Books The Mechanics of Fear by Greil Marcus.

Fiction Goodbye Marcus Goodbye Rose by Jean Rhys. Phoebe, 12 years old, takes walks with old Captain Cardew on the island of Dominica in Jamaica. Phoebe lives there, the captain and his wife have been spending winters there since 1898. One time, when Phoebe was sitting with the captain in the Botanical Gardens, he commented that she was...

Letter from London by Mollie Panter-Downes. This year's appallingly serious drought, the result of two dry summers in succession and two winters with no snow to speak of, is continuing without a break. The Government's hastily put-together drought bill has just passed into law. The Government is planning for the possibility that it will be...

The Talk of the Town Scoops by Mark Singer. Talk story about the Republican National Convention in Kansas City. Fred Brown, a subway conductor and an alternate delegate from the Bronx, had trouble with the management of Phillips House because his room was not habitable. At first, the manager wouldn't give Mr. Brown another room and wouldn't refund his...

The Talk of the Town Two Sisters by Suzannah Lessard. A young woman was discussing writers' blocks with her little sister, aged 13. The younger one is a horseback-rider, & she compared writers' block to the lack of confidence a rider might have before going over a jump. She went on to say she had never had the experience...

Dancing Ailey and Friends by Arlene Croce.

The Current Cinema NOW WHAT? by Penelope Gilliatt.

The Theatre Off Broadway by Edith Oliver.

Fiction Accommodations at Uncle Sol's by Daniel Menaker. In a farmhouse near Great Barrington, Massachusetts, lives my Uncle Sol. He is 77 years old and has always been famous among his friends and family for helping people- especially young people. I go to Uncle Sol's for one week every summer, by myself, during my vacation. The day after...

Fiction Slow Pitch by James Stevenson. Arriving Out the main road a half mile from the center of town, there's a right turn you might not see that leads to Memorial Field. There are two games a night, four nights a week, five months of the year. (Getting Settled, High Foul, Beautiful Girl) Slow Pitch This...

The Talk of the Town Trouble-shooters by Ian Frazier. Talk story about the International Plymouth Trouble-Shooting Contest at the Americas Plaza in front of the Time & Life Building. Three teams of 2 high school student mechanics apiece representing the U.S Canada and Mexico competed in reassembling the engines of the cars. Defective parts had been mixed in...

The Race Track Comeback by G. F. T. Ryall. Honest Pleasure, owned by Bert Firestone, won the Travers Stakes at Saratoga...

A Reporter at Large LIFE IN A SPACE STATION-I by Henry S. F. Cooper. A REPORTER AT LARGE about living conditions in the space station. Skylab. Skylab, built by NASA, was launched from Cape Kennedy on May 14, 1973 and the third and final crew to live there departed on February 8, 1974. Sky lab is 120' long, weighs almost 200 thousand pounds, and...

The Talk of the Town Boz Scaggs by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story about concert given by Boz Scaggs, singer from Texas, at Central Park's Wollman Memorial Rink. His real name is William Royce Scaggs. Tells about the songs he sang and how he introduced them. He was accompanied by some other musicians and 2 foxy girl singers. Scaggs was a...

Comment by Suzannah Lessard. Writer attends the funeral, on the East Side of Manhattan, of a woman she calls Mary Jones. The writer remembers Mary Jones and her husband Robert as a happy couple. During the funeral the writer thinks about how our society's emphasis on self-fulfillment and personal liberation has weakened the...

Poetry Notes From The Castle by Howard Moss. The sunlight was not our concern or even...

Poetry Noon by Charles Wright. I look up at the black bulge of the sky and its...

Poetry Blisters by Christopher Hope. Our enemies grow fat in the shade, waiting...