The Talk of the Town Fresh Air by Mark Singer. Talk story about a party given by Smoking Singles magazine at Delmonico's. Chris MacLeod, a columnist for the magazine, tells how she came to write for Smoking Singles, and talks about her experience as "a veteran of four decades of the singles scene in New York." She was accompanied by...

Comment by Robert Cullen. Comment about the coup attempt in the Soviet Union. After waking one morning last week to big, dismal headlines about the military coup d'etat in the Soviet Union, writer thought about a Russian officer he knows named Vladimir Smirnov. Writer met him a couple of months ago at the Hotel...

The Talk of the Town Down the Track by Anthony Hiss. Talk story about a train ride writer took aboard a luxurious Keystone Classic Club train and a luncheon he had aboard the Marco Polo, Franklin D. Roosevelt's private car while it was parked in Union Station. Tells about the lunch, with members of Amtrak's senior staff, like Elyse G. Wander...

The Talk of the Town Bob by Jane Shapiro. Talk story about Hurricane Bob, from a woman vacationing in Wellfleet, Mass. One the morning of Aug. 19th she was alone in her radioless, TV-free rented house, way down a sand road in a pine forest. A friend telephoned her to warn her about the hurricane. She ran outside...

Fiction The Gramma Awards by Danny Shanahan. Cartoon spread showing award-winning grandmothers: Nana Novosel/Best Remake of an Old Standard: "When I Was Your Age..."; Mrs. Emily Branca, Album of the Year: "Sit with Me a Spell"; Emma Lou Dill/Best Novelty Single: "Every Doggone Bone in My Body Hurts" b/w Are We Living in...

Fiction Fork by Peter Saenger. Paul, age 11, lives with his uncle Matt and aunt Nancy while his mother is dying. They live on a farm outside Jackson, Massachusetts. After Paul throws a can of garbage at his cousin Oakie, Matt drags Paul to the cellar and beats him with a crowbar. Paul's mother accepts...

Annals of Space WE DON'T HAVE TO PROVE OURSELVES by Henry S. F. Cooper. ANNALS OF SPACE about NASA design veterans Maxime A. Faget and Caldwell C. Johnson. Faget is the chairman of the board of Space Industries International and Johnson is chief designer. Tells about the companies designs for manned and unmanned space factories and experiment satellites. Faget is known as a back...

In Fashion by Holly Brubach.

The Diplomatic Round A COLLECTIVE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN by John Newhouse. THE DIPLOMATIC ROUND about turmoil in Europe. The eight gray men who seized power from Mikhail Gorbachev early on Aug. 19 revealed themselves as having no sense of direction, let alone new ideas. The uncertainty now is how matters are sort ed out between Gorbachev & Boris Yeltsin, the duly...

Books by John Updike.

Poetry Cornered on the Corner by Stephen Stepanchev. An oil rose: gold and pink petals flare on the asphalt...

Poetry When They Work Late by Elizabeth Macklin. our fellows make up a black-inked hierarchy of beasts...

Poetry Daytime Moon by Eleanor Ross Taylor. Wax moon in a blue sky...