Comment by James Stevenson. A friend who lives in the country writes: Stapled to telephone poles near salt marshes and beaches in Connecticut are white posters--usually wind-torn and tattered by this time in August--that say "DANGER! TAKING OF OYSTERS, CLAMS AND MUSSELS PROHIBITED." The posters explain that "the following described area...

Fiction American Light by John Rolfe Gardiner. Story about Charles and Martha and their 12-year-old son, who live in rural northern Virginia. An old seascape painting by F.A. Silva hangs in their house. By accident, they discover that their Silva painting is valuable. They are given an original estimate of $4-5,000 for it and decide...

Books A Sort of Hybrid by Mollie Panter-Downes.

A Reporter at Large THE INDIGENISTS by E. J. Kahn. REPORTER AT LARGE about Survival International, a 12-year-old London-based organization whose chairman is Robin Hanbury-Tenison. It is concerned with the welfare of tribal people. There are at least 180 million of them scattered about the globe and some are endangered. Hanbury-Tenison says these people exist...

Fiction A Protest Against the Sun by Steven Millhauser. Elizabeth Halstrom, a college student, is spending a...

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL WARMUP TIME by Andy Logan. Summer is typically a time for baseball and for the heating-up of the primary campaigns. Politicians who care and know little about baseball begin to show up at games, in order to increase their visibility. This summer, however, there has been a strike of major league baseball players, one...

Comment by Mark Singer. A friend who lives in lower Manhattan writes: I woke up an hour before dawn last Monday. The weather had turned. A brisk wind had blown during most of the night, and when the sun rose the damp orange haze that had been hanging around for weeks was gone. As...

The Theatre ACCUSTOMED FACES by Brendan Gill.

U. S. Journal ANTI-METRICS by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON about opposition to the U.S. adoption of the metric system. The possibility that metrication might never come did not occur to the writer until he heard of Seaver Leslie, the founder of an anti-metrication organization called Americans for Customary Weight and Measure. Leslie...

The Talk of the Town Building Boats by Charles McGrath. Talk story about going to South Dartmouth, Massachusetts, to visit Leo Telesmanick, who for the last 51 years has been building small, gaff-rigged sailboats known as Beetle Cats. The Beetle, as it's called, is a plain, boxy little boat that has proved over the years to be durable and...

Profiles TAKES by James Stevenson. PROFILE of Max Furman, a burlesque comedian for 40 years, who is now appearing in the touring company of "Sugar Babies," the Broadway musical recreation of burlesque. Writer visited Furman at his small apartment in the Chelsea section of Atlantic City, New Jersey, and spent time with him in New...

The Talk of the Town Tunnel by James Stevenson. Talk story about the new Danskin-Eton's Luggage Tunnel for pedestrians on the east side of Sixth Ave., just north of 42nd St. The tunnel is toll-free and temporary, 20 yards long and 6 feet wide. It forms a shallow U to make room for a construction hoist that...

The Talk of the Town Time Running Out by E. J. Kahn. Talk story about Franklin A. Thomas, Chairman of the non-governmental Study Commission on U.S. Policy Toward Southern Africa, which just completed a report on South Africa and its relationship with the U.S. The 576-page book is entitled "South Africa: Time Running Out," published by the University of California...

Poetry The Onset of Love by Carlos Drummond De Andrade. The hammock between two mango trees...

Poetry The Quarry by Amy Clampitt. Fishes swam here through the Eocene...