A Reporter at Large THE PLUNDERED PAST I-THE FLYING FACADE AND THE VANISHING GLYPHS by Karl E. Meyer. REPORTER AT LARGE about the illicit pre-Columbian-art market, and the looting of archeological sites in Mexico & Guatemala. Tells about the new popularity of Pre-Columbian art & how art dealers meet the demand with less than reputable tactics. Cites the Met's "Before Cortez" exhibit & their considering...

Profiles I-TAKING LEAVE OF PREDECESSORS by Peter Heyworth. PROFILE of Pierre Boulez, composer and conductor. Boulez was born March 26, 1925 in Montbrison, 55 mi. s.w. of Lyons, France. His family was reasonably prosperous and non-musical. He exhibited a precocious talent for the piano as a child & an extraordinary ability for learning almost any subject in...

Our Footloose Correspondents Comment by Faith McNulty. The news from Wounded Knee prompted a note from one of our correspondents. She tells of a visit to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a couple of years ago. This is the home of the Oglala Sioux, where militant Indians recently seized the trading post and a church at Wounded...

Fiction The Hill by Berry Morgan. After she was taken to the mental hospital, the woman tried to fit in & do the work assigned to her, but it never worked out. Finally they locked her up in a room with a lady from Collinsville who was talking a mile a minute about the hill. Her...

The Talk of the Town MOMA Party by Geoffrey T. Hellman. Talk story about a party at the Museum of Modern Art to honor its first director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and to celebrate the redesigning of its 3 great exhibition floors & some new acquisitions. Richard Oldenburg, the museum director, was on the receiving line...

The Race Track Big Horse by G. F. T. Ryall. The Delafield Commission, which Gov. Rockefeller appointed last year to find out what has been happening to thoroughbred and light-harness racing, why the state's revenue from it has fallen off sharply, and what to do about it, made its report last week. It blames off-course betting, as operated...

Letter from London by Mollie Panter-Downes. British workers object to the statutory freeze on all wage increases above a modest fixed limit that has been clamped down until autumn. This is especially hard on the poorly paid, though the price of everything except fresh foods is frozen too. Some groups of employees, such as the gas...

Musical Events Branching Out by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Rising Market by Jane Boutwell. Talk story about a visit to an auction of antique rugs held at the Hotel Westbury by Maurice Lidchi, "Consultant and Adviser to Oriental Carpet Interests Internationally". Lidchi's family originally came from Turkey, but had settled in France, where he was born & in England. He said Persian rugs were...

The Talk of the Town Tango (Continued) by George W. S. Trow. Talk story about a visit to Tango Palace on Broadway and 48th St. Visit was made in the course of researching the effect of "Last Tango in Paris" on the local dance scene. It did not have much effect at Tango Palace. A Joan Baez record was playing on the...

Fiction What To Do Next by Donald Barthelme. Instructions are given on how to cope with a desperate situation: the dog is dead. You are first instructed to note that the paintings of the dead dog that you have hung around the house includes other dogs too, so all is not lost. Life must go on. You are...

Comment by Robert Bingham. Last week, we were reading newspaper accounts of the efforts being made in a Calif. courtroom to determine what damage, if any, was done to national defense when Daniel Ellsberg released to the public the Pentagon's secret study of how policy was formulated for the Vietnam war. There were also...

Letter from Washington by Richard H. Rovere. Pres. Nixon is outdoing all his predecessors in gathering to himself as much power as possible & wielding it with clear purpose and remarkable vigor. He wishes to preside over a govt. all of whose members speak as he speaks & do as he tells them. In the Cabinet &...

Around City Hall A Hail of Bullets by Andy Logan. One result of the recent sniping attacks on police is that they have become trigger-happy. Leaders of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the policemen's union, have been clamoring for what amounts to fulltime bodyguards for policemen in radio cars and for all New York policemen on patrol to be armed...

The Current Cinema Kings by Pauline Kael. Lengthy review of Visconti's "Ludwig" with discussion of his other films...

The Theatre My Fair Ladies by Brendan Gill. Review of "Irene" which helps celebrate the opening of the new Minskoff Theatre, at One Astor Plaza, in the heart of Times Square. Writer praises the theatre, which is the attractive fruit of a prolonged & intense collaboration between Mayor Lindsay, his brilliant Midtown Design group, the architects of the...

Fiction 12 O'clock News by Elizabeth Bishop. Poem. The writer, in her work area, describes the various familiar objects on her desk as if they were parts of a new, small world. She describes the gooseneck lamp in terms of the moon (It gives very little light; it could be dead). She relates the typewriter and papers...

Poetry Dawn in Kensington Gardens by R. P. Lister. Awake, for morning in the bowl of night...