The Talk of the Town Three Hundred and Fifty Pounds per Square Inch by Wallace White. Talk story about the Wildlife Theatre Bird Show at the Bronx Zoo. The show involves seven trained parrots, trained by Valerie Johnson. Describes the act, which is performed five times a day, seven days a week...

Affairs of State by Richard H. Rovere. Discusses Carter's shakeup of his Cabinet and his prospects in the Democratic nominations and the 1980 election. They seem to be related. He didn't fire the department heads to effect a new policy-the only new thing was a firmer exercise of Presidential leadership. None of the heads was disloyal...

Musical Events by Winthrop Sargeant.

Fiction Be Careful by Garrison Keillor. Writer complains that while millions of man-hours are spent worrying about the one chance in six hundred billion that Skylab will fall on you, people continue to live dangerously: they cross streets against traffic pet strange dogs, wander away from the group and get lost, put foreign objects in...

Fiction Lost Luggage by Alice Adams. A woman returning to San Francisco from a trip finds that her airline has lost one of her suitcases, which contained a notebook she had been keeping. Her husband died recently and her trip had been to the Mexican resort they used to visit together. Initially, she is not upset...

The Talk of the Town Grand Central by Anthony Hiss. Talk story about Grand Central Terminal. There has been a sudden escalation in the number of people who take the Municipal Art Society's free weekly hour-long lunchtime walking tours. One of the volunteer guides is John Tauranac, author of "Essential New York," and principal architect of the city's new...

Comment by Berton Roueche. Comment disputing the truth of an old figure of speech. A friend who lives in the country writes: I was shelling peas the other afternoon, and the ancient figure (attributed to Rabelais) dropped into my mind: "As like as two peas in a pod." I let it drop on through...

On Photography by Janet Malcolm.

The Current Cinema AS LONG AS IT WORKS by Veronica Geng.

Dancing by Arlene Croce.

Reflections Disturbing the Universe-I by Freeman Dyson. REFLECTIONS about the writer's early life, especially his work as a civilian scientist at the Royal Air Force Bomber Command headquarters during World War II. He recalls that at age 8 he read "The Magic City", by Edith Nesbit. It is the story of a crazy universe. He now sees...

The Talk of the Town Out There by Mark Singer. Talk story about the Hawaii-Kai Restaurant on Broadway, and about an exhibition of Hawaiian quilts at the Museum of American Folk Art. First describes the entertainment at the restaurant, then goes into a description of the exhibit and mentions names of the people present at the opening of the...

Poetry Four Poems by William Logan. The pump, on and off through evening...

Poetry Oyster Cove by Stephen Sandy. The macadam is flaking, and the lilac...

Poetry For the Waitress Bringing Water by Anthony Lombardy. She brings us water, not intending harm...