A Reporter at Large REBIRTH OF A NATION by Daniel Ford. REPORTER AT LARGE about restructuring the Soviet economy by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He took office in Mar., 1985 & announced the following Feb. that "the really stupid situation" created by the Soviet style of central economic planning could only be corrected by radical reform. He decided to confront, head...

Comment by Garrison Keillor. Comment about Glad-Lock Freezer Bags and the instant bonus miles on TWA writer got when he purchased them, and Spring. ...March being National Frozen Food Month, writer bought a box of Glad-Lock Heavy Duty Reclosable Freezer Bags & a Freezette plastic freezer dish with locking lid at his...

The Talk of the Town Motivation Tool by Mark Singer. Talk story about the Metropolitan N.Y. chapter of the National Speakers Association (N.S.A.) whose members gather the second Wednesday every month in the Summit Hotel. Jonathan Evetts does sales training & consulting & was present at the meeting. Nido R. Qubein is an N.S.A. member who earns a million dollars...

The Theatre BLANCHE AND THE BOYS by Mimi Kramer.

The Talk of the Town Divine's Funeral by Mary Norris. Talk story about attending the funeral of Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead).. It was held in the chapel at the Ruck Funeral Home in Towson, Md, north of Baltimore. Writer and a group of friends drove from N.Y. to Md. They had seen "Hairspray," Divine's most recent movie, directed by John...

The Sporting Scene RAKING by Jeremy Bernstein. THE SPORTING SCENE about making a run down the Cresta ice chute in St. Moritz, Switzerland, on a 1-man bobsled... Because it twists & turns, there is no place on the 3/4 mi. run from which either the skeleton rider--the specially designed sleds used on the course are...

Fiction Pentecost Sunday by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. On the northeast coast of Colombia, after W.W.I, Dr. Juvenal Urbino, 81, went to the home of his friend Jeremiah de Saint-Amour. It was Pentecost Sunday, and the evening before Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, an Antillean refugee, disabled war veteran and photographer of children, had killed himself with gold...

The Talk of the Town Alligators by Adam Gopnik. buidling, putting the last touches on the alligators. Brookie explained to a friend that she wanted to make public art, and that, growing up in N.Y., she always wished the legend were true. They called up the sewer people who said there have never been any alligators there. She added...

A Critic at Large SHOLEM ALEICHEM'S REVOLUTION by Cynthia Ozick. A CRITIC AT LARGE about the literary works of Sholem Aleichem's revolutionary use of Yiddish as the language for his writing & about Yiddish itself... Yiddish is a direct, spirited & spiritually alert language that is almost 1000 years old--centuries older than Chaucerian English, but, like the robust speech...

Poetry A Worded Welcome by Brad Leithauser. Afloat within...

Poetry Spring at the Edge of the Sonnet by Eavan Boland. Late March and I'm still lighting fires...