Books by Terrence Rafferty.

The Air Between 6:37 P.M. and 9:04 P.M. by Harold Brodkey. After the birds surrender the air...

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL EVERYTHING THAT RISES by Andy Logan. For 71 consecutive weeks, the"Amsterdam News"has published an editorial starting on its front page, under the headline "KOCH MUST RESIGN." In its June 6 issue, the apper had a guest editorial writer, Donald Trump, the city's most prominent real estate tycoon. The editor described Trump as "the first...

Fiction Hannah's Example by Elizabeth Tallent. Hart's second wife, Caro, is 2 months pregnant, and thinks a lot about Hart's first wife, Hannah. Her example has caused Caro to swear 2 things for herself, as safeguards for her future. First, she'll never try to stick with Hart through his being unfaithful to her because she knows...

Profiles ALONE AND IN CONTROL by Gwen Kinkead. PROFILE of Philippe Petit, the finest high-wire artist to have appeared in several generations... One day in 1971, a young man lay down on a wire stretched between the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral... Since his debut atop Notre-Dame, at age 21, Petit has danced high over the...

The Theatre SHIP AHOY! by Mimi Kramer.

Comment by Veronica Geng. Sid Caesar was in town to do his one-man act at the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts, at Brooklyn College, on a Saturday night. Writer had a brief chat with him beforehand. He uttered some nonsensewords in imitation of television executives. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but...

The Talk of the Town Boss by Fred C. Shapiro. Talk story about the opening of a long-sealed vault believed to have belonged to Frank ("I am the law") Hague, who was for thirty years the mayor and political boss of Jersey City. He moved around after leaving office, in 1947, and was living on Park Avenue when he...

Books by Terrence Rafferty.

A Reporter at Large THE ENVIRONMENT by Barry Commoner. REPORTER AT LARGE about the environment which has not improved much in recent years. The nation's basic environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 assigns to the federal Council on Environmental Quality the task of reporting on the environment. The first of the Reagan Administration's many cuts in...

Fiction The Author by Donald Barthelme. The narrator says his deranged mother has written another book. This one is called "The Bough" and is even worse than the others. He refers not to its quality--it exhibits the usual "coruscating wit" and "penetrating social observation"--but to the extent to which it utilizes, as a kind...

Comment by Adam Gopnik. A young friend writes: The people at the New York Cash Exchange, an organization that keeps track of most of the automatic-teller machines in New York, estimate that there were about a million eight hundred thousand separate transactions over their system during the Memorial Day weekend I was responsible...

The Talk of the Town Typical by Mark Singer. Talk story about going to the Peking Duck House, on Mott Street, where the Schwartzman family (Papa Fred, Mama Kyoko, sons Harry and Daniel) got together with the Xu family (Papa Jian-Guo, Mama Jun Cai, and daughter Ran) for dinner. Mr. Schwartzman, a Jewish native of the city, is...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Jazz by Whitney Balliett. Life and work of drummer Buddy Rich, who died early this spring at the age of 69...

The Talk of the Town Rio on a Plate by George W. S. Trow. Talk story about a party, Le Bal Existential, given by Michael O'Donoghue and Cheryl Hardwick. The invitation said "Attend or don't attend--it doesn't matter." Some invitations had a blinking eye, others a purple question mark. It doesn't matter. All this is true. All the writer cares for is the...