Comment Comment, Pt. II by Liesl Schillinger. Comment about how difficult it is to be an ex-Soviet citizen. Last month, as Boris Yeltsin's entire Cabinet threatened to step down and thousands of hard-liners marched in Manezh Square demanding Yeltsin's resignation and calling for the return of the Soviet Union, and with the distraction of coups...

Comment Comment, Pt. I by Lawrence Weschler. The events in Los Angeles last week suggest that the tenuous social compact that has held this nation together for at least a generation has begun to unravel. People everywhere were dismayed by the almost uncomprehensible verdict rendered in the case of the police officers who beat Rodney King, and...

The Talk of the Town Smith by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about a blacksmith hired by the American Museum of Natural History. The interdependence of paleontology and blacksmithing is one of the odder and less self-evident, relationships in the ecology of crafts. Even the American Museum of Natural History, where it matters, hadn't thought much about it until...

The Talk of the Town Yak by Guy Trebay. Talk story about clown & stage & film wigmaker Joe Rapisarda, of Bob Kelly Wig Creations. It is a local firm, off Times Square, that produces hairpieces for Broadway shows, Las Vegas shows, and movies, as well as clown hairpieces. Like all high-quality wigs, Rapisarda's top-of-the-line...

Fiction Linton's Whatnots by Ian Frazier. Series of short items that parody the characters in Wuthering Heights. Opens with a short dialogue in script form, in which Cathy reveals to Heathcliff that her husband Edgar Linton has a collection of novelty nutcrackers. Next is an address by Linton about his collection. He demonstrates how they work...

Fiction Silent Passengers by Larry Woiwode. The story opens with the Steiner family back at their high plains ranch after 9-year-old James' 2-week hospitalization following a critical accident that had left him speechless and unable to walk unaided. Steiner remembered the day it happened. They had been fixing the tractor with the neighbor...

A Reporter at Large DEFICIT by Lawrence Weschler. A REPORTER AT LARGE about Poland's economic problems. Writer visits a market at Warsaw's Stadium of the Tenth Anniversary. Describes the wide variety of goods, including Kalishnakovs, reindeer antlers, and Mickey Mouse plastic molds he noted offered for sale. Tells how political change in regard to exchange rates, closed the...

The Theatre MR. JELLY ROLL by Edith Oliver.

Dancing by Alastair Macaulay.

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Around City Hall HOT DOGS AND ELEPHANTS AROUND CITY HALL by Andy Logan. Tells about the NY Democratic primary, Apr. 7th, which Brown lost, coming in 3rd. In campaign appearance, Jerry Brown had said (not sung), "If we can't make it here, we can't make it anywhere"--not a comforting judgement in view of the primary results. Brown finished after Tsongas here, taking...

A Critic at Large OUT OF KANSAS by Salman Rushdie. A CRITIC AT LARGE about the M-G-M movie "The Wizard of Oz." The writer wrote his first story in Bombay at the age of 10; it was called "Over the Rainbow," and was inspired by "The Wizard of Oz"--the film, not the book, which he did not...

The Film File Deep Cover by Michael Sragow. Hip novelist-screenwriters Michael Tolkin and Henry Bean must not have watched enough TV in the eighties to realize that the premise of their script—an undercover cop gets sucked into big-time drug life—has been done to death. The director, Bill Duke, a veteran of shows like “Hill Street Blues” and “Miami...

The Film File The Cutting Edge by Michael Sragow. Featuring D.B. Sweeney as an eye-damaged, working-class ex-hockey player who partners snooty figure skater Moira Kelly, this Olympic fantasy and love story has turned into a word-of-mouth must-see for high-school girls. They attend in swarms to ogle Sweeney’s uncomplicated hunkiness, to identify with poor little rich Kelly’s need for passionate...

Poetry Divination in the Park by Vijay Seshadri. Under the bursting dogwoods et cetera...

Poetry The Large Studio by John Ashbery. It's one thing to get them to admit it...

Poetry Guesthouse, Union City, Michigan by Nancy Willard. What strange soap! Like a chunk...