Comment by Adam Gopnik. Comment about the scandal enveloping Gov. Bill Clinton, a Democratic Presidential hopeful. In Clinton's case, the allegations of infidelity were not the scandal; they were simply an excuse by means of which a particular kind of media narrative could be set in motion. Once again, television had inflated a non...

The Talk of the Town Vanished by William Finnegan. Talk story about a visit to the largely deserted town of Port Arthur, Texas. The writer's destination was a former industrial laundry where a sculptor named Doug Clark lives and works. Half a dozen people were working in the foundry Mr. Clark grew up on a Gulf Coast rice farm...

The Talk of the Town Murphys by John Seabrook. Talk story about Robert Meyers, the founder of the Murphy Bed Center on W. 17th St. It is in a small second-story loft just west of Sixth Ave. Half the space is devoted to furniture that is not what it seems to be-dressers, desks, cabinets, & walls of...

The Talk of the Town Haggis Madness by Mary Norris. Talk story about the annual party celebrating Robert Burns' birthday, given by Eleanora Tevis, who comes from Lochwinnoch, 17 miles from Glasgow. She has been offering haggis to her friends for 10 years at these parties. This was the sixth year that she had invited her friends in the local...

Fiction A Real Life by Alice Munro. In the 1930s, Dorrie Beck lives alone in a farmhouse in Canada, near the town of Walley. She had lived there with her late brother, Albert. The house is owned by a neighbor Porter; Porter's wife, Millicent, is Dorrie's only friend. Dorrie's favorite pastimes are trapping muskrats and shooting rabbits...

Profiles OUTSIDER II--HISTORY IS UPON US by Marshall Frady. PROFILE of Jesse Jackson. Jackson was born, illegitimate, in Greenville, S.C., in 1941. Tells about his early life. He tours Greenville with writer, describing the color barriers in the town. His biological father, Noah Robinson, was a prosperous black cotton grader. His step-father, Charles Jackson, was a janitor. For...

The Theatre VACANCIES by Mimi Kramer.

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Current Cinema UNNATURAL ACTS by Terrence Rafferty.

Annals of Science SLEEP by A. Alvarez. ANNALS OF SCIENCE about an English sleep laboratory. It is at Atkinson Morley's Hospital in Wimbledon, which specializes in neurosurgial, neurological & psychiatric cases. It is a sister hospital of St. George's Tooting. The sleep laboratory, under the aegis of Prof. A.H. Crisp, St. George's chief psychiatrist, is one of...

Books by Naomi Bliven.

The Film File Freejack by Michael Sragow. This time-hopping and time-wasting adventure stars Emilio Estevez as a race-car driver and Mick Jagger as the high-tech body snatcher who plunks Estevez out of a car wreck and sends him eighteen years into the future. The supposedly brain-dead Estevez is meant to supply the host body for the mind...

Poetry The Butcher's Son by Thom Gunn. Mr. Pierce the butcher...

Poetry Mr. Cogito and a Poet of a Certain Age by Zbigniew Herbert. A poet after the prime of life...