The Party Reporter: Lost Soles on the LIRR
On Friday morning, I woke up around 6, tossed on my Suzie Kondi poplin stripes, and headed eastbound on the Napeague stretch. My eyes looked a little puffy, though that is what black sunglasses and a 20-ounce hot coffee are for.
At least I wasn’t the guy everyone was angry at in Goldberg’s that morning: He spilled his first large iced coffee all over the floor, managing to use the ladies’ white dresses next to him as mops, then proceeded to hog the self-service coffee station for another seven minutes. The customers behind me looked just as confused as I was when they saw the coffee-spilling culprit was pouring a 16-ounce into a 24-ounce cup, and then adding ice, and then adding creamer, and then more ice. . . . We all nearly lost it. I reached across him, grabbed a cup for myself and a cup for the guy behind me . We both started to pour. I got regular, and the guy behind me got hazelnut, no milk. No wedding ring either. He said thank you with a wink, and I paid for the both of us. I think he went to order a sandwich, but I left because by then I was running late to the Melets’ annual Epic Yard Sale.
Bob and Pam Melet have been hosting their Epic Yard Sale in Montauk since 1996, and now their daughter and my good friend Sunny Melet hosts alongside them. My windows were down, and I was cruising down Ditch Plains Road, watching middle-aged men in Speedos walk their surfboards back home and ladies in their teal bikinis and raffia hats walk down towards the water. I was blasting Turkish psychedelic rock from the late 1970s, feeling like I’d just time travelled into a different world. It was 7 a.m., and I was for once an early bird. I certainly got a few worms!
Bob and Pam cut me quite the deal at the yard sale. I scored a Moroccan white cotton kaftan, a vintage gingham apron dress, a red fleece pajama dress, another cotton kaftan (but made in Mexico), two vintage white tuxedo shirts, and an embroidered green linen dress for my friend Vivien Ramsay. I had my eye on a few bags that I knew Sunny had brought back from a trip to Bali last year — but I blinked, turned around to say hi to Shadow, the family mascot, and in that brief lapse of attention lost them. I watched a woman build an entire emotional portfolio of objects she was absolutely, obviously, going to take home. She moved with the urgency of someone curating a new identity in real time . . . stacking, claiming, rearranging her future in a neat little pile on the ground . . . and then I watched as her fantasy dissolved at the cash register. Now she started sorting through what she was going to take versus what she was going to leave behind, and my idyllic Montauk began to fade: Between the yard-sale hoarder and the coffee-station hog, I felt myself sinking into Hamptons Fourth of July weekend purgatory. I sent my payment to Bob and to Sunny, gave my kisses to Miss Pam, and went back across the Stretch at 60 mph.
Friday evening came fast. Eric Firestone Gallery and Harper’s had openings in East Hampton Village. Both were splendid, and well attended. Men wore poplin shirts, and the women wore poplin shirts, too. The Firestone show, “Earth Wind, & Fire,” was ablaze. The crowd there is always a cool mix of young collectors and local artists looking to mingle, though this time there were a few who didn’t seem to get the fashion memo — their looks screamed “Palm Beach”. . . I mean, I didn’t introduce myself to this one particular couple, but their Hermès bracelets and studded Valentino flip-flops made the identification unnecessary. . . .
Letha Wilson’s work was on view — she was my mentor during my M.F.A. at SUNY Purchase — as were Jon Tierney’s ceramics, which were displayed at the front of the space. Eric Firestone was wearing bright cobalt-blue, perfect for the occasion, and sparkling water and rosé were served by the dazzling catering staff. The gallery always takes care of its attendees and its collectors. One young woman carried a Louis Vuitton Speedy 30 Epi Toledo Blue, and I couldn’t help but muse that I do agree with Fana Haile, the brand stylist and fashion writer, that a weird blue bag brings an outfit together. (Thank you, Leslie Mark, for introducing me to Fana Haile.)
After a quick walk up Newtown Lane, I landed at Harper’s, where the gallery was opening “36 Paintings,” with pieces by emerging and established artists alike. The crowd was mostly huddled towards the back of the gallery, too intimidated by the upstairs portion of the space, but after breaking the unspoken social barrier, a few of us went up. There, I saw one of my favorite paintings I’ve seen all year, by Nicasio Fernandez, done in an emotional register that reminded me of Nicole Eisenman’s work. I found peace amongst the chaos in Liz Markus’s painting in the back of the gallery, one from her “Socialites” series, which reminded me of Alex Katz’s poolside portraits, with their simple lines and use of color. Directly across from Markus’s painting was a shelf of Jeff Koons books for sale.
After Harper’s I drove to Wainscott to Tripoli Gallery for the opening night of Angelbert Metoyer’s solo show, “The Synchronicity Talisman: An Ancient Future Amulet Feast,” which is on view through August 3. When I arrived, a crowd was standing around outside, which is typical — sometimes it feels like hardly anyone comes to openings to actually look at the artwork. Tripoli Patterson was dressed in all purple: a purple gingham skirt and purple shirt. The show was strong, though I didn’t get much time there. I ran into Stathios Georgopoulos, who runs a very fancy classic car business in Amagansett, and then had to split: My friends wanted to go to McDonald’s. With one thing or another, we didn’t get there until around midnight. Drunk teenagers tried to get into our car while we were sitting in the drive-through. They peed in the bushes.
On Sunday, after the storm passed through, I had to go back to the city to grab a few things from my wardrobe. The Hampton Jitney had been sold out since late June, so I was supposed to take a train that left East Hampton around 9:30 a.m., but that one got cancelled because of branches being down on the Long Island Rail Road tracks between Bridgehampton and Hampton Bays. The next train, too. And the following one. So, with a few hundred other sweating and cursing passengers, I ended up on the 6 p.m. train from Amagansett — that was originally supposed to leave around 4:45 — and made friends with Oona Zlamany and Madeline Romano, the two chic girls sitting next to me. Everyone was up in arms about the hassle of not getting back to the city by the appointed time to pick up their dogs from the dogsitter. I, meanwhile, was mainly upset about the bottoms of my vintage Prada loafers. I had stopped to buy chicken salad at Amber Waves (which cost more than my train ticket, by the way) and my soles fell off when I was running to the station.