LONGHOUSE RESERVE | Reopening

Who is that masked visitor behind the King? (Alice Tepper Marlin at the
Yoko Ono chess board, LongHouse Reserve. Photo by JT Marlin. 

June 20, 2020—LongHouse Reserve is the top attraction in East Hampton. It has been closed during the coronavirus scourge. 

Now it is reopening, in stages. It's now open Wednesdays and Saturdays, with limited visiting hours, reservations required and  timed visits of 75 minutes. Only half the parking spaces are being used, to allow social distancing. Masks are required.

Four of us went today to see recent changes. I described our visit there in 2014 as part of a mini-reunion in the lead-up to the 50th Reunion of the Wellesley Class of 1966. We go back pretty much every year and it's always a new experience because new sculptures are added, old ones are moved around and the landscaping is always changing.

Cross in the Pond. This is reminiscent of the 9/11 memorial pool in New York
City. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Loehr, who was with us on the visit.

The interlude when the coronavirus kept everyone away was used to good effect by bringing the landscaping to an even higher level of perfection than we have seen in earlier years.

Fly Vision, 360. Photo courtesy of
Caroline Tepper-Marlin. 

Some of the sculptures seemed to be new, but were possibly there in previous years but I overlooked them. At left is one with the photographer looking back from a pole full of convex mirrors. It gave me the feeling of looking at the eye of a fly.

My favorite sculpture was and is Yoko Ono's colorless chess set.  It's a No-Logo experience, i.e., blank battle standards, borderless territory. With no way of being sure who The Enemy is or where the borders are, the game loses its point. Which is... The point. Imagine. The Fog of Peace.

Which reminds me that Paul McCartney celebrated his 78th birthday on Thursday. Happy Birthday, Sir Paul.