Fiction A Night Out at the Club Harmonica by Douglas Dunn. Stream-of-conciousness story about a man out in a night club with friends: And here I am, being surly at our table, while some somnolent saxophonist improvises on the bandstand. What is this evening all about? The summer's conversations feel as if they were spoken a decade ago. I...

Sketchbook by Elizabeth Drew. A REPORTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C., about the election year atmosphere in the city. As Congress and the President attempt to hammer out a budget, Reagan has been firm about continuing tax cuts and increasing defense spending, but budget deficit estimates have skyrocketed. Democratic leaders met with the President, but talks...

The Current Cinema FIGHTERS by Pauline Kael.

The Theatre Off Broadway by Edith Oliver.

Our Far-Flung Correspondents ENERGY! ENERGY! by E. J. Kahn. OUR FAR-FLUNG CORRESPONDENTS about the World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, which is officially known as the Knoxville International Energy Exposition. The fair, which opened May 1st, is scheduled to run six months, and its sponsors hope it will have attracted eleven million visitors by then. Its theme is "Energy...

Books The Good Book by Naomi Bliven.

A Reporter at Large HOMECOMING IV-A TYRANNY OF NUMBERS by John Hersey. REPORTER AT LARGE about a recent visit to Tientsin, China, where writer spent the first eleven years of his life. He remembers all the signs of Chinese wretchedness in the city when he had been there before. Now such degradation was nowhere to be seen. He had an interview with...

The Talk of the Town An Afternoon in the Ukraine by Alastair Reid. Talk story about a Ukrainian store, the Ukrainian community, and the family who owns the store. It is the Surma Book and Music Company on E. 7th St., which is a Ukrainian neighborhood. The New Yorker first wrote about the store and its proprietor, Myron Surmach, in March, 1948. He...

The Talk of the Town Signing by Wallace White. Talk story about a noontime ceremony the other day in the 86th-floor Observatory of the Empire State Building, for the signing of the first contract to book the entire New York Convention Center. The Center has been under construction for the past two years, and it is expected to...

The Talk of the Town Incredible by Mark Singer. Talk story about the World-Wide Inventors Expo '82, held on mezzanine of the New York Statler Hotel. Some of the stuff at the exposition was so incredible it was incredible. Lists several of the inventions: the electric lunch pail, the aerosol instant worm, the novel electric plug, etc. Thousands...

Comment by Daniel Menaker. Comment about a conversation that the writer had while standing in a long line at the bank last Friday afternoon. He described the woman with whom he spoke as an old-fashioned bohemian intellectual. At first she said that she preferred lining up in front of individual tellers in the...

Letter from London by Mollie Panter-Downes. The newspapers have little to give their readers about the Falklands. Military censorship has been clamped down by the Ministry of Defense on the frustrated pressmen. There has been little photographic recording of the British expedition. News of any fresh action is given to London correspondents and the public by...

Musical Events Athenian Pursuit by Andrew Porter.

Fiction Territory by David Leavitt. Neil Campbell is a twenty-three-year-old homosexual. He is visiting his mother in her co-op in San Francisco for the first time in two years. (His parents are married but his father is often away on business and he is away for this visit.) He is bringing...

U. S. Journal JUST TRY IT by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: CRESCENT CITY, FLA. about the Fourth Annual St. Johns River Catfish Festival, in Crescent City, Fla. writer tells about his daughter Sarah's picky eating, and how he tried to persuade her to eat catfish. Many adults won't eat catfish because they think they're dirty, and they are afraid...

Poetry The Sound by Robert Creeley. Early mornings, in the light still...