The Psychic Fair

Like Montauk, Gurney's Inn is a place where unnatural extraordinariness is an everyday thing. It's the perfect venue for a psychic fair. After all, Montauk was recently ranked on a top psychic opinion poll as the most supernatural spot on Earth. A recent headline on the vast psychic web cried: "Satellite Data Confirms Big Psychic Bubble Right Over Montauk!"

At a small table just inside the front door of the big psychic fair meeting room sat Tommy Thanos, a “psychic and intuitive” who oozes oddness from the top of his bald head to his big, soft, pale hands. He deals Tarot cards. Once you have spoken for a while to Tommy Thanos, you will be clued in on the immense irrational world you are missing while it exists right beside your own cherished rational one. Tommy is proud, even on a slow business day, just to be alive in Montauk, the place of so many psychic dreams.

Tommy Thanos (516.439.1930) is not a Montauk resident, but he speaks of Montauk with reverence.

“I am a believer, aren’t you?” he says, with his eyes riveted on yours. “You must know about the Montauk Project. Both the invisibility and the anti-gravity sides. It’s the secret anti-gravity experiments going on six stories down under Montauk that probably makes the psychic bubble. But there isn’t any doubt about it now. They can deny it, but nobody believes them any more. Everybody feels it when they get to Montauk. It’s in the air, it’s everywhere. I live up-island, but I’m always happy when I can come to Montauk and feel what’s happening here.”

Suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, Tommy said, “You know a Jerry. Who is Jerry? No. Not Jerry. Gerard. You know a Gerard.You got to get in touch with Gerard or Gerard wants to get in touch with you. You know I know what I’m talking about.”

He was flabbergastingly correct.

Chris Murphy (516-909-9539) calls himself a Tarot card reader. He is a psychic with a kind Turkish uncle’s observational powers and understandings.

Isabella Randazzo (irandazzo@aol.com) is a Scotswoman who reads cards but is mostly a gentle and sensible listener who can detect almost any fear in a heartbeat and suggests countermeasures to control it.

The Chinese have long believed that pottery and boxes contain the good and malevolent spirits that animate our lives. Phyllis Lomitola selected these spiritually charged vases, pots and statuettes from her voyages to China. Ashley keeps track of the collection.

Zoe Jade & Co. headed by Melissa Mahoney (917-902-2626) of Montauk has successfully psyched out what people want in these financial times: The highest quality of cheap available. Melissa has selected a jewelry line that is chic for being the best you can buy almost anywhere at between $10 and $20. She does an amazing job of finding cool designs at a difficult price point.

Stringman is what they call David Kucak. He can make art from twine. He strings picture frames, chair legs, canes, the entire ceiling of living rooms. Stringman (631-276-5779) is so far out that he makes String Theory look like kindergarten. Some Montauk merchant ought to give this man 15,000 feet of twine and see what he can do inside a store or in a window. Montauk is starting to nurture some artists who rate consideration and Stringman is one of them.

The Lady with angel hair is Carolyn Bistrian (631-324-4592), whose Earthfire Studios manufacturers raku and stoneware pottery that is glazed with Montauk black sand (also carmine and rusty red) that she collects at certain unnamed beaches on the north bay shore. She also runs the Bend in the Road Guest House in Easthampton.

No Hat collects psychic waves better than a stunningly subtle, hand-crocheted wool bowler in Equadorian mountain fashion created by Charango Crafts (347-776-9207).

The Montoids (www.montoid.blogspot.com) are prepared to celebrate Christmas. What are Montoids doing at a psychic fair? Montoids are creatures of the Montauk Psychic Bubble. Montoids are also supremely "Green" because they breath in methane and exhale pure oxygen.

Icy Gale winds and teeming rains cause all prescient psychics to repair to one of the coziest restaurants on the East End, Manucci's, where you can sit near the stove or on the heated summer porch and listen to the rain drum on the beamed roof and watch the storm through raindrop covered windows.

Serenity. The serene spirits of Phyllis's Chinese collection bring contentment and peace.