The Current Cinema POP MYSTICS by Pauline Kael.

Comment by Berton Roueche. A friend who lives in the country writes: "I woke up in the deep-night dark the other night, and as I was lying there, waiting to slide back into sleep, I heard the voice of a bird." Writer raised his head & listened. It was a call he didn't...

The Talk of the Town New Game by Mark Singer. Talk story about a new board game which is based on the work of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a sex therapist. Writer was in a restaurant in midtown, where four people sat around a table, playing the game as a demonstration for the media people invited. Tells what they said as...

Books by Naomi Bliven.

The Talk of the Town With Jake by Stanley Mieses. Talk story about Jake Steinfeld of Body by Jake--L.A.'s celebrity-roster home-exercise service. Writer talked with him in the Parker Meridien Hotel. Jake was in N.Y. to set the tone for a Body by Jake franchise here come Sept. Jake explained that he forsees Body by Jake...

Fiction Mirror by Mary A. Robison. The writer was visiting her friend Lolly in Washington D.C. They were at a beauty parlor, having their hair permed. They were longtime friends, having gone from kindergarten through high school to gether. Lolly said that her head tickled, and went to find the hairdresser to make sure that their...

Fiction The Dragon by Muriel Spark. Writer, an English-woman, makes handmade clothes. She has never used a sewing machine&has a reputation as a superb seamstress. She had come to Como in the North of Italy & established a small, exclusive clientele. She became so well known that she decided to hire a dragon...

The Talk of the Town Three Stars by Lillian Ross. Talk story about visit to the Met. Opera House dressing rooms currently occupied by 3 stars of the Grand Kabuki, 91 of which (about one third of the company)are now on tour in the U.S.A. The 3 actors--Bando Tamasaburo V, Kataoka Takao, & Onoe Tatsunosuke--greeted the writer...

That Was the War ENEMY ALIEN by M. F. Perutz. THAT WAS THE WAR about WWII experiencesof the writer, an Austrian-born scientist who emigrated to England in 1936. as a graduate student at Cambridge. In May, 1940 he was arrested as an enemy alien. Having first been rejected as a Jew (he was actually Roman Catholic) by his native...

Onward and Upward with the Arts THOUGHTS OF AN EATER WITH SMOKE IN HIS EYES by Calvin Trillin. ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS about the Memphis in May International Barbecue Cooking Contest, known as the country's preeminent barbecuing competition...

A Reporter at Large TRAVELS WITH JACCOUX IN THE CEVENNES by Jeremy Bernstein. REPORTER AT LARGE about travelling in the Cevennes mountains in southeastern France. The trip was partly in the footsteps of Robert Louis Stevenson as recorded in his travel classic "Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes". In 1978, on the hundredth anniversary of his trek, the whole of his journal...

The Current Cinema by Pauline Kael. Writer discusses the only good that has ever come from the movie "Heaven's Gate", which is the new book "Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of 'Heaven's Gate'" (Morrow; $19.95) by Steven Bach...

Poetry John's Birches by Robert Penn Warren. You stop at the end of the lane, where the birches grow...

Poetry Looking for Angels in New York by Jacqueline Osherow. All this travelling around and I've learned...