploading press releases to their Web site? Are they all in hibernation until the next post-Memorial Day white-party? If so, why doesn't the site just shut down for the winter?

Item: this canned release from the good people at o.d.m. watches. You know, the "internationally acclaimed timepiece arbitrators?" We don't even know what the last half of that sentence means. Nor do we know what "inno-trendy" means in the second sentence of this press release. Maybe if a Hamptons.com staffer was around to actually re-purpose the release and maybe call somebody at o.d.m. to clarify, we'd know. Naw...too much work.

Anyway, the exciting news is supposed to be that these watches (which look like the eggs from which Yo Gabba Gabba characters hatched) is now available in the U.S. Phew...we've been waiting for this day to arrive.

Breaking News: Bored People Hate Everything

Especially art. Especially when it's not tucked away out of sight. This bit of local color made its way to the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Apparently some blue-hairs from Sag Harbor are screaming "code violation" over a 16-foot sculpture by the late Larry Rivers. The sculpture is a pair of long, white, shapely woman's legs with garters at the thigh. Which begs the question: who's Larry Rivers?

I guess we're a bunch of troglodytes here at Hamptonyte, because we didn't know he's sort of a big deal. He moved out to the Hamptons with the rest of the crew: DeKooning, Pollack, et al. And now he's dead. Which, in the art world, means he's finally starting to make money.

In either event, the 16-foot legs, which are nothing more than a naked pair of out-of-scale mannequin legs, is perched up alongside the "temporary home" (whatever that means) of two art dealers: Janet Lehr and (the very pretentiously one-named) Vered. Together, they run the Vered Gallery out of an old Baptist church in the village.

So the neighbors are predictably pissed. We say predictably because, after all, this is a nation that doesn't know how to handle a woman and her naughty bits. What if school children see it? Or the elderly? Now they're trying to sweep the leg, by claiming it violates some building code about structures maintaining a certain height. Basically they're trying to nail Al Capone for tax evasion. It's sort of like when Mayor Giuliani lost all his hair because an artist painted the virgin Mary with elephant dung. He couldn't execute the artist, so he went after the funding at the Brooklyn Museum.

Hey, credit the WSJ for finally putting to bed the proper spelling of "whack" in "whack job!" As in:
"I heard this guy is a whack job," says Charles McCarron, who owns the house next door to the one with the big legs outside. "This is not Greenwich Village."

Actually, Greenwich Village is no longer Greenwich Village, probably because of douchebags like McCarron. So in short: villagers in Sag Harbor are outraged by a sculpture created by a well-known artist, but they aren't outraged that there's someone living in their village who only goes by the name Vered?

Parrish Art Museum Shaves The Area

As a follow-up to our recent blog post about the Parrish's plans to relocate off of Jobs Lane in Southampton Village, it looks like the museum has mowed a gigantic space in the middle of its future Water Mill site and is getting all juiced up for a July 19 groundbreaking ceremony.

According to 27East, the ceremony will be closed to the public, but the Parrish is expected to announce its timeline for the new museum space. Before you get all pissy about them, apparently the museum attempted to renovate its existing space to make more room and expand its collection and was met with all sorts of aggravation from village residents. Well played, villagers. Now the museum is going to vacate a beautiful building and leave it open for some 20-something fashion designer from Manhattan to totes take it over and make it a chic couture space.

What are we getting in return? A museum in the middle of a field that sounds, by its description, more like a duck farm stable than an art museum.

Southampton Mayor: The Parrish Is Just Not That Into You

Southampton Village Mayor Mark Epley got a Dear John letter from the Parrish Museum this week in the form of a Southampton Press reporter calling him for comment on the museum's plans to leave the village very soon.

"They are?" he said. Or something like that. Apparently construction of the new Parrish Museum's digs in Water Mill is underway and moving along swimmingly, meaning the museum will be leaving its century-old home on Jobs Lane in the heart of the village as early as 2012, according to this article. The vacancy will leave a huge gap in the middle of Jobs Lane and poses a major decision for the mayor and his flying monkeys to decide who should be the next tenant. (See: please God, don't be a Starbucks.)

But the real kick in the jabumbas is that Mayor Epley kept calling and calling and stopping by, and writing, and throwing pepples at their window, and sneaking inside dressed as a potted plant, and Facebook friending them, and sending over singing messengers, and chocolates, but the Parrish was not trying to hear that. The Parrish does what the Parrish wants. Nobody puts Parrish in a corner. OMG, they went out, like...once...and he can't get over it. They've moved on, why can't he? They're seeing someone new. A Swiss architect no less!

So, yeah. That kind of sucks. If anyone has ever taken the time, the museum's outdoor sculpture garden of Roman figures is one of the best places to take a cup of coffee and contemplate the unfairness of life.

It's now where you can find Mayor Mark Epley. Moping. Kicking the grass. Holding the locket he planned on giving the museum as a token of his love. Go annoy him about the new parking ordinances! Go now!

Something Positive (Gasp!)

We interrupt our usual broadcast snark to bring you a nice wrap-up in the Hamptons art world courtesy of the East Hampton Star. Day late and a dollar short to catch the opening weekend of “Winslow Homer: The Pleasures of Summer” at Guild Hall in East Hampton, (although the opening reception was a members-only affair) but this and three other interesting exhibits are open until July 25. Winslow Homer is considered the first major artist to work and draw inspiration from the Hamptons. Our personal interest: the exhibition of east end art teachers in the Boots Lamb Education Center. Nice to see living artists getting some space in the Guild.



And it's not too late to catch the opening reception of Moises Esquenazi's “Natural Boundaries,” at Gallery B in Sag Harbor. The reception will be held on June 26 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. That exhibit is running through July 5.

