Comment Term Extension by James Lardner. Comment on the role of the economy in determining the outcome of Presidential elections. The post-election gloom of the nation's leading Republicans has yielded to a mood of orneriness akin to that of sports fans convinced that their team has lost the big game on a botched call. Presidential...

The Talk of the Town The Man from Hampton by Sidney Blumenthal. Talk story about a surprise party given for TV producer Harry Thomason by his friends Bill & Hillary Clinton, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pasadena. Clinton told jokes about Hampton, the tiny Arkansas county Thomason comes from. There was showing of "The Man from Hampton" --a parody of the...

The Talk of the Town Oh, Brother by Helen Thorpe. Talk story about Roger Clinton, Bill Clinton's brother. A college dropout who served a year in prison for distributing cocaine, Roger wants to have a singing career. Some journalists from "Esquire" heard him at the Democratic Convention & formed a company called Snarling Jackass Productions, in an effort to get...

The Talk of the Town Deli News by Alexander Chancellor. Talk story about an anecdote Mortimer Zuckerman tells concerning the late Robert Maxwell. During negotiations to buy the "Daily News," Zuckerman had Fred Drasner call the Carnegie Deli for sandwiches. The counterman said only C.O.D. would be acceptable from the "Daily News," because Maxwell, the former owner of the paper...

The Talk of the Town Rockin' Rollins by Helen Thorpe. Talk story about next years mayoral contest. Rudolph Giuliani (a former U.S. Attorney and quadrennial Republican) will be in the runnings again. Talk story tells how in 1989 in his duel with David Dinkins, Giuliani's pistols were in the care of Roger Ailes(the volcanic political adman) who just supervised...

The Talk of the Town All in the Mind by Alexander Chancellor. Talk story about Ross Perot and two Law School Professors who contributed a joint article to the Los Angeles Times in the middle of October for people not to vote for Ross Perot but, to vote for either Clinton or Bush. "Remember", it went, "a voter discharges his or her...

Our Far-Flung Correspondents HUNTING WITH THE SHEIKHS by Mary Anne Weaver. OUR FAR-FLUNG CORRESPONDENTS about Arab sheihks hunting the houbara bustard, an endangered species of fast-flying desert bird which breeds in Pakistan. It is hunted for its alleged aphrodisiacal powers. Describes the elaborate Arab royal hunts. They come armed with computers, infrared spotlights, radar, hundreds of servants and falcons...

A Reporter at Large NIXON'S LAST COVER-UP: THE TAPES HE WANTS THE ARCHIVES TO SUPPRESS by Seymour M. Hersh. A REPORTER AT LARGE is about President Richard Nixon, the White House Tapes that were made during his presidency, and the over ten year struggle Nixon has had with the National Archives to keep them out of the public's ear. In June of 1972 John Mitchel organized a Republican dirty...

Storyboard Christmas Off Fifth by Richard Cline. In STORYBOARD, Cline has a five cartoon color spread showing different scenes from office parties. The first picture shows a woman at a buffer table. Others show gifts being given and wishing a different floor a Merry Christmas...

Artist at Large Buy the Right Thing by Art Spiegelman. ARTIST AT LARGE cartoon spread showing people wearing Malcolm X caps. Refers to current Spike Lee movie "Malcolm X...

Artist's Notebook The Consumer's Twelve Days of Christmas by Stephanie Skalisky. ARTIST'S NOTEBOOK color cartoon spread: "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me/a two-hundred-inch high-definition color TV," etc...

Fiction Tiny in the Wilderness by Tom Drury. Tiny (Charles) Darling has been thrown out by his wife, Louise, who has moved in with Sheriff Dan Norman. Tiny, a thief & part-time plumber who had been arrested for disrupting a high-school dance, drives to Colorado in pursuit of his former girlfriend, June--Louise's older sister. June...

The Current Cinema NOT QUITE CAMELOT by Terrence Rafferty.

Musical Events by Paul Griffiths.

Books by Calvin Tomkins.

Books by Calvin Tomkins.

Shouts & Murmurs BRIGS 7, PHOONS 0, IN QUICKIE by James Stevenson. Illustrated SHOUTS AND MURMURS about an Imaginary football game between the N.Y. Typhoons (Phoons) & the Philadelphia Brigands, at Typhoon Stadium. The Phoons lost, 0-13, In a game that lasted only 4 plays. Phoons coach Newt Oatner explains the game in a locker-room press conference. Illustration of a play...

Poetry The Country Road by James Laughlin. In the painting that hangs in our dining room...

Poetry Whistling In The Dark by Eamon Grennan. Killiney Bay. Where she loved to come on a Sunday outing...

Poetry Maybe All This by Wislawa Szymborska. Maybe all this...