Fiction Higher Education by Polly Morrice. Leda Harrison, 24 and an English teacher at Vespasian Community College in Michigan, meets Walter Pucinski, a real-estate man on TV commercials and the father of her annoying 11-year-old student Karl. Karl is a math prodigy who must pass her class to go to Michigan State. He...

Fiction The Lorgnette by Natacha Stewart. The narrator bought an Art Deco gold lorgnette in a junk-and-jewelry shop in the Old City of Geneva and forgot about it for many years. As she grew farsighted, she remembered the lorgnette, retrieved it from her jewelry box and wore it everywhere. After taking her younger son...

Anniversary Coiffures by Wallace White. Talk story about going to the silver anniversary of the Helene Curtis Ten Best Coiffured Women Awards, in the Crystal Room of Regine's. Gidwitz, president of Helene Curtis, remarks on the fact that we have all come a long way from the days when a hairstylist worked in a "beauty...

A Reporter at Large I-THE BIGGEST GAME IN TOWN by A. Alvarez. REPORTER AT LARGE about the yearly 4-week-long World Series of Poker, held at Binion's Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. Writer watched the 1981 tournament. The Horseshoe is a family concern, founded by Benny Binion and run by him and his two sons, Jack and Teddy. It is downtown...

The Current Cinema JOKERS by Pauline Kael.

The Talk of the Town Guitar String by William McKibben. Talk story about Mrs. Rose Augustine, president of the Augustine Imperial guitar-string factory, on West 25th St. Her husband developed the nylon guitar string and is in fact mentioned as "the rescuer of the classic guitar." He had wanted to make guitars, not strings. Mrs. Augustine doesn't like guitar...

The Theatre Talentless Trash by Edith Oliver.

Comment by Philip Hamburger. Letter from an old friend about going to see Roosevelt's inauguration on March 4, 1933. Writer was 18 and drove to Washington from Baltimore in a battered Ford owned by a classmate. The times were desperate. Thirteen million Americans were out of work, thousands were living in makeshift shacks in...

Books George Orwell by V. S. Pritchett.

The Talk of the Town The Mountain Gorilla by Emily Hahn. Talk story about a gathering of the Animal Research and Conservation Center at the Harvard Club, concerning the mountain-gorilla population of the Virunga region of Central Africa, which straddles the borders of Rwanda, Zaire, and Uganda. Dr. Archie Carr III, assistant director of ARC, spoke on the remaining gorilla...

Dancing Choreographer Under Balanchine by Arlene Croce.

Poetry Speed of Light by Richard Kenney. The radium in luminescent numbers...

Poetry After The Rebuilding by Philip Booth. After the rebuilding was done, and...