The Star calls out a bunch of other interesting receptions. Check out the full article; it's worth pencilling in a couple of these shows. Real artists doing real work! Yay!

This Week's Hamptons Artist(reporting from a galaxy far, far away)

Hamptons.com accidentally does a cool thing. They regularly feature an artist who actually lives and works in the Hamptons, as opposed to artists who make it in New York and then go to the Hamptons to play tennis and be congratulated.



This week, they got burned. Meet the artist Amy Zerner (pictured here without her tin foil helmet).


Zerner is like that college class you took as a freshman thinking it was a course on the history of dance, and instead you walked in and the woman prof was whispering and moving her arms around in circles and telling you to find your "other," or the "safety animal" inside you. And you had to gather up your things and whisper to the person next to you, 'I think I'm in the wrong class, shhhhh' as you skulked out the door. And the prof had her eyes glued on you the whole time and started to cry when you pulled the door open, so you stayed. And passed. Or at least you think you passed, she graded you with a smiley face. Yeah, that's what this woman is like.

Not that Eileen Casey (the writer who's supposed to navigate this mess) helps very much. Here's her own description of Zerner: "the materials she uses in her work are lush and detailed with the overall result being a piece of art made opulent with many layers of magic and meaning."

Yeah. Suck on that one for a while. 10 things that are important to know about Zerner:

1. She moved to East Hampton when she was 16.

2. She comes from three generations of artists.

3. She's never worked a day in her life.

4. She also writes books that only severely psychologically damaged people turn to when they're completely out of answers. And prescriptions meds.

5. You want proof? Titles: "The Chakra Meditation Kit," "Goddess, Guide Me," "The Mystic Messenger." (should I go on?) "The Enchanted Tarot."

6. She has a "Ouija finger" and she has apparently trademarked it. We're not kidding. She thinks she can point to stuff and magical things happen when she does. Like her parents decision to leave Pennsylvania and move to Long Island in 1967. She pointed her "Ouija finger" to Springs, Long Island and her parents rolled with it.

7. Her friends call from long distances to consult with her finger.

8. She designs "Spiritual Couture" jackets, coats, and caftans and sells them at Bergdorfs in Manhattan. For a sense of what these look like, picture someone trying to sneak out of a Native American arts and crafts fair with a velvet painting of a dream catcher strapped to their back.

9. She has an "enchanted garden." Neighborhood children and dogs have been reported missing.

10. She clearly belongs in the Hamptons.

We're sure Mrs. Zerner is a fine elfish little sprout whose intentions are only the purest, and we're just having a goof. But this is a classic case of a profile actually doing more harm than good. We read, thinking we're about to learn about a local artist and instead we read about a woman who once went to the bookstore, bought all of the Hobbit books, all the Harry Potter books, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Neverending Story, Dungeons and Dragons, and Alice in Wonderland, and then ate them.

Young Filmmaker Returns to His Roots

One of the reasons Hamptonyte Blog was launched is because its founders grew up near the Hamptons, studied in the Hamptons, worked in the Hamptons, became aspiring artists and writers in the Hamptons, and ultimately became fed up with the usual suspects and closed-door policies of many of the arts venues in the Hamptons. Mostly, Hamptonyte Blog has reported snarkily on the "cultural" happenings and "artistic" events going on, particularly in the summer. We're sorry...Countess LuAnn de Lesseps is not culture, and Alec Baldwin being cast to lead Equus is bleh. And fashion shows from fameballs gouging into their trust funds to live out some self-absorbed, creepy, Sex and The City fantasy is poo. We're calling it out every time.

This is not to say that Alec Baldwin doesn't have the right to participate in the Hamptons' artistic community, in fact, he's earned the right, as have many other celebrities we may goof on here. But we'll always be convinced that there is a well-spring of uncelebrated artistic talent with modern voices and important things to say about the world around us.

Meet Grant Curatola. He's representin' for the gangstas all across the world. Well, not really, he's a graduate of the Ross school, a fairly posh private school built in an idealic East Hampton setting surrounded by 140 acres of woodland. He's gone off to NYU and is studying film there, and there's an interesting article on him at Hamptons.com

Maybe Grant isn't the best example of a young artist struggling to build an audience and create a platform on the east end. After all, he did attend a posh private school and is now attending another posh private school. But Hamptonyte Blog has to admire that he seems to be trying to add a fresh voice to a very stale east end arts community. He could shoot his indie film anywhere, yet he returned to his old back yard. He's even considering submitting the film to the Hamptons Film Festival (which is a stroke-fest, but at least Grant's entry makes sense). We're not class warriors, after all. And we're keenly on the lookout for aspiring, unheralded artists who are trying to be seen, heard, read, discovered while working in the Hamptons. E-mail us if you know such a person who could use some ink. Or, in this case, some link.

See And Be Scene

A list of some of the cultural happenings in and around the east end for the month of May. Seriously, if you go to any one of these events, shoot me an e-mail at news5525@gmail.com and tell us about it.



May 8, 2010; 6 p.m. Canio's Cultural Cafe: (Subtext Alert: Canio's Books, Sag Harbor) Listen to the dronings of the Reverend Donna Schaper as she discusses her new book "Sacred Chow: Some Holy Ways To Eat."



May 15, 2010; 1:30 p.m. Southampton Historical Museums Home Tour at Rogers Mansion. A three-hour tour of preserved historic homes. Champagne reception and private art exhibition at the mansion to follow. $75 in advance, $90 on day of the tour.



May 22, 2010 6 p.m. Canio's Books, Sag Harbor. Hear author and novelist Louis Begley read from "Why The Dreyfus Affair Matters," a book he seems to be getting a lot of milage out of.



May 29, 2010 5-7 p.m. Rogers Mansion, Southampton. Art opening. Paintings and photographs of the east end.