The Talk of the Town On the Move by E. J. Kahn. Talk story about watching some of the action of the first national croquet championship tournament in more than half a century. It was played at the New York Croquet Club in Central Park, which occupies a fenced-in enclave just northeast of the Tavern on the Green. Writer watched a...

The Theatre Off Broadway by Edith Oliver.

The Current Cinema Witness by Penelope Gilliatt. From June 1 to June 10 the Anthology Film Archives is showing a retrospective of Rossellini's beautiful later films. Writer comments on one of the least known here, "Augustine of Hippo...

Musical Events A Lecture and a Parable by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Black Plane by Ian Frazier. Talk story about Robert Irwin, contemporary American artist whose retrospective has been on display at the Whitney Museum. Tells about the exhibit and his artistic viewpoint. To designate a horizontal space corresponding to the floor of the gallery, Irwin decided to paint the square formed by the inside crosswalk lines...

Fiction The Mirror And The Mask by Jorge Luis Borges. The battle of Contarf in which the Norwegians met defeat was over & the High King of Ireland spoke to his court poet. He asked him to compose a song of victory, granting him a year to do it. When the year came round the poet presented his panegyric. He...

Jazz New York Notes by Whitney Balliett.

Profiles Cowboy~II by Jane Kramer. PROFILE of Henry Blanton (pseud.), foreman of the Willow Ranch in the Texas Panhandle. Tells about an elderly couple, George & Emily Smith, who are friends of the Blanton, & run their ranch by themselves. They had overcome many obstacles. Henry & Lester Hill the Willow manager, had shaken hands...

Comment by Fred C. Shapiro. A report from a friend who attended last week's public hearings on Westway - a proposal to replace the lower 4.2 miles of the closed & broken-down West Side Highway with a one-billion-two-hundred-million-dollar complex of tunnelled superhighway and superimposed park & waterfront-development sites. It...

The Talk of the Town Charm by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story about Ophelia DeVore, who for the last 29 years through her Ophelia DeVore School of Charm, has taught thousands of young black women how to do just about everything properly. Tells what is taught at the school, its famous graduates and how it was started in 1947, and...

U. S. Journal Shopping the Market by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL about the twice a year national furniture market at High Point, N.C. The market's headquarters, a complex of high rises in downtown High Point, contains 367 showrooms. There are 800 more showrooms in office buildings and factories along a 115 mile stretch of highway between Greensboro and Lenoir...

Reflections SOMETHING IMPORTANT IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN by William Pfaff. REFLECTIONS about the decline of American optimism both in the U.S. and in Europe, which everyone knows about except Americans, although some of them are aware of it. Discusses myths Europeans have had about the U.S. - the idea that the U.S. was possibility incarnate has sustained Europe, especially since 1945...

Books Loosened Roots by John Updike.

Fiction A Widow's Quilt by Sylvia Townsend Warner. The sisters, Helena and Charlotte, were visiting the American Museum at Claverton, in. Somerset. They moved into the quilt room, where Charlotte's attention was caught by a quilt that stood out from the others, a statement of dulled black and white. "That's a widow's quilt," said, Helena. On the way...

The Talk of the Town Departure by Jane Boutwell. Talk story about Pierre Boulez who left the Philharmonic after serving as music director for 6 years to become director of IRCAM in Paris, an experimental research center in music. Tells about how Boulez spent his last 5 days in NY. He discusses the changes he made in the Philharmonic...

Cartoon Corporate-Sponsored Biographies Of The Great by Jack Ziegler. A story in the form of cartoons. Writer-cartoonist gives six examples of biographies sponored by corporations with titles, and sponsores and dates of publication. The subjects written about are: Pablo Picasso; Fedor Dostoevski; Karl Marx; Sigmund Freud; friendship between Fiorello LaGuardia and Albert Einstein; Pancho Villa...

Poetry Gehenna by Richard Lattimore. Truly a cursed place. But hell fire? That would be...

Poetry The Lament Upon The Waters by John Ashbery. For the disciple nothing had changed. The mood was...

Poetry Coal Train by Jay Parini. Three times a night it woke you...