The Talk of the Town The Alternative by Gerald Jonas. Talk story about "books you can talk back to" or interactive texts for computers, specifically about Simon & Schuster's "Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative," which consists of a few pages of introductory written material and a floppy disk, sold together in a handsomely designed package for $39.95. When you insert...

Fiction Kiss by Saul Steinberg. Four drawings: the first shows a couple embracing on a street; the second shows a woman kissing a cat; the third a Spanish couple embracing behind the woman's fan; the last shows a passionate embrace in a room with a view of N.Y.C. from the windows...

The Art World (The Art Galleries) by Calvin Tomkins.

The Theatre by Pauline Kael.

Onward and Upward with the Arts STANDUPS by Thomas Whiteside. ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS about on-the-scene TV reports from the White House. These shots on TV news shows are known as standup spots or standups. The correspondents are shown standing in front of the White House. The principal ones are: Sam Donaldson of ABC; Lesley Stahl...

Comment by Natacha Stewart. Comment about going to a party given for Mrs. Sergei Prokofieff. Writer, a Russian emigree, begins by talking of current events that involve Russians--the mystery surrounding defector Yurchenko who returned to the U.S.S.R., Miroslav Medved, the Russian seaman who twice jumped into the Mississippi River, and the Russian soldier...

Fiction Broken Glass by Deborah Eisenberg. After the writer's mother dies of a long, lingering illness, she flies to a Latin American country. Thirty-four, she has devoted her life to her mother's decline and death. She feels the loss keenly & dreams of her mother & the past. She wants to be alone with her...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Green Pastures by Mary D. Kierstead. Talk story about Michael Corke, the headmaster of St. Barnabas College, an integrated coeducational school for grades 7 through 12, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Corke is in the U.S. to raise money and consciousness. Most of the school's 300 students are black, and most graduates go on to a university...

The Talk of the Town Serious by William McKibben. Talk story about Hal Fingerman, a canine handler for U.S. Dept. of Agriculture inspection program who is now working at Kennedy airport. Fingerman has had 3 dogs who look for foods that should not come into the country. For example, one diseased orange could decimate the Florida citrus crop. Fingerman...

The Current Cinema HUGGING by Pauline Kael.

Poetry Psalm to the Newt by Nancy Willard. Look at the newt. He is worth watching...

Poetry After School by W. S. Merwin. For a long time I wanted/ to get out of that school...

Poetry White Shrouds by David Bottoms. From our kitchen window I watched the hard sleet chipping...