Features
“We have to surround ourselves with others who may carry hope for us on days when it is too much to ask of ourselves…”
— Founder and host of On Being, Krista Tippett (click on photo to watch and/or listen to the full conversation)
Hope takes courage, vulnerability, imagination... I had to prepare for this crackling, wonderful hour with this bright star of humanity I have admired and listened to and read for decades. I was nervous as hell, but it was fun, illuminating, valuable, beautiful. To listen or watch the full talk find the link to the talk in my bio.
There’s no beating the ocean, but I discovered I could meet its challenge—I could find its trapdoors. I reveled in that conceit. I remember feeling alone and vulnerable, and how good that was, to be on my own and in control in that wild and limitless place. On the distant beach, people without fathers like mine watched and worried, even as I thrilled in the arrogance of my fun. Dad must have had one eye on me, but he left me to sort it out by myself. I’d joined his invincible ranks. Afterward, there was no acknowledgement. Just the pleasure of it.
— The Surfer’s Journal, August 2025
We knew Steve as immensely industrious and creative. He’d made an ingenious comic book about marine life in a tidepool, as an educational aid, when he taught at the Ocean Institute, at Dana Point. He’d won festival awards for two films that he’d made as a grad student at CalArts. His drawings were loose, evocative, fun. He had a quick, easy, uncynical sense of humor. But it’s fair to say that the group around that campfire was generally confident that while Steve, then thirty-two, would likely have a successful career as a cartoonist and filmmaker, his sponge would remain in the pages of that sketchbook.
The New Yorker — December 2018
To succeed as a nation, President Lincoln urged citizens “by birth or by choice” to unite. He called for religious pluralism. He argued for public education as a democratic keystone. Lincoln, of course, famously saved the nation from fracturing by fighting in the belief that there is more that unites Americans than divides us. That remains an open question. To succeed as a nation, George Washington urged citizens “by birth or by choice” to unite. He called for religious pluralism. He argued for public education as a democratic keystone. Much of this sounds like John Avlon (pictured) on the stump… But can humility, prudence, honesty and calls for unity prevail against vengeful greed, hypocrisy and dishonesty?
The Express News Group — May 2025
Tony Duke was a decorated and proud veteran who saw brutal combat, a businessman, a father, a leader of our extended family. But his overriding mission in life would be giving young people with seemingly everything against them the kind of shot at life that every person deserves.
The Southampton Press, The East Hampton Press, and The Sag Harbor Express — May 2025
And there it was, a great thunderclap of irony: At last, after a half millennia of almost totally, deliberately exterminating Indigenous people on this continent, we are now asking for guidance from their very descendants.
The Express News Group — June 2025
Some years ago I began to write down stories perhaps for an eventual book about growing up with two remarkable parents. About them, about me, about us. This is one of those stories.
The Stowe Guide — Winter 2023-24
On a freezing December day in 1988, Frank Ganley pulled a Bonac school buddy — unconscious and sinking fast — from the icy underwater of Gardiner’s Bay after he fell overboard from a lobster boat called the Captain Kidd. Little did Ganley know that the near-death experience would define the course of his life.
EAST magazine July 2024
Over thirty years of documenting the woods, the marshes, the people, and the surf of Long Island's East End, photographer Andrew Blauschild has witnessed the jarring upheaval of his adopted home. "The dream is older now... But it's still all here."
The Surfer’s Journal, October 2023
Amid turmoil and grief, photographer Priscilla Rattazzi turned to three lindens trees for their legendary beauty and comfort to bid farewell to a life on Georgica Pond.
EAST magazine, July 2023
The late painter Manoucher Yektai of Sagaponack was widely recognized as having all the towering talent — and unabashed hubris — requisite in a great artist. So why has he not been recognized among the legends of his generation?
EAST Magazine — The East Hampton Star and Karma Books
The story of Nose Dive is the story of American skiing itself. How the sport took hold here in the last century and sparked exploration, development, and business. Nose Dive launched careers, growth, and innovation in the sport. Its evolution mirrors the evolution of skiing, from an inexpensive wilderness experience for enthusiasts on rudimentary equipment to a glamour sport drawing the masses, open to anyone with enough money and skill to learn and excel—on all sorts of gear.
The Stowe Guide & Magazine
Several years ago I began to hear stories that sounded hard to believe — that I could find excellent skiing on the island of Crete. The spring snow conditions were said to be dependable, the scenery stunning, and you could make long descents within sight of the sea, while spending your nights at picturesque Mediterranean seaside towns.
The New York Times
Anyone who’s been seized by a sport or a pastime, especially one so beholden to the powers of nature, has pivotal, formative moments etched into their memories. Here, in his short story “The Waterman,” Biddle Duke shares some life lessons he learned in the seas of Southampton.
The Purist Online
In reflecting on my years as a ski-race parent I went looking for answers, and the kind of perspective I wished I’d sought when I was starting out.
The Stowe Reporter
Just as winter was about to start, the state instituted a stricter quarantine and test requirement for visitors, and the snow-sports economy is bracing for the impact.
The New York Times.
The Southold artist Michael Combs comes from a long line of Long Island hunters and baymen who made a hard living off the land. In his work, both gorgeous and grotesque, he draws a bead on the masculine culture of killing — of forever taking more from the bleeding Earth.
EAST Magazine - The East Hampton Star
One night at our campsite, Steve produced a sketchbook of ideas for a cartoon he wanted to create. We passed it around, a collection of dozens of drawings of a square kitchen sponge in shorts and a funny hat, and a variety of other sea-creature caricatures. He explained that his cartoon would take place entirely in a single tidepool, a tiny undersea universe. The sponge would be the lead character.
The Surfer’s Journal