The Talk of the Town Sullivan Redux by E. J. Kahn. Talk interview with Rev. Leon H. Sullivan, the Philadelphia clergyman who in 1977 drew up a set of principles regarding business dealings with S. Africa, according to which many U.S. companies have subsequently been guided or judged. The principles have been revised&strengthened by him four times since then...

Books by Naomi Bliven.

The Current Cinema DEAD ON ARRIVAL by Pauline Kael.

The Talk of the Town Fresh by William McKibben. Talk story about Joseph Jones, Jr., known as Mr. Spoons, who is America's finest spoons man. He moved here not long ago from Cincinnati. He plays on the street, accompanying tape recorded music on a pair of soup spoons from a Salvation Army soup kitchen, the handles wrapped in tape...

Comment by William McKibben. Comment about the effect of Hurricane Gloria on Atlantic City. Usually nobody there looks at the beach - they are too busy gambling but the hurricane made people look at the ocean. The casinos were closed before the hurricane arrived. After it had passed they reopened. It was suggested by the...

Comment by Jonathan Schell. Comment about the demise of Westway. Deeply embedded in our thoughts is the belief that public institutions & programs exist to serve public needs. In actuality the chain of public action begins with an institutional arrangement & then a need is sought out-a need that will justify the continued...

Fiction The Progress of Love by Alice Munro. Story about 3 generations of mothers and daughters. Phemie's parents lived on a farm in Canada. Her mother, Marietta, prayed 3 times a day. Phemie's father was 13 years older than Marietta. She wouldn't get married until she had paid her father back every cent he had spent on her...

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL HEADS by Andy Logan. The Daily News ran the headline"KOCHA"above a front-page picture of a jubilant Koch the morning after his victory in the Democratic primary, in which he took 64%of the vote. There will be a general election in Nov., but since there are more than 5 times as...

The Theatre by Edith Oliver.

The Talk of the Town Galatea Encore by Joseph Brodsky. As though the mercury's under its tongue, it won't talk. As though with the mercury in its sphincter, immoble, by a leaf-coated pond a statue stands white like a blight of winter. After such snow, there is nothing indeed: the ins and outs of centuries, pestered heather. That's what...

American Chronicles ZEI-DA-MAN by Calvin Trillin. AMERICAN CHRONICLES about John Zeidman, a Duke University student who died of viral encephalitis contracted in China. He went to Peking in June of 1981 with a University of Massachusetts program at Peking Normal Univ. In September his parents got a call saying that he was critically ill. John had...

A Reporter in Washington by Elizabeth Drew. Earlier this summer the House and Senate passed, by overwhelming margins, bills providing for sanctions against the South African government, and a compromise containing fairly mild actions had been approved by the House and was pending in the Senate. There seemed little question that if the Pres. vetoed the bill...

Poetry Landscape With Artists by John Ash. This is not a river but a limb of the ocean...

Poetry Great Blue by Brendan Galvin. Often...