Comment by Adam Gopnik. Comment about Nobel prizewinners in literature who have been forgotten. A book called "Nobel Lectures: Literature, 1901-1967" fell into writer's hands recently, and he read it from cover to cover, trying to figure out what he's been doing wrong. "Nobel Lectures: Literature" is a very useful book for anyone who...

The Talk of the Town Bingo Bus by Mary Norris. Talk story about Cathy's Bingo Bus, which takes players to a huge bingo hall on the Mashantucket Pequot Indian Reservation, in Ledyard, Conn. Cathy Casella and Linda Noest have been running the bus for about six months now; they hand out flyers at bingo halls and church basements in Queens...

The Talk of the Town Wrangling by Guy Trebay. Talk story about Raymond A. Mendez, who is credited as "Moth Wrangler" for the current movie, "The Silence of the Lambs." The writer interviewed Mr. Mendez in his Upper West Side apartment. While working as a preparator of habitat groups at the Museum of Natural History, in 1972, Mr. Mendez...

The Talk of the Town Survey by Deborah Garrison. Talk story about the different kinds of baseball hats people are wearing. Writer did an informal 24-hour baseball-hat survey the other day beginning at Everybody's Restaurant on lower Second Avenue. Writer saw a brown hat with a detailed rendering of Akron, Ohio's skyline on its crown; Duke U...

On the Street Diary of a Fan by Mark O'Donnell. Diary of a young woman who is obsessed with celebrities. She sees Sigourney Weaver on the street, and professes to pity her. She also thinks she sees Leslie Howard. She attends meetings of a group called Support for Lovers of Unattainably Remote People (SLURP). She realizes that she is not...

Fiction Mauser by Louise Erdrich. The narrator works for Jack Mauser's construction and road improvement company near Sioux Falls. Another employe, Travis Houpart, is married to Mauser's sister, Rhonda. When the narrator breaks up with her boyfriend, Travis approaches her in a bar. At first she resists his advances, considering him vain and lazy, but...

Annals of Exploration THE WHITE GODDESS OF THE WANGORA by Caroline Alexander. ANNALS OF EXPLORATION about Hans Hermann Schomburgk who made films in Africa. He was born in 1880 into an old Hamburg family. In 1913 he set out for the German West African colony of Togoland to make not only documentary films but the first true dramatic feature films ever shot...

The Theatre THE DUSTMAN by Edith Oliver.

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Current Cinema by Terrence Rafferty.

Letter from Hong Kong by Fred C. Shapiro. Tells about Vietnamese boat people in Hong Kong. Some 50,000 boat people or "migrants" as the government calls them, on the ground that most now make their way here overland and board boats just to be ferried around the 26-mile long 16-foot high fence that imperfectly seperates Hong...

Books by Charles McGrath.

Poetry A Sparrow Hawk in the Suburbs by Eavan Boland. At that time of year there is...

Poetry A Walk with an Abstract Expressionist by Elizabeth Macklin. Only the slightest touch...

Poetry Still Winter (Spring) by Charlie Smith. A warm, cheap snow, lightly wind-twirled...