Comment by Lawrence Weschler. Comment on the historical forces behind the Persian Gulf War. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War One, the Allies dictated new borders, denying the Iraqi nation its natural outlet to the sea. The British policy of routing oil through small, sparsely populated nations...

The Talk of the Town Fun City by Jane Stern. Talk story about Mark Pahlow and his company, Accoutrements, which sells novelties to retail customers by mail from a Seattle store called Archie McPhee. Mr. Pahlow was in town for the American International Toy Fair, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. This was the first year that Accoutrements had...

The Talk of the Town Janacek by Jane Boutwell. Talk story about a visit with the Czech pianist Rudolf Firkusny, on the occasion of the first Metropolitan Opera production of "Kata Kabonova," by Leos Janacek. In his West Side apartment, Mr. Firkusny tells how, when he was five, his mother took him to audition for Janacek, who agreed to...

The Talk of the Town Inventions by David Owen. Talk story about an exhibition at the Cooper Union called "A Better Mousetrap: Patents and the Process of Invention." The main part of the exhibition consisted of more than a hundred patent models dating from the nineteenth century. Other parts of the exhibition included a time line depicting the history...

Fiction The Very Comical Lament of Pyramus and Thisbe (An Interlude) by Susan Sontag. This parody of the Pyramus and Thisbe story, in dialogue form, is...

Fiction Most Beloved by Tatyana Tolstaya. Zhenechka was the governess of the narrator and her sisters, on the dacha where they grew up. When Zhenechka visited them in Leningrad, they were always delighted by the little gifts she brought--keepsakes of pre-revolutionary Russia. But they tired of her endless prattle before her visits ended. She...

Annals of Enterprise II-HOT METAL by Richard Preston. ANNALS OF ENTERPRISE about steel making and the Nucor Corp In 1986 F. Kenneth Iverson, the chairman and CEO of the Nucor Corp., the 10th largest steel company in the U.S., decided to gamble a quarter of a billion dollars on an experimental machine for making sheet steel. In the...

In Fashion The Life of the Party by Holly Brubach. Writer tells about parties given by Suzenne Bartsch at which participants dress in bizarre fashion. Many are transvestites. She gives these parties every month at the Copacabana, the club on E. 60th St. She recently went to Miami to organizae a monthly night there...

The Theatre STEPS by Edith Oliver.

The Sky Line THE DEATH OF THE SKYSCRAPER? by Brendan Gill.

Books by David Cannadine.

Poetry A Seated Demon (After a Painting by Mehmet Siyah Oalem) by Sidney Wade. He sits, his black flesh deeply creased and rolled...

Poetry Secrest 273 (Every Purebred Sheep is Identified by Name, of the Far or Farmer, and Number.) by Stephen Philbrick. Death by northwest, breaking the crust...