Comment by Raymond Bonner. Comment about the end of apartheid in South Africa. In a move that almost no one could have imagined two years ago, the South African parliament last month repealed the notorious Population Registration Act--the law that required every newborn South African to be classified according to race. Coming after...

The Talk of the Town Barbecue in Berne by Mary Norris. Talk story about holding a charity barbecue in Berne, New York, for survivors of the recent cyclone in Bangladesh. The idea of throwing a party in Berne--a town of about 3,000 people some 25 miles southwest of Albany--to benefit Bangladesh, came out of a conversation between Glenn Paris...

The Talk of the Town Wear Old Clothes by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about La Fura dels Baus, a performance-art group from Barcelona, which presented its production "Suz/o/suz" at the Kaufman-Astoria movie studios in Queen as part of the New York International Festival of the Arts. "Suz/o/suz" are nonsense syllables; the name La Fu dels...

The Talk of the Town School Days by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about an auction of Buddy Holly memorabilia at Sotheby's, including many examples of the rockabilly musician's high-school homework. According to Craig Inciardi, a cataloguer in the Collectibles Department, most of the material has been released by the Holley family (the surviving members of the family spell their...

Fiction Body of Work by Judith Small. While pregnant, Deborah is asked to do a training session on corporations; she is a paralegal with a large firm. Martin, who directs the firm's training program for paralegals, wishes to tape her presentation for later use. She ponders the meaning of the word "corporation." She worries about what she...

Fiction Lake Natasink by Joan Silber. Patty, 42, is preparing to leave Manhattan, to move upstate with her lover, Charlotte, their 11-month-old adopted black-Korean daughter, Wyona, and their dog, Freddie. Patty works as an administrator at an addiction-treatment center. She has a job lined up at a center in Albany, but will...

A Reporter at Large HEART OF THE DELTA by Donovan Webster. REPORTER AT LARGE about crop dusting in the Mississippi Delta. Just southwest of West Helena, Arkansas writer visited the office of Planter's Ag, one of the local crop-dusting outfits. Jim Lawhon is the pilot & his partner Gus Rogers is the manager. Tells what Jim had to say about...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Reflections ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS by Robert Heilbroner. REFLECTIONS about forecasting the economic future. Economic predictions, like those of the ancient seers and sibyls, serve two functions. To the naive they hold out hope that foreknowledge will enable the hearer to escape a dire fate or make a fortune. To the knowing they provide reassurance that the future...

The Theatre GETTING HITCHED by Edith Oliver.

Books by Brad Leithauser.

The Film File Soapdish by Michael Sragow. The punchy, wisecracking love child of “Tootsie” and “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” In the mad, mad, mad, mad world of daytime television, on- and offscreen soap operas collide, creating a series of explosions building to one big bang. With Sally Field as the American Sweetheart who...

Poetry On a Beach by Czeslaw Milosz. The sea breaks on the sands, I listen to its rustle and...

Poetry Eden by David Woo. Yellow-oatmeal flowers of the windmill palms...