The Talk of the Town Free Verse by Mark Singer. Talk story in the form of a poem, about a poetry contest and reading, sponsored by the N.Y. Foundation for the Arts and the New York Statue Committee. It was held at the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society on 58th St. A proposed big sculpture by Nikos Korkantzis titled...

Musical Events Graceful, Passionate, Poetic by Andrew Porter.

Fiction Savages by Edna O'Brien. Mabel McCann's family and the family of the narrator were very close. Mabel had been away in Australia for ten years when she wrote that she was on her way home. Both families were excited at the prospect. Mabel's mother cleaned the house carefully, and made a special cake. When...

The Current Cinema SHOOT THE MOON by Pauline Kael.

The Talk of the Town Shoemaker by Stanley Mieses. Talk story about a tiny shoe-repair shop in the subway arcade beneath Forty-second St. & 8th Ave., owned by Isaac Beckman. The arcade is a very heavily travelled thoroughfare & one of the most dangerous spots in the city. Mr. Beckman is about 60 and is...

Books Going Hollywood by Arlene Croce.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. One of the most peculiar & revealing episodes of the state of martial law in Poland has been the government's capture & detention of Lech Walesa, the elected leader of the now suspended Solidarity movement. His status has been ambiguous. The government has not said that he has...

Fiction Current Somnology by Daniel Menaker. Parody of scientists' attempts to classify and number things, specifically, psychologists' classification of sleep stages. Every school child knows the acronym for the four stages of the sleep cycleNPSHA. P is for Primes, the initial stage of sleep, whose most salient characteristic is the annoyance it causes in the outside...

Letter from Europe by Jane Kramer. The Compagnie Financi re de Paris et des Pays-Bas, better known as Paribas, is the most important merchant bank & holding company in France. For months, depending on your viewpoint, it has been at the center of either a banking scandal or a bankers' trauma of consuming fascination...

Comment by Jane Boutwell. Comment about Northville, Michigan, as told by a friend who spent Christmas there visiting relatives. It is a suburban community fifteen miles west of Detroit, which has suddenly found itself in the center of an economic maelstrom. Describes the town. Until recently, the main industries were a race track for...

The Sporting Scene PLACEKICKING by Herbert Warren Wind. THE SPORTING SCENE about placekicking in football. Placekicking is the act of kicking a ball which is being held on the ground, or which has been placed on a tee. Tells about Tony Franklin, placekicker for the Philadelphia Eagles, who is particularly known for his kicking in bare feet. Describe...

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL: ROUND TWO by Andy Logan. The relationship between Mayor Koch and Victor Gotbaum, the executive director of District Council 37 (which has 110,000 members, making it by far the largest of the municipal unions whose contracts come up for renegotiation this spring), is one of loathing. Last year, GotbaumNwho believes that Koch has set blacks...

Poetry Of Oystermen, Workboats by Dave Smith. The wide, white, wing-boned washboards of twenty-footers...

Poetry To Get There by James Baker Hall. There is no place to go...

Poetry Rural Delivery by Charles Simic. I never thought we'd end up...