Hilary Rhoda

Celebrating the lunar event with some help from Google

MONTAUK, N.Y.—In Manhattan, people talk about what color the lights are on the Empire State Building a lot more than they talk about the moon. But in the Hamptons, there is a lot of chat about lunar movement, in part because when folks come out here, they like to get back to nature.

In addition, in this neck of the woods, they can actually see the night sky.

Friday night marked a “blue moon,” which isn’t to be confused with the “supermoon,” a highlight of many Hamptons Instagram accounts last summer.

What, you may ask, is the difference between a blue moon and a supermoon? Well this was just one of the many questions we had as we drove to Montauk on Friday, listening to the audiobook of Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman,” making way our to the Surf Lodge for a dinner hosted by Google Play Music in honor of the blue moon.
“I actually have no idea what it is,” said Robert McKinley, a dinner guest who also happened to have designed the Surf Lodge but has a cottage in Amagansett. “There should be a Google card somewhere telling us.”

Or, one could just Google it, which we did.

We learned that a supermoon occurs when a full moon makes its closest approach to Earth. This happens a few times a year. A blue moon, on the other hand, occurs when there are two full moons in a single month. The next blue moon won’t take place until 2018, and though it isn’t really blue, its rarity, no doubt, gave birth to the expression “once in a blue moon.”

It was hard to see the moon from the back of the Surf Lodge, despite the bucolic scene overlooking a lake. And it was hard to see the moon from the dinner tables, because the seating area was covered with a makeshift roof of lighted, woven baskets. But a band was covering the song “Blue Moon,” so this added to the festive atmosphere.

Among the guests who joined together to make this dinner a once-in-a-blue-moon affair were Sean Avery and Hilary Rhoda; Kelly Bensimon and her daughter, Sea; Carlos Quirarte; Alexandra Richards; Justin Portman; André Sariava, and Danny DiMauro, a surfer and hairstylist who is a fixture on the Montauk scene even though he recently moved to Venice, Calif.

Thanks to the blue moon, “there will probably be some good surfing,” said Mr. DiMauro.

The evening was, in part, the result of a brainstorm led by Jayma Cardoso, an owner of the Surf Lodge.

“You get invited to so many things that it’s often like, ‘Oh great, another free dinner,’” said Ms. Cardoso. “We wanted to do something fun, to get creative. I thought the blue moon would be a blue moon. I thought it would be sparkly.”

“I’m Brazilian, so I’m very spiritual and superstitious,” Ms. Cardoso continued. “In general, the moon is important. When they’re moody, for instance, Brazilians say, ‘It was a full moon.’ ”

“We will make an excuse out of anything to have a party,” she said. “But with the blue moon, it’s like, ‘Let’s have a great time.’ You put great people together and things happen.”

One of those people was James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, whom Ms. Cardoso booked a day or so before to spin at the blue moon party. The last time Mr. Murphy was in Montauk, he said, there was a lightning storm, so the lunar situation wasn’t anything too exciting.

“No,” Mr. Murphy said, smiling, “I don’t really care.”