Comment by Adam Gopnik. Comment about middle-class American parents telling their children: Eat your food, kid, because another child in another place is hungry. When writer was small, his parents' point of reference was the Armenians--a carry-over from their own childhood. "Clean your plate," he was told. "Think of the starving...

The Talk of the Town Waiting by Susan Lehman. Talk story about detainees held at airport motels for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Writer was surprised to learn recently that South African Airways had set up a small detention center in the Travelodge hotel near LaGuardia Airport, and that about 40 Somali, Afghan, Chinese, and Indian people were living...

The Talk of the Town Return Engagement by Laura Winters. Talk story about Gene London, a designer and collector who has created a shrine to Marilyn Monroe in the window of the Piaget Bldg. at 650 Fifth Ave. On display until Sept. 15, it includes a mannequin of Marilyn recreating the subway-grate scene in "The Seven Year Itch," a...

The Talk of the Town Spiel Mich by Alison Rose. Talk interview with Neil Diamond. Writer attended a Neil Diamond concert with a friend of a friend named Jack. Jack proved to be knowledgeable as well as obsessive and was able to tell writer that Neil Diamond is 51, and has 19 platinum albums and 26 gold albums. He looked...

Fiction Chekhov in Sondrio by Aldo Buzzi. Begins with excerpt from a letter to the author from Saul Steinberg: "I have englarged some early Russian postcards, and looking at them one enters into that world just before our birth--a most attractive and comprehensible time, with people in uniform, military or school or workers, dogs, horses, a...

Annals of the Former World ASSEMBLING CALIFORNIA-II by John McPhee. ANNALS OF THE FORMER WORLD about the geology of California. With the geologist Eldridge Moores, a pioneer in the theory of plate tectonics, the writer has been traversing California since the '70s, sketching a cross-section of the state in the region of Sacramento and San Francisco. They encountered an...

Musical Events by Paul Griffiths.

A Reporter at Large RAGING BULLS by Jane Stern. A REPORTER AT LARGE about the sport of bull-riding. Tells about the disasterous ride of Wacey Cathey, who was put in the hospital after one of his rides, and about rodeo star Lane Frost who was gored to death. One reason people like to watch bull riding is that...

Books by Naomi Bliven.

Letter from Europe by Jane Kramer. Mention. Prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro arrested builder Salvatore Ligresti on July 16. Ligresti had left Sicily in the 1960s, and twenty years later he owned one of the largest insurance companies in Italy and had an interest in 70% of all the real-estate transactions in Milan and a fortune...

Poetry Grandfather Writes His Will by David Woo. Trout bones on a gray-blue plate, fine...

Poetry More Later, Less the Same by James Tate. The common is usually calm--they captured the storm...

Poetry Net by W. S. Merwin. We were sitting along the river as the daylight...