A Reporter at Large THE DISORDER OF MANY THEORIES by Gerald Jonas. REPORTER AT LARGE about stuttering. Writer himself stuttered until he outgrew it during adolescence. He looked into the voluminous scientific literature on the subject. The long-sought cure for stuttering remains out of reach. About 1% of the population stutters; young males more often than females. All attempts to identify...

Around City Hall CONTRACT TIME by Andy Logan. AROUND CITY HALL about the dispute over police contract demands. The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association unlike all other city unions, is demanding a retroactive 6% pay increase from Sept. 1975, when city unions deferred increases. Tells about other contract issues under dispute-such as length of tour of duty and adding...

The Race Track Youth is Served by G. F. T. Ryall. The Knickerbocker Handicap at Aqueduct on Election Day, gave N.Y. metropolitan racegoers their first sight this year of Sandy Hawley, the young Canadian who rode Youth in the big race at Laurel later in the week. After the Cragwood Stable's Javamine won the first division of the Knickerbocker, the stable...

The Talk of the Town Follow-Up on the Skunk by Anthony Hiss. Talk story about the resolution of the skunk story first written about in Talk of the Town, Nov. 1, 1976 Herman and Nina Schneider, science-text writers who live at 21 West 11th Street, inadvertently brought a skunk back to New York in the trunk of their car. The skunk...

Musical Events Crossing the River by Andrew Porter.

Books Wives and Daughters by Naomi Bliven.

The Talk of the Town Bella C. Landauer by Geoffrey T. Hellman. Talk story about an evening preview at the New-York Historical Society of an exhibition called "Selling New York: Advertising from the Bella C. Landauer Collection." The show consisted of about 2000 exhibits, culled by Mrs. Mary Black, the society's curator of painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts, from Bella...

Profiles RIDICULOUS by Calvin Tomkins. PROFILE of Charles Ludlam, 33, and his Ridiculous Theatrical Company. The Company has been performing more or less continuously in NY for 9 years. Ludlam has written, produced, and directed 11 plays to date and has also acted in them. He believes in the redemption of classical drama through revolutionary...

Fiction Fire by William Saroyan. The Bashmanian family, Americans of Armenian descent, love fire and all things in the fire family; the sun, all reds and yellows, California poppies. The greatest fire the narrator ever saw was when his own house burned down. It happened in 1919, when he lived with his family in Armona...

Fiction Weekend by Ann Beattie. Lenore lives with George. They have a baby boy and a 5-year-old girl named Maria. George invites pretty, articulate young women, with their lovers or girlfriends, to their house for the weekend. Most of them are his former students- he used to be an English professor. Once Lenore...

Comment by Natacha Stewart. A woman of Russian descent, and some of her friends, received complimentary tickets for a concert performance of Tchaikovsky's opera, "Eugene Onegin," with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under Seiji Ozawa, at Carnegie Hall. The woman listens to Russian being spoken all around her and realizes that she is surrounded by...

Comment by Suzannah Lessard. New York City went to the polls in force on Election Day, and in doing so it rejoined the country. During our period of acute financial distress a year ago, we found out that a large element outside this region actively disliked us - even revelled in the prospect of our...

Letter from Washington by Richard H. Rovere. Reflections about the Republican Party in the wake of Jimmy Carter's victory in the Presidential election. Post-election surveys show that almost 90% of the Republicans who voted backed the Republican ticket, while only 80% of the Democratic turnout voted for Carter. Ford's appeasement of Reagan - in his selection of...

Comment by Ian Frazier. Comment about a young man from Ohio, who has lived in Manhattan for three years and had to get a court order to vote...

Cartoon Graphology by J. B. Handelsman. Illustrated description of the advent of handwriting. In pre-Biblical times, people communicated in pictures instead of words. After its introduction, calligraphy remained rigidly standardized for many centuries. After the Crusades, individual handwriting emerged. Graphology is the study of individual handwriting. Certain handwriting characteristics indicate certain personality traits. Gives samples...

Comment by E. J. Kahn. Now that the election is over, it's time for us to clarify the chief remaining competitive business of the season, which is football. On the college-gridiron front, we can safely pass over the Ivy League. For a quick rundown on the rest of the amateur situation, here's how things...

Dancing Premises, Premises by Arlene Croce.

The Current Cinema Travesties by Pauline Kael. Review of "The Incredible Sarah", directed by Richard Fleischer, starring Glenda Jackson...

Poetry November Night by May Swenson. Sky's face so old...

Poetry Stonefly by Sandra McPherson. Sitting on a stone...

Poetry My Father, Dying by Alastair Reid. At summer's succulent end...