Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Lobby by William McKibben. Talk story about the party for the redecorated lobby of an office building. Someone swore he'd seen Ringo-he was sure it was Ringo-down the street at Bojangles. & Paul was definitely supposed to be in town. Definitely. And so every one assumed that they were going to show...

Anniversary Security by Jane Boutwell. Talk story about the security arrangements for the United Nations' anniversary. Over 50 motorcades shuttled between hotels, missions, and the U.N. without incident, producing only a few traffic jams and minor glitches. On Tuesday evening, writer talked to Asst. Police Chief Gerard Kerins at a temporary command post set up...

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

Books by Whitney Balliett.

Comment by Gwyneth Cravens. A friend writes: The other Saturday night, I set all the clocks in the house back from daylight-saving time to standard. The VCR clock was easy, but my bedside clock presented a big problem. The knurled knob on the back that sets the hands had disappeared, leaving nothing but...

Fiction Three Thousand Dollars by David Lipsky. The narrator cook $3,000 which his father sent him for tuition and spent it elsewhere. Since his parents were divorced, his mother, who made less money than his father, was declared to be his only source of income, in order to qualify for financial aide. Then his father paid for...

Profiles CLOWN by Mel Gussow. PROFILE of Bill Irwin, a performing clown. His most recent theatre piece "The Courtroom", a clown show about the in judicious judicial system. This, along with his piece "The Regard of Flight", were created, directed, and performed by Irwin with a company of clowns who are examples of what is...

The Talk of the Town Monster Trucks and Mud Bog by Ian Frazier. Talk story about United States Hot Rod Association Monster Truck & Mud Bog Fall Nationals held at the Nassau Coliseum. Monster Trucks are fwd pick-ups jacked up to accept huge tires. Inside the Coliseum, people saw on the arena floor a long dirt ramp-known as a mud bog...

A Reporter at Large THE JIMTOWN STORE by Bill Barich. A REPORTER AT LARGE about Caroline and Bob Goodyear, who ran the Jimtown Store in the Alexander Valley in Sonoma County, California. The Goodyear were both past sixty, and were planning to retire at the end of the year. The store had been on the market for almost eight months...

The Theatre by Edith Oliver.

Fiction The Fall of Texas by Joyce Johnson. According to a medieval astrologer, the world was supposed to end on a Saturday night, in March, 1962. People decided to have parties. The idea was to go out with a bang. I was 26. I'd had 13 lovers in 3 years. I was living in a 2-room walk...

Reflections THE AMERICAN MILLENNIUM by Frances FitzGerald. REFLECTIONS about foreign policy. If the ghosts of Franklin Roosevelt & George Marshall were to return today they would find the role of the U.S. in the world much changed. American power & influence have diminished in spite of the growth of a vast strategic military arsenal The country has...

Comment by Lawrence Weschler. We all, at times, think in metaphors. We speak, for example, of the maneuvers leading up to the talks between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev as a chess match; and we try to determine who is ahead in the arms race-an odd metaphor, because what would constitute victory in such...

Poetry All Soul's Morning by Eamon Grennan. Rain splatting wet leaves; citrine light; the cat...

Poetry Lives of the Nineteenth Century Poetesses by Katha Pollitt. As girls they were awkward and peculiar...