Hamptons '97 Video Guide

Know someone who thinks that "divinity" is a synonym for "celebrity," walks with their nose pointed in the general direction of Alpha Centauri, and subsists largely on a diet of vapid commercials? Well, send that airhead to the Hamptons, pronto, where--if I'm reading the Hamptons '97 Video Guide correctly--he or she is sure to find a bevy kindred nitwits. Perched along the butt-end of New York (Long Island), the Hamptons are a playground for the rich and get-a-lifeless, a place where the fawning and the fawned-upon flock to replicate the Hollywood experience in a more rustic setting. In this half-hour guide to "New York's most glamorous sandbox", filled with back-to-back commercials, a perky model who--half the time--sounds as if she has laryngitis, introduces segments in which viewers are buzz-bombed with celebrity name-dropping, dragged into restaurants and shops (with accompanying blaring phone and address info), and generally treated like orphans-with-their-noses-pressed-to-the-windows. There are, to be honest, a few surreal pleasures: the Hamptons fave painter of produce ("you may remember my tomatoes?" she prompts the interviewer) who was discovered by that renowned art critic Billy Joel, the Southhampton Bay's Resort commercial which looks like an ad for a Las Vegas brothel, and the short history lesson (delivered at breakneck speed) in which early residents are described as "post-Indian settlers." But these pleasures pale beside the monotonous shots of smiling celebs attending film premieres who-really-don't-but-really-do want to be noticed, the dorky infomercials, and the self-congratulatory commentary by Hamptons regulars. Having not personally been invited to the Hamptons myself (Steven Spielberg has, as far as I know, consistently omitted my name from his party guest list), I cannot say with any certainty that this guide is an accurate reflection of life in the Hamptons. Let's hope not. Not recommended. (R. Pitman)