Fiction An Exclusive Offer to Readers of This Publication by Ellis Weiner. Parody of ads for new personal computers which do everything for their owners. The KL-1000 weighs less than one ounce, is no larger than a domestic olive, yet performs all the photographic, dataprocessing, and information-retrieving functions you yourself do -- automatically. The KL-1000 takes photographs (flashing SAY CHEESE...

The Current Cinema by Pauline Kael. Lengthy review of Herzog's film "Fitzcarraldo", filmed, with great effort, in South America, and starring Klaus Kinski. "Burden of Dreams" is a documentary about the making of "Fitzcarraldo...

Comment by Dorothy Guth. Once upon a time, fall, which also used to be called "autumn" began on Labor Day and lasted until Thanksgiving Day. In late November, it started to snow a little, and the day after Thanksgiving, the stores dazzled us with their Christmas windows; winter had come. This year, reliable forecasters...

The Talk of the Town Wheels by William McKibben. Talk story about the 120th birthday of roller skating. Writer finds skaters all over the city --West Side bistros, delivering packages in Midtown, listening to WBLS or WKTU in Central Park with suitcase-size radios. The steerable roller skate was invented by James Plimpton in 1862, and on Sept. 21...

Musical Events How It Played in Peoria (and Elsewhere) by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Capuchin Aides by Emily Hahn. Talk story about Dr. M.J. Willard and her training of capuchin monkeys to act as aides for people paralyzed from the shoulders down. The monkeys can be trained, for example, to open doors, retrieve objects, turn on lights, load a tape recorder, and place a book on a reading stand...

The Theatre HOMAGE TO CATS by Brendan Gill.

The Talk of the Town Launched by Kennedy Fraser. Talk story about a party thrown at Studio 54 by Prince Egon von Furstenberg to celebrate the opening of his menswear shop on Madison Avenue...

The Sporting Scene CONNORS' YEAR, NOT LENDL'S by Herbert Warren Wind. THE SPORTING SCENE about the U.S. Open (tennis) in which Jimmy Connors won over Ivan Lendl in the men's singles and Chris Evert Lloyd triumphed over Hana Mandlikova in the women's. Describes various matches Lendl has played in the past including two matches he won over John McEnroe. Lendl played...

Fiction Passchendaele by Mark Helprin. Cameron, a cattle rancher in the Stanford Range of British Columbia, is riding along his land mending barbed-wire fences, thinking about his neighbor's wife, Mrs. Sanderson. Usually he prefers to keep away from the eastern border of his land, because he loves her uncontrollably, as if he were 19...

Reflections I-JOURNAL OF THE LONGEST WAR by Jacobo Timerman. REFLECTIONS by the writer, who has lived in Israel since 1979, about the country's invasion of Lebanon. The offensive began on Sunday June 6, 1982. Its ostensible purpose was to eliminate Palestinian strongholds in southern Lebanon. After General Ariel (Arik) Sharon became Minister of Defense in Aug. of last year...

Poetry The Monk's Insomnia by Denis Johnson. The monastery is quiet; Seconal...