Comment by Jonathan Schell. If a government official were to announce that increased subsidies to agriculture would now "take the place" of food stamps, someone would be sure to ask what the two things had to do with one another and why it wouldn't be possible to have both. But when Secretaary of State...

The Theatre Kid Sparrow by Edith Oliver.

The Talk of the Town Winter Beach by Bobbie Ann Mason. Talk story about Jones Beach in the winter. Writer tells about a walk on Jones Beach on a clear day in late January, and the people he finds there. He talks with Lorain Jackowski, who has managed the string of fourteen Beach shops for eleven years. The one at the...

Fiction Running Dreams by Ann Beattie. Lynn is a singer who has lived with Martin for seven years, until she became famous and moved out because she thought Martin wanted her to leave. He seems to be troubled by her fame, Martin and Lynn spend every weekend in the country with Martin's sister Holly and her...

Musical Events Risks by Nicholas Kenyon.

The Talk of the Town At the Palladium by Joan Bennet. Talk story about an Elvis Costello Concert at the Palladium on East Fourteenth Street in New York. He is an English rock star. Describes the crowds along Fourteenth Street from Broadway to Third Avenue - ticket scalpers in black leather; thug types. At the stage door there were no crowds of...

Our Footloose Correspondents PAINTING: A JOURNAL by James Stevenson. OUR COUNTRY CORRESPONDENTS about a painter's impressions of a day's work. His day's log begins at 6 a.m. on June 5, 1980, when the painter rises and observes the new morning sun creeping through the yellow shade of his room. The studio, near the sea, is a 1/4-mile from...

Fiction A Correspondence Course by Nadine Gordimer. Pat Haberman has lived alone with her daughter Harriet in South Africa since her divorce, when Harriet was five. Harriet earned her degree at twenty and works in a literacy program for blacks. Pat is secretary to the dean of the medical school. One day Harriet receives a letter from...

The Current Cinema by Pauline Kael. Review of the 1927 Abel Gance film "Napoleon". It was shown at Radio City Music Hall in a reconstructed version at the end of Jan. and beginning of Feb...

Books Hide-and-Seek by Whitney Balliett.

The Talk of the Town Show by Kennedy Fraser. Talk story about a show of Oscar de la Renta's summer styles. A group of women, buyers, business men, reporters, and some representatives of the Japanese fashion business were invited to a Seventh Avenue showroom to view Mr. de la Renta's summer styles. Mrs. Henry Kissinger was there, asking if...

A Reporter at Large II-SHUTTLE by Henry S. F. Cooper. REPORTER AT LARGE about the space shuttle, NASA's first reusable spacecraft with a large cargo bay for carrying, among other things, satellites to be left in space scientific instruments and even an entire laboratory called the Spacelab. One purpose of it is to offer customers the opportunity to develop new...

Poetry Over the Phone by Mekeel McBride. This is where he finds you. February. Over the phone...

Poetry Between Two Tracks by Ralph Angel. Between two tracks of boxcars, closeness...