The Current Cinema by Michael Sragow.

Comment by Mark Hertsgaard. In recent weeks the Bush Administration has stunned the world by launching a pair of initiatives aimed at relaxing the nuclear hair trigger and breaking the Middle East stalemate. On Sept. 27, President Bush announced in a nationally televised speech that he was taking part of the American doomsday arsenal...

The Talk of the Town Music and Art by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about Lucienne Bloch, whose W.P.A. fresco, "The Evolution of Music," was recently cleaned by the New York Conservation Associates. Ms. Bloch painted the fresco in 1937-38 in the dance room of George Washington High School in Washington Heights. The mural had never been defaced, but had gotten dirty...

The Talk of the Town Umbrella by James Lardner. Talk story about attending a conference of vegetarians. Writer met lacto-ovo-vegetarians (eggs and dairy products but no flesh), lacto-vegetarians (milk and cheese but no eggs or flesh), vegans (no animal products whatsoever), and perhaps even a few fruitarians (nothing cooked), although writer can't say for sure, because...

The Talk of the Town Enlightenment by Susan Lardner. Talk story about a conversation with the writer's friend Janet. Janet had tickets for opening night at the Met, with a man who wasn't keen on going with her. She went backstage afterward, and Pavarotti kissed her...

Television La Nouvelle Joie De Peindre by Noah Baumbach. Casual about Georges Seurat appearing on "The New Joy of Painting," a television show. The host of the show describes Seurat placing dots of blue carefully onto a blank canvas, and occasionally asks him to hurry up. At the end, the host comments that Seurat's canvases look like a television...

Fiction The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. In a suburb of Tokyo, a private zoo is slated for demolition, to be replaced by a high-rise apartment building. Homes are found for all the animals, except for an aged elephant. The local government agrees to take charge of the elephant, building an elephant house for it, hiring...

A Reporter at Large IN VIETNAM by Neil Sheehan. REPORTER AT LARGE about a recent visit to Vietnam. Writers stopped at the village of Ben Suc, wiped out by the Americans in the 60s. After the war it took the Vietnamese 10 yrs to rebuild. At the end of 1978, unable to tolerate Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge attacks on...

Musical Events Concert-Hall Drama by Andrew Porter.

The Theatre CASUALTIES by Mimi Kramer.

Books Fly on the Wall by James Lardner.

The Film File City of Hope by Michael Sragow. This panorama of Northeastern urban life is filled with intrigue and conflict. Yet it plays as if it’s still on the drawing board. The writer, director, and editor, John Sayles, lays out the action so that every class and ethnic group participates in the corruption and the possible redemption of...

The Film File House Party 2 by Michael Sragow. There’s one heaven-sent dream sequence of the hero, Kid, rising up in a circle of cloud-borne, boogying college students clad in orange graduation robes. It’s funny just to see his wedge of hair literally brush the vapors. For the most part, though, this sequel is as scattered as the first...

The Film File Other People’s Money by Terrence Rafferty. The film version of Jerry Sterner’s 1989 play is an attempt to turn the corporate-takeover frenzy of the Reagan era into the material of farce. The main character is a greedy, unscrupulous Wall Street wizard known as Larry the Liquidator (Danny De Vito), who’s trying to buy—and close down—a small,...

Poetry Elegy by Vijay Seshadri. The ambulance is gone. The squall's...

Poetry Trakl Aftermaths by Robert Mazzocco. That night, as if in a dream...

Poetry Peaches in November by August Kleinzhahler. Peaches redden...