Comment by James Lardner. New Hampshire has gone to the polls & we know essentially what we knew already. A lot of people, many of them Republicans, are angry about the economy & annoyed with Geo. Bush-though not to an extent that threatens his grip on his party's nomination. On the Democratic side...

The Talk of the Town Hairless by Richard Preston. Talk story about hairless Chinese crested dogs, a breed that is competing for the first time this year in the Westminster Kennel Club's annual dog show, at Madison Square Garden. Many of today's cresteds are descended from a male owned by Gypsy Rose Lee, named Fu Manchu. Gypsy received the...

The Talk of the Town Run-Through by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about a run-through of a new dance work by choreographer David Gordon, at the SoHo loft he shares with Valda Setterfield. It was set to music by Carl Stalling, an influential music director for Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons...

The Talk of the Town Victory by Lisa Walker. Talk story about the premiere of the movie "The Mambo Kings" at the Ziegfeld Theatre, and the party that followed at Roseland. The writer attended the events with her friend Trudy, who works for a famous producer. During the film, friends of the actors applauded when they appeared on screen...

Fiction Winter Barley by Andrea Lee. Elizabeth, 30, a banker from Massachusetts who is stationed in Rome, and Edo, 60, an exiled prince from an Eastern European kingdom now extinct, have an affair at his home in Scotland. They meet at Easter. Elizabeth is invited to Scotland by Edo's gay nephew, Nestor, her neighbor in Rome...

The Theatre JUST FINE by Edith Oliver.

Jazz by Whitney Balliett.

Personal History VENTURE INTO AFRICA by Muriel Spark. PERSONAL HISTORY about a sojourn in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the late 30s & early 40s. In 1937 when she was 19 writer got engaged to Sydney Oswald Spark. He was to leave shortly for Southern Rhodesia for a 3-year job as a teacher. He was 13 years...

Around City Hall Whose Streets? by Andy Logan. Hardly any of the athletes in the recent Olympic Games in Albertville, France, were black. But a large number of front page headlines day after day in New York dealt with blacks or with events of special concern to them. Magic Johnson played his last game of professional basketball since...

Books by George Steiner.

Poetry The Delivery by Mona Van Duyn. I'm five. The petals of my timeless play...

Poetry Good Times by Robert Mazzocco. Once good times meant...