The Talk of the Town Festival by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story about press conference announcing a second Woodstock music festival. It is told in the form of fragments from an exchange between the producers (whose backers include a record company and a film company) and the press. The festival will be held on the 10th anniversary of the last...

Fiction Anna Stepanovna's Library by George Vassiltchikov. The author follows the course of a family treasure: a library of several hundred books which originally belonged to his great-great-grandmother's aunt and guardian Anna Stepanovna Protassova. In 1785, when she was 40, she was appointed First Lady-in-Waiting to Catherine the Great of Russia. Describes her...

The Talk of the Town Information by James Stevenson. Anecdote about a man at the subway at 59th St. He asked a subway attendant if a train went to 42nd St. and, as he was running for it, asked what train it was. "D!" the attendant shouted jubilantly. "D as in 'divorce'! D as in 'delightful...

Reflections I-THE SOLAR TRANSITION by Barry Commoner. REFLECTIONS about using solar energy to help lessen the energy crisis. We are running out of domestic supplies of oil & Natural gas, which together account for about 50% of the energy that keeps U.S. economy going. Heavy reliance on imported oil makes us vulnerable to an embargo. Since 1973...

The Talk of the Town Collection by Israel Shenker. Talk story about Seymour Adelman's collection, called The Adelman Collection, at Bryn Mawr College. Tells about Adelman, 72, who presides over his collection at Bryn Mawr's Canaday Library. He has specialized in Keats, Francis Thompson, A.E. Housman, Ralph Hodgson-all poets; the artist Claud Lovat Fraser; and writers interested in...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Current Cinema Outback Henry James by Penelope Gilliatt. The Film Forum will be showing from Apr. 19 through Apr. 22 and from Apr. 26 through Apr. 29, the picture "I Am My Films: A Portrait of Werner Herzog" in which Herzog talks about the genesis and making of his pictures. The producers and directors of "I Am My...

The Talk of the Town Halfway House by Judy Mellecker. Talk story about Arline Thomas of Queens, who is a bird-salvage operator. She began by doing bird-rescue work with the Audubon Society and they sponsored her application for a license as a bird-salvage operator. Mentions the Audubon sanctuary in Oyster Bay, which has facilities to clean and...

Dept. of Amplification by Thomas Whiteside. DEPARTMENT OF AMPLIFICATION about the Environmental Protection Agency ban on the herbicide 2, 4, 5-T, imposed because of an E.P.A. study on the use of the herbicide in Oregon that found a direct correlation between human miscarriages and the chemical. Pregnant women were not only exposed to 2, 4...

Books by George Steiner.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. The accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, appears to have shaken the public's confidence in scientists and in scientific judgement. "For years, the public had been told that nuclear reactors were not bombs, that they could not blow up," a recent article in the...

The Sporting Scene WALKING INTO THE PICTURE by Roger Angell. SPORTING SCENE about spring training. Writer watches games in Phoenix and in Florida and recovers from the dispiriting winter baseball news. Discusses new schedule proposed by Bowie Kuhn which would divide each league into 3 divisions instead of 2, creating an additional set of playoff games and additional revenue from...

The Air (On Television) by Michael J. Arlen.

The Talk of the Town Reactions by Wallace White. Talk story about demonstