Comment by Michael J. Arlen. The test at Amchitka is over, safely, as far as anyone can tell...& the Atomic Energy Commission, the folks who have been bringing us the Peaceful Uses of the Atom since 1945, found out what they so badly wanted to learn, which has to do with the emission of...

Fiction The Rhinoceros: An Appreciation by Calvin Tomkins. The rhinoceros dines on thornbushes & frowns his way through life, expecting the worst & usually getting it. The founding rhino was much merrier, & its descendants might have been more confident too, if it had not been for the horn. When they began to realize that their horn was...

Irish Sketches The Locks That Are Threatened With Rape by John McCarten. Writer tells of loafing on a bench next to the Grand Canal in Dublin; the bench was placed by the canal by friends of the poet Patrick Kavanagh, who died in 1967 & had requested that the bench be put there in his memory. Writer meets a "Mr. Rorty," who...

The Race Track Male Superiority by Audax Minor. There will be no jumping races at Belmont or Aqueduct next season, the board of trustees of the New York Racing Association announced last week. However, they will be run on 20 days at Saratoga. The reason for dropping steeplechases-which of course, was not given-was that there isn't...

The Talk of the Town Classical Walk by Constance Feeley. Talk story about Classical America society, which took recent walking tour of midtown NYC to view buildings designed by Stanford White of the firm McKim, Mead, and White in honor of the architect's birthday. Stanford White was born in 1853. The tour began in the Century Association Building on W...

The Talk of the Town Turkish Culture by E. J. Kahn. Talk story about Talat Sait Halman, Turkey's first Minister of Culture. He said that Turkey used to be known as a land of agriculture, & it's his aim to deemphasize the "agri." They are fortunate in having many layers of civilization--so many that archeologists can't count them. They have...

On and Off the Avenue Feminine Fashions by Kennedy Fraser.

Musical Events by Winthrop Sargeant.

The Theatre "Mary Stuart", by Brendan Gill.

Fiction The Guns In The Closet by Jose Yglesias. Tony Ybarra, an editor in a N.Y. publishing house, had always felt he had been liberated by his Venezuelan grandfather's name-it made him feel special. It amused him that his son Bill, who he had made sure learned Spanish' fluently, should refer to himself as a Third World person...

Letter from Athens by Anthony Bailey. Tells about the current state of affairs in Greece, which is roughly the size of Alabama with a population about that of N.Y.C. Tells what has happened since the military coup on Apr. 21, 1967 & what life is like under the junta. Writer looks at Greek culture--books, music...

The Current Cinema EL POTO-HEAD COMICS THE CURRENT CINEMA by Pauline Kael. Lengthy review of Alexandro Jodorowsky's head film, "El Topo". Jodorowsky, born in Chile in 1930 of Polish-Russian parentage, was once a member of Marcel Marceau's company & composed some of the pantomimes; he is now a theatre director in Mexico, & a cartoonist, whoseweekly comic strip "Fabulas Panicas" appears...

The Talk of the Town Rabe by Philip Hamburger. Talk story about David Rabe, the 31-year-old playwright who has two plays running at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre. "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel" is at one end of the building & "Sticks and Bones" is at the other end. There's a thematic connection between the two, Rabe...

Profiles Room To Live In by Whitney Balliett. PROFILE of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Percy Heath is the bass player in the group. He was born in Wilmington, N. Carolina, in 1923, then moved to Philadelphia when he was 8 months old. In junior high he played the violin, & when he was 17 he went to work...

Poetry Four Poems by Pablo Neruda. At night, in the drought...

Poetry On Going By Train To White River Junction, Vt. by Jean Garrigue. It interferes very little...

Poetry Giraffe by Stanley Plumly. The only head in the sky...