Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Comment Comment, Pt. II by Alastair Reid. When the news reached us of the death at 86 of Jorge Luis Borges, in Geneva, on June 14th, it brought not just the pang we felt at the loss of his wisebeguiling presence but also the peculiar shiver of disquiet that his writings often generate. In our issue of...

Personal History GETTING AN EDUCATION-I by Mary McCarthy. PERSONAL HISTORY telling about the author's year in a public high school & the years on either side of it, in convent schools. It was in public high school that writer became conscious for the first time of a type of person that we would now call an intellectual... In...

The Talk of the Town Eager by William McKibben. Writer visited Faith Popcorn, who runs a trend-analysis firm called Brain Reserve on 57th Street. In recent months, Miss Popcorn has been repeatedly quoted in Newsweek, as well as in U.S. News and World Report, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, etc. She said on May 6 in Newsweek...

The Talk of the Town Eager, Pt. II by William McKibben. Mitchell Davis is the editor of the "Talk Show Guest Directory of Experts, Authorities, and Spokespersons." Writer spoke with Mr. Davis about his book, which cross-indexes "3,355 topics to 2,192 groups, all of them willing to talk." The book is for news/talk radio stations seeking guests. The organizations...

The Talk of the Town Restoration by Jane Boutwell. The writer visited Lawrence Goldman, who is the vice-president supervising the 7-month renovation of Carnegie Hall. James Stewart Polshek, the architect who provided a master plan for the project, said that intervening in an old building to find space for new systems is a complex and tricky affair...

Comment Comment, Pt. I by Jonathan Schell. It's hard to get people's attention these days, even for a good cause without putting on a national or international multimedia extravaganza of some sort, including at least a few dozen rock stars singing something in unison, or a few hundred people playing the piano, or a few thousand people...

Fiction More Zero; A Novel of Los Anomies by Donald Barthelme. This is a parody of the novel "Less Than Zero", by Bret Easton Ellis. The narrator is an 18-year-pld Californian. He is picked up by his friend Ashley in her red BMW and does a line of coke off the rearview mirror. They discuss whether to go hear...

Letter from Washington by Elizabeth Drew. Tells about the vote to aid the "Contras" fighting against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, about the tax-reform bill, the President's nominations to the Supreme Court and to the US Court of Appeals. Historians may well look back & wonder how it was that the question of what the...

Fiction Blackbird Pie by Raymond Carver. A man tells about a letter his wife slipped under his door one night after dinner. He can't find the letter anymore. Their two children are grown and live away. The letter is not in her handwriting, but is says things only she could know, and how she cannot go...

Books by Howard Moss.

The Theatre DEATH IN BROOKLYN by Brendan Gill.

Poetry Aere Perennius by Katha Pollitt. The mugger leaping out with his quick knife...

Poetry To the Angels by Deborah Digges. We sit like the sparrows along the orchard's wall, the best...