Fiction The Tongue by Jamaica Kincaid. It has been six months since the nineteen-year-old narrator has been employed as an au pair for Mariah & Lewis' four daughters. She has grown to love Mariah & doesn't understand why Mariah feels surprise & foreboding about being forty. It's summer & they're staying in the house...

The Talk of the Town Show of Shows by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about attending a rehearsal for a "Saturday Night Live" special, on the occasion of the show's 15th anniversary, which was broadcast by NBC on Sunday, Sept. 24. When writer heard that the show would include taped segments, writer felt somewhat cheated and arranged to go to a rehearsal...

Comment by Suzannah Lessard. The City Council of Irvine, California recently passed legislation restricting the use of chlorofluorocarbons within the city limits. This legislation will cause hardships for local businesses and raise the cost of some consumer goods for local people, and these sacrifices will not be rewarded by any special environmental benefits to...

Fiction Fall Fashions by Michael Crawford. Six drawings of trees each representing the work of a designer. These include: Pauline Trigere, Gianni Versace, Donna Karan, Charlotte Neuville, Bob Mackie, Tai and Rosita Missoni...

Books by John Updike.

A Reporter at Large A RICH COUNTRY GONE WRONG by Stan Sesser. REPORTER AT LARGE about Burma, ruled for 27 years by a brutal & xenophobic military dictator, Gen. Ne Win. It is a country of 40 million people. Hardly, a new building has gone up since the British withdrew in 1948. Rangoon & Mandalay are the only large cities. During the...

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL SORRY by Andy Logan. In the New York mayoral primary, on September 12th, Mayor Edward Koch was defeated by a nine-point margin in his effort to be elected to a fourth four-year term as mayor. Depending on the outcome of the general election, on November 7th, the man who moves into the...

The Talk of the Town Problems by Patricia Marx. Talk Story about Bill Seitz, who teaches a course for Koreans at the New York SChool of Drycleaning on East 27th Street. According to Seitz, for the past eight or nine years large numbers of Koreans have entered the dry-cleaning industry, because it requires a small capital investment, &...

The Theatre EURYDICE DOWN SOUTH by Edith Oliver.

Our Far-Flung Correspondents WATER WITCHING by Carolyn Kraus. OUR FAR-FLUNG CORRESPONDENTS about dowsers. Late summer a year ago: Fred C. Neumann, 91 is shuffling across the living room of his Romeo, Michigan, bungalow, bearing a slingshot-shaped apple branch on his upraised palms, like an offering to the gods. "Grab ahold here!" he calls out to the...

The Talk of the Town The Greatest by Paul Corkery. Talk Story about a mahogany desk that was sold last June at a fine arts auction for twelve million. Built around 1760 in Newport, Rhode Island, by a celebrated (cabinetmaker John Goddard, the desk, until its sale this ye year, had been in the same family since its manufacture, &...

Poetry All Souls! by Dana Gioia. Suppose there is no Heaven and no Hell...

Poetry Polonaise by Derek Walcott. Acres of synonymous lights, black battery cells...