When I heard recently that the Discovery Channel is coming to the West Tisbury Dumptique to shoot a series about the famous giant sword maker of Martha’s Vineyard, I was filled with remorse and fear on multiple levels. What if those worn-in, but not worn-out Spanish boots of Spanish leather I left there not long ago get discovered and are worth a fortune? What if I forget about the filming and drive by in the background with my pickup truck  embarrassingly full of recycling? It’s true, I don’t take that stuff down there until the garage is literally overflowing, and then it looks as if I run some kind of off-the-books catering business. And of course, why have I been dawdling so long about assigning a story for the magazine on the giant sword maker of West Tisbury when writers have been pitching him to me for months, sending me links to his viral video and asking if I know the guy? Scooped in our backyard by the Discovery Channel! Couldn’t it have been 60 Minutes?

My foremost regret may be that I long ago fought to limit my son’s adolescent interest in World of Warcraft, possibly denying him the opportunity to discover whether he, too, might have a secret gift for crafting absurdly giant blades. I’m no orc, at least not most nights, but the swords are weirdly beautiful and their creator appears on his YouTube videos to be well balanced and happy. Sure, he’s a bit crazy when running across his backyard and chopping a summer squash asunder with a cleaver the size of a Camp Ground cottage. But otherwise he seems a typical, jolly, hirsute up-Island artisan whose métier just happens to be medieval. It’s definitely not wampum and it isn’t beach plum jelly, but whether it is authentic Vineyard style, who am I to say?

You hear it all the time: this or that house isn’t just “un-Vineyardy” it’s downright WRONG. Or it’s “so Hamptons,” “so suburban,” “too L.A.,” “kind of Florida.” And when did Oak Bluffs start needing advice from a Dennis town planner about how to find its unique inner identity...okay, that’s another story. (But really, Dennis?) Like the complaints you hear about tourists who drive way too fast except when they are driving way too slow, the definition of true Island style depends largely on which Island universe you inhabit.

Which is not to say that there is no such thing as poor judgment or dubious taste. There surely is, in small houses and large. “Just too much” is a criticism that sticks, whether applied to affordable lawn ornaments or custom-built marble-encrusted square footage. Suffice it to say that absurdly big may be artistic and amusing in handmade swords, but it’s always just boring in real estate.

There’s a story about Andy Warhol, who as far as I know never visited the Island, but did go with his entourage in the 1970s to the famously over-the-top Castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. He was at the height of his fame, and they let him sit in the golden throne of the supposedly mad and definitely house-proud King Ludwig II.

“What do you think?” someone asked the artist.

Warhol shivered in the vast hall and looked around.

“I’d rather have heat,” he said, “than money.”