The Talk of the Town At Last by Jamaica Kincaid. The House An old woman talks to her daughter about the house they shared. Describes the things in it and the things that went on in it. Tells about a man who loved her. He is now dead. She was then what the young woman is now, soft and curved...

Reflections THE SALT DEBATE by John Newhouse. REFLECTIONS about SALT II. The writer undertakes to give the case in its favor. This view has been obscured by the anti-SALT lobby & others. In recent years there's been a tendency not only to emphasize the steadily growing strategic power of the Soviet Union but to exaggerate Soviet...

Fiction The Sixth Man by Veronica Geng. Sir Anthony Blunt, a former curator of Queen Elizabeth's art collection, and a renowned member of Britain's artistic establishment, was identified by the Government today as a long-sought "fourth man" in the Burgess-Maclean spy case of 25 years ago.... A supposed fifth man in the spy ring has...

The Theatre SURVIVING by Brendan Gill.

Comment by Mark Singer. Comment about Richard Nixon's remarks about New York. A letter from a friend says that when Richard Nixon was having such a difficult time recently trying to find a place to live in New York, he had sympathy for him. He goes over Nixon's past experiences. Then he read something...

Profiles Master of the Trade-III by Jeremy Bernstein. PROFILE of physicist Hans Bethe. Since 1974-the year of the Arab oil embargo-he has devoted most of his time to the energy problem. We must look forward to a time, he says, when all nonrenewable sources of energy on earth will be gone: oil, natural gas, uranium, coal...

The Talk of the Town Mapper by Wallace White. Talk story about Duff Bailey, who makes maps for bicyclists. He is working on bicycle maps of New York's 5 boroughs, under the auspices of Transportation Alternatives. The Brooklyn bike map is finished and will be issued in March. Manhattan is expected in June, the Bronx in Sept., and Queens...

The Talk of the Town Zip by Wallace White. Talk story about the Zipp-In contest awards at City Hall. 19 people received engraved silver bowls for creating designs that make innovative use of zippers. The contest was sponsored by the City of New York in conjunction with the Slide Fastener Association, supported by a grant from the U.S...

The Talk of the Town Election by Stanley Mieses. Talk story about the election campaign of candidates for office in the Student Organization at George J. Ryan Junior High School in Flushing, Queens. First, the writer tells about a pre-campaign briefing for 19 declared candidates. Three days later he went back when three special assemblies - one for each...

Fiction Fishing for Coyotes by Alan Cheuse. April, 23, comes home to East Texas for Christmas, bringing her husband William, an artist, and their baby, Marina. She smells whiskey in the house her mother lives in, whiskey on the breath of her Aunt Sal. She is afraid of this meeting with her mother, but for once they...

The Talk of the Town Turnout by George W. S. Trow. Talk story about an interview with Diana Vreeland, Special Consultant to the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum about her new show, "Fashions of the Hapsburg Era", a few days before its opening. She talked about the gleam of the 19th century saddlery in the show - she received permission to...

Poetry Peter's Tattoos by James Merrill. Right arm: a many-splendored...

Poetry White Field by Daniel Halpern. It is like standing beyond...