Profiles II-I'M FINALLY GOING TO BE A PASTOR by Nat Hentoff. PROFILE of Cardinal John J. O'Connor. Not long after he became Archbishop of N.Y. in Mar., 1984, he set off a controversy. At issue was whether he had violated the separation of church & state by telling Catholic voters whom to oppose at the polls. He attacked one candidate, Geraldine...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Fiction Optimists by Richard Ford. Frank, the narrator, recalls when he was 15, in 1959, and his father, Roy, worked on the Great Northern Railway in Great Falls, Montana. One evening, Roy came home from the railroad early. His wife was playing cards with another couple, Penny and Boyd Mitchell. Roy was extremely shaken up...

Comment Comment, Pt. I by Adam Gopnik. Americans have a peculiar relationship to the history and theory of language. We tend to act as if the whole world spoke English(as the whole world occasionally reminds us, with annoyance) & then, about once a decade, we become wildly exercised about the presence(or absence)of a single...

The Talk of the Town Beauty by Stanley Mieses. Talk story about the scene at the 70th International Beauty Show at the Javits Center. Over 3 days, writer saw: Hair being sold by the foot, the pound, in rolls & in pieces... A woman who had her upper lip covered by a special adhesive strip that painlessly removed her...

Comment Comment, Pt. II by William Smith. A friend writes: "They were talking about black & white on the school bus today," my wife said recently. After all this time, the subject makes me slightly uneasy. She is black & I am white. When we were married, long ago, we took the view, tacitly & despite certain...

Letter from Washington by Elizabeth Drew. The Tower Commission report shows that North kept Poindexter and McFarlane fully informed about what he was doing. It was an open secret that North was coordinating the getting of military assistance from "private" sources and from third countries to the Contras. The Senate Intelligence Committee report, which was issued...

The Talk of the Town Carlos by Veronica Geng. Talk story about Carlos Clarens. The Havana-born movie critic and historian wrote two books ("An Illustrated History of the Horror Film" and "Crime Movies"); he wrote subtitles, for people who don't know five languages, as he did; in reviews and articles, he had a sharp but sympathetic eye for...

Books by John Updike.

The Talk of the Town Lords, Serfs, Psychics, Apples by Vickie Karp. Talk story which begins, Problem: Rutherford Place, a Beaux-Arts building at the corner of Second Avenue and 17th St., was built by J.P. Morgan, and has served, in various incarnations, as a maternity hospital, a tuberculosis sanatorium, and a methadone clinic; now it has turned into a building of...

The Theatre STAGGERLEE AND COMPANY by Edith Oliver.

Letter from Sperlonga by William Murray. Tells about an ancient fishing village called Sperlonga, on the Mediterranean coast of Italy about 75 miles from Rome. Like many of the ancient villages of southern Italy, Sperlonga huddled on a rocky promentory-this one thrust out like a stubby finger into the Mediterranean. The coastal areas & the...

Poetry The Famous Scene by Mark Strand. The polished scarlets of sunset sink as failure...

Poetry How Bess Fired Douglas MacArthur by George W. S. Trow. Nancy Reagan's power is considered at peak --Headline in the Times Parody...