Dancing Slowly Then the History of Them Comes Out by Arlene Croce.

Comment by Alastair Reid. One late afternoon last week, when spring was eliding into summer we were making our way home in the wake of a small girl who suddenly turned to her mother and asked in a voice plaintive enough to disperse our haze of well-being, "Mother when is it going to...

Books The Mind's Assertive Flow by Helen Vendler.

The Theatre HAPPY LIAR by Brendan Gill.

The Talk of the Town Watching Whales by E. J. Kahn. Talk story about a two-installment whale-watching expedition off Provincetown, Mass., sponsored by the Friends of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, also known as the Agassiz Museum. 80 or so whale watchers were aboard the motor vessel Dolphin III, nearly half of them Harvard-sciences-connected. The...

Fiction Patriotic Spot (60 Secs.) by Ellis Weiner. Compilation of familiar lines from TV commercials. Lines are taken from commercials for McDonaldOs, Budweiser, American Airlines, AT&T, Datsun, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and others, without mentioning any product by name. The appeal is to American pride. "We're Number One. You're Number One. You're a winner, America. And we...

Musical Events Ceremony of Innocence by Andrew Porter.

Russian Journal I - Summer and Fall by Andrea Lee Fallows. Writer, a Russian-speaking American, lives in Moscow with her husband Tom, who is doing research in Russian history at Moscow State University. In diary form, she tells about her experiences in Moscow and Russian friends. All names have been changed. They visit a rynok, or peasant market, in southwest...

A Reporter in Europe PARIS by Jane Kramer. A REPORTER IN EUROPE about the intellectual life of Paris. There news, to be serious, must by some miracle of subject or timing accommodate what people call "le discours" -- by which they mean persistent discussion about reality which keeps a professional Parisian intelligentsia entertained and earning money while "reality" goes...

Comment by Jonathan Schell. With the exception of the two bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki no actual experience of nuclear war is available for study. Nuclear weapons exist mainly to prevent their own use - exist, that is, for nuclear deterrence. To make up for the deficiency in experience pure theory has been given...

Fiction The Scan of Illyria by James McCourt. Kaye Wayfaring, the actress, has an hour before appearing as Viola in "Twelfth Night" at an estate on Long Island called Nonsuch Stix. She came here to shoot 4 variant endings for a movie, "Avenged." They are the earth/air/water/fire endings. As Kaye puts on her makeup, she...

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

The Talk of the Town Hearing by Fred C. Shapiro. Talk story about a federal hearing at an auditorium on the first floor of Police Headquarters, on a proposed federal ruling that would in effect lift the 1976 ban on transporting nuclear materials through N.Y.C. It was an all-day hearing whose purpose was to record comments on the proposed...

Around City Hall Minding the "P"S and "Q"S by Andy Logan. Political decisions and predictions are often made on the basis of misleading data. Looking right for the job, the central casting theory of political preference, often leads one to be thought of as a likely political candidate. Yet neither Perry Duryea, who was said to "look like a Governor," nor...

Poetry A Game Called Fear by Linda Gregg. The young cows run in the sound of the river...

Poetry Endless Greetings by Vickie Karp. After years of painting no black, no gray, you experience a dream of destiny...