The Talk of the Town Mr. Trenton by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about going to the Sands Hotel, Casino & Country Club in Atlantic City, to see a classical-ballet company from Moscow in the Copa Room. Writer attended a matinee of the Russian Ballet of Moscow, a company of 46 dancers, directed by former Bolshoi star Vyacheslav Gordeyev. Trenton...

The Talk of the Town At the Plaza by George W. S. Trow. Talk story about a party in the Edwardian Room of the Hotel Plaza. The host was Lester Geist of Herman Geist Sportswear. In the distance Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Billie Jean King, and Linda Evans were standing together. They were there because Ms. Navratilova has not until now been happy...

Comment by Mark Danner. Comment about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait... However effective the UN embargo has been in interrupting Iraqi trade, there is no sign that it will soon achieve what President Bush has said is its major purpose: forcing Saddam Hussein to withdraw his troop unconditionally from Kuwait. Nor does the American buildup...

Fiction In the Plain Air by Ian Frazier. Written in the form of a play, this piece purports to tell the real story behind Edouard Manet's painting "The Monet Family in Their Garden", which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art...

The Talk of the Town Dealer by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about Henry Feiwel, whose new Henry Feiwel Gallery opened at 24 West 57th St. on Sept. 25th. The gallery will show only the illustrations of children's books. Mr. Feiwel was born 69 years ago into a Viennese Jewish family that combined a love of art with the possession...

Jazz by Whitney Balliett.

Profiles THE RIGHT CALL by Jeff Coplon. PROFILE of Earl Strom, 62, who was the dean of the National Basketball referees. He retired last June. Over the past 33 years Strom presided over the game's greatest teams & most incandescent players and made a little basketball history himself...

Letter from Tokyo by Peter J. Smith. Tells how Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu's scheduled trip to the Middle East was cancelled after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Mentions a golfing meeting for P.R. purposes between three power brokers of Japan's long-time ruling party. The event could not have been timed more poorly--or, as it has turned...

Books by John Updike.

A Reporter at Large REINVENTING THE EGG by Michelle Stacey. REPORTER AT LARGE about attempts to produce chickens' eggs with lowered cholesterol content. John Albright is president of a company called Environmental Systems Management, which manages a system called Full Spectrum Farms, designed to create conditions that will make hens lay better, lower-cholesterol eggs. 12 farmers in Pennsylvania are...

Fiction The Point by Charles D'Ambrosio. Kurt, aged 13, lives with his mother in a beach community called the Point. His father, a Vietnam veteran, committed suicide when Kurt was younger. Once a week, his mother throws a party and gets drunk; Kurt must escort drunken guests to their homes. One night, he escorts a woman...

Poetry Hotel Lautreamont by John Ashbery. Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of...

Poetry Elegy by Vickie Karp. Light on the table so capable of leaving...

Poetry Far from Kingdoms by Patrizia Cavalli. Far from kingdoms...