“Everyone is second fiddle to Paul McCartney, aren’t they?” I asked him if he minded playing second fiddle to his guest. For the encore, “Let It Be,” Joel ceded his piano to McCartney. In July, 2008, when Joel closed Shea Stadium, as the final rock act before the place came under the wrecking ball, he invited McCartney to join him and perform “I Saw Her Standing There.” Shea Stadium is, after all, where Beatlemania, in all its fainting, screaming madness, reached its apogee, in the sixties. You encounter someone like Paul and you wonder how close you can be to someone like that.” Still, Joel told me, “he’s a Beatle, so there’s an intimidation factor. Billy Joel, who has sold out Madison Square Garden more than a hundred times, has spent Hamptons afternoons over the years with McCartney. This effect extends to friends and peers. There are myriad ways in which people betray their pleasure in encountering him-describing their favorite songs, asking for selfies and autographs, or losing their composure entirely. McCartney greets his guests with the same twinkly smile and thumbs-up charm that once led him to be called “the cute Beatle.” Even in a crowd of the accomplished and abundantly self-satisfied, he is invariably the focus of attention. Would he like one? He narrows his gaze, trying to decide then, with executive dispatch, he declines. Bloomberg nods gravely at whatever Shevell is saying, but he has his eyes fixed on a plate of exquisite little pizzas.

A slender, regal woman in her early sixties, Shevell is talking in a confiding manner with Michael Bloomberg, who was the mayor of New York City when she served on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Their hosts are Nancy Shevell, the scion of a New Jersey trucking family, and her husband, Paul McCartney, a bass player and singer-songwriter from Liverpool. Through the gate, they mount a flight of stairs to the front door and walk across a vaulted living room to a fragrant back yard, where a crowd is circulating under a tent in the familiar high-life way, regarding the territory, pausing now and then to accept refreshments from a tray. They all wear expectant, delighted-to-be-invited expressions.

And out they come, face after famous face, burnished, expensively moisturized: Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Buffett, Anjelica Huston, Julianne Moore, Stevie Van Zandt, Alec Baldwin, Jon Bon Jovi. At the last driveway on a road ending at the beach, a cortège of cars-S.U.V.s, jeeps, candy-colored roadsters-pull up to the gate, sand crunching pleasantly under the tires. The surf is rough and pounds its regular measure on the shore.

Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > The ultimate chess experience every day, Pla圜 welcomes 20,000 chess players from all around the world – from beginner to grandmaster.This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.Įarly evening in late summer, the golden hour in the village of East Hampton.

Memorize it easily move by move by playing against the variation trainer.

Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > Learn openings the right way! Build and maintain your repertoire.

Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > Real Fun against a Chess Program! Play, analyze and train online against Fritz.

Top authors like Daniel King, Lawrence Trent and Rustam Kasimdzhanov

Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > Thousands of hours of high class video training.

Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > Sac, sac, mate! Solve tactical positions of your playing strength.

Store your games, training material and opening repertoire in the cloud.

Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > My Games – Access your games from everywhere.

Still no ChessBase Account? learn more > 8 million games online! Updated weekly, our definitive database has all the latest games.

Seinfeld match game download