The Talk of the Town Rockefeller Wing by Jane Boutwell. Talk story about the new Michael C. Rockefeller Wing at the Metropolitan Museum, which writer visited last week. It is a 42,000-square-foot addition to the south side of the museum, which is filled with a staggering collection of masks, statues, pottery, jewelry, textiles, ornamented canoes, household implements, and...

A Reporter in Washington A NEW YEAR by Elizabeth Drew. A REPORTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C. about the Reagan Administration. It had been hoped that the President's State of the Union Message would give him an opportunity to deflect attention from his economic failures. The plan has been to turn a large number of federal programs over to the states. Reagan's...

Books All Told by Susan Lardner.

Musical Events Infinite Variety by Nicholas Kenyon.

Dance Skaters by Marian Thurm. Henry, a retired school guidance counselor, had been living contentedly in Florida since his wife died. Then his son's wife left him for a woman. Henry had always had trouble understanding Robert, his diffident, defenseless son, and now he was reluctant to be drawn into the heart of his disaster...

The Talk of the Town Boats by Wolcott Gibbs. Talk story about a visit to the 72nd National Boat Show (recently at the Coliseum). Writer went when the crowd was at low ebb and found that on the main floor, the show's second level, exhibitors outnumbered visitors by about three to two. There seemed to be little change since...

Fiction Cousin Lillian by Lou Myers. Leon's Aunt Lena and Uncle Albert were always furious and frantic over their daughter, his Cousin Lillian. Lillian frequently stayed with Leon and his mother to escape her parents and her brother Sonny. Her parents and Sonny had many frantic phone conversations, listening in and talking on three extentions to...

Comment by Berton Roueche. A friend writes: I've been thinking quite a lot lately about something that caught my attention when I was in Paris for a few days last November. My hotel was a small hotel on the Left Bank, on a quiet street just off the Rue du Bac, and when the...

The Theatre THE BARD AT A GALLOP by Brendan Gill.

The Talk of the Town The Bijou by James Stevenson. Talk story about the demolition of the Bijou Theatre on 45th St., west of Broadway. A lot of the block is doomed because of the construction of the Portman Hotel and its mall. Next door is the Morosco Theatre, which is also threatened with demolition. Writer reminisces about the Morosco...

Reflections THE FATE OF THE EARTH; II-THE SECOND DEATH by Jonathan Schell. REFLECTIONS about the extinction of humanity by a nuclear holocaust. To save humanity, all nuclear weapons might be ordered destroyed, but warring nations might still rebuild them. The origins of the nuclear predicament lie in scientific knowledge but we cannot go back to our pre-nuclear state, as we cannot...

Poetry The Man Who Knew Too Much by David Wojahn. I've finished with the listlessness...