The Talk of the Town Tiny Pieces of Fabric by George W. S. Trow. Talk story about visiting a party at Knoll International showroom, on Wooster Street, in SoHo, we find this description of the contract-furniture business in the nineteen-nineties: "A tough business in an unforgiving world." Writer s attended the KnollTextiles party, which was to celebrate Jhane Barnes' association with Knoll...

The Theatre THE MEDIOCRE by Mimi Kramer.

Fiction Monuments by Lamar Herrin. In dialogue form, a man whose father has just died tells his wife about three years of his childhood, spent in an Illinois subdivision, in the early 1950s. He ruminates about how wise and understanding his mother was, restraining herself from being overprotective. His father, a travelling salesman who sold...

The Talk of the Town Babes on Broadway by Nancy Franklin. Talk story about songwriter Burton Lane, 78, who is appearing with Michael Feinstein at the Golden Theatre in a program of his songs. Their appearance coincides with the release of the album, "Michael Feinstein Sings the Burton Lane Songbook, Vol. I." At his apartment, across the street from the Dakota...

Books by Naomi Bliven.

Letter from Lima by Alma Guillermoprieto. August 8th, 12 days after being sworn in as President of Peru, Alberto Fujimori instituted a paquetazo--"violent package"--of economic measures which has left the country reeling... Fujimori's unsuccessful opponent happens to have been Mario Vargas Llosa, the novelist. Describes how Vargas Llosa lost to Fujimori... Fujimori, a reserved...

Annals of Science THIS OBSCURE MALADY by Terence Monmaney. ANNALS OF SCIENCE about an epidemic of brain disease on the Pacific island of Guam. It was first noted in 1945 as ALS and then another disease turned up which researchers named "parkinsonism-dementia complex". Tells about the efforts of researchers to track down the cause. One possibility is nerve...

Fiction Zeus the Lutheran by Garrison Keillor. The goddess Hera's lawyer, Alan, meets Zeus at a cafe in Rhodes, to persuade him to stop his insatiable philandering. Zeus turns him into a pitcher of vinaigrette dressing and has him fed to the pigs. Hera isn't surprised; Alan was her six-hundredth lawyer in 14 centuries. The next...

Comment by Adam Gopnik. A comment about viewing the Kennedy-Nixon debate that was replayed on the Arts & Entertainment cable network. Watching the debate brought home not so much the wit and poise of JFK or the nascent malevolence of Richard Nixon as something far more surprising and disturbing--the almost unbelievable debasement...

The Talk of the Town Moon Trip by Susan Orlean. Talk story about the Big Lee Moon Trip, an amusement park ride which is taken to street fairs by its owner, a man known as Big Lee, and run by his assistants. Tells about the ride which is meant for children. At the Atlantic Antic, a Brooklyn street fair, Big...

Poetry Gathering Apricots by Czeslaw Milosz. In the sun, while there, below, over the bay...

Poetry The Wisdom Gravy by Jean Valentine. Goose down on the warm curve of a pail...

Poetry Coming to Terms by Henri Coulette. Being French, being nineteenth-century, we know about...