The Talk of the Town The Exercise by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story (Part One) about a promotion buffet luncheon at the Plaza Hotel's Terrace Room. Chris Evert Lloyd, the world-class women's tennis champion was endorsing a line of Italian sportswear called Ellesse. Some executives of the company had flown in from Italy and a number of reporters were present...

The Art World (The Art Galleries) Gloss by Calvin Tomkins.

Fiction FASHION by Natacha Stewart. This ran as FICTION. The writer tells her thoughts about ear piercing which she notices is getting more common. One fall morning she goes into a jewelry store and the young French proprietress there pierces her ears. Later at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art she reads...

U. S. Journal NOBLE EXPERIMENT by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: NATCHITOCHES, LA. about a state-supported effort to put the entire city on the Pritikin Diet. Lum Ellis, director of Project: LIFE (as it is called), has his hands full since Natchitoches is also home of the meat pie. Pritikin claims that he can reverse cardiovascular disease with...

A Reporter at Large SAND RIVERS by Peter Matthiessen. REPORTER AT LARGE about a foot safari made by the writer in September, 1979, in the far south of the Selous Game Reserve, in Tanzania. He went with Brian Nicholson, 49, who had served as a warden of the Selous for more than twenty years. & knows it better...

Fiction Rumor by James Robison. Billy is a 58-year-old professor Of History at a state university in Virginia. His wife died in November; it is now early spring. He and his retired colleague and friend, Enoch Dawes, speculate on the reason Creighton, chairman of the department, has invited Billy to his office. The...

Musical Events Ambition by Nicholas Kenyon.

The Talk of the Town Perennials by Jane Boutwell. Talk story about a visit to the Uris Theatre to watch a rehearsal of the New York Shakespeare Festival's new version of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance". It was originally presented outdoors at the Delacorte Theatre last summer and is a unique experiment in using amplification to bring...

The Theatre Off Broadway by Edith Oliver.

Books A Secular Faith by Naomi Bliven.

Comment by Whitney Balliett. Obituary of composer Alec Wilder, who died on Christmas Eve. He would have been 74 in February...

The Talk of the Town Perennials by Mark Singer. Talk story about the 10th and final "It's a Wonderful Life" celebration, attended by Frank Capra himself. "I.A.W.L." is the 1946 film by the 83-year-old director, which starred Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore. In 1970, when Christopher Little, a photographer, and David White, a writer, were...

Poetry Camouflage by Amy Clampitt. It seemed at first like a piece of luck...

Poetry Bar Giamaica, 1959-60 by Charles Wright. Grace is the focal point...

Poetry Glacier by Jared Carter. Last night I saw it form again...