The Current Cinema REDEEMED by Terrence Rafferty.

Comment by William Finnegan. Comment about the use of illegal drugs in America. In the America of public-opinion polls, this country's most frightening problem is, and for some time now has been, drugs. Thus, it was as President Bush said, "no coincidence" that his first formal address to the nation, televised live on...

Portrait Portraits by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about textile broker Max Schacknow, who makes copies of van Goghs for a hobby & his travelling exhibit of copies, called "Maxie's Museum." The Museum of Modern Art estimates that since it acquired van Gogh's "Portrait of Joseph Roulin" last month, some 10,000 people have come to look...

Fiction Camaro City by Alan Sternberg. Brunet, an assistant fleet manager at a concrete and traprock firm, had had his Camaro stolen in a town where that make of automobile is popular. In addition, his house has burned down from a fire caused by a corroded furnace pipe in the basement. He feels viscerally wounded by...

Books by Helen Vendler.

The Talk of the Town Plans by Barry Singer. Talk story about an interview with the director of architecture for the Osborn Engineering Company of Cleveland, which designed Cleveland Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Milwaukee County Stadium, Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park & Yankee Stadium. Tells how writer examined the plans for Yankee Stadium. Dale Swearingen, the company's vice-president & director...

A Reporter at Large SYMBOLS OF SOVEREIGNTY by David K. Shipler. REPORTER AT LARGE about the surge of national awakening in Estonia. Estonia was initially the most adventurous of the SOviet Union's 15 republics in seizing the opportunity provided by Gorbachev's expanding permissiveness. In resurrecting their own history (which had been consigned to silen by Russian authorities) in opening their politics...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town The Anchorage by Robert Knafo. Talk Story about The Anchorage, a venue that is actually a seventy-foot-high brick-and-limestone-block structure that anchors the Brooklyn Bridge to the Brooklyn shore (there's another one on the Manhattan side). Described as resemblin a Roman bath, the anchorage is technically where the bridge cables join...

Fiction Devils by Cynthia Kadohata. Narrator begins by telling of her habit of leaving closet doors open to prevent devils from growing in the dark, and is encouraged to by her mother. The narrator says she made the mistake of thinking that devils grew on the outside of things, rather than on insides, as they...

Our Footloose Correspondents DOWN TOWARD ARKANSAS by Lisa Walker. OURFOOTLOOSE CORRESPONDENTS about visiting the writer's hometown of Branson, Arkansas. The town is in the heart of the Ozarks, in the southwestern corner of Missouri. It is bordered by Lake Taneycomo, on the east, and sits above Table Rock Lake. Because of its proximity to the lakes, it has always...

Poetry What I Forgot to Mention by Lawrence Raab. Things fall apart...

Poetry Still-Life With Stranger by John Ashbery. Come on, Ulrich, the great octagon...

Poetry Paying Respects by Mary Stewart Hammond. Our fourth night of being, her children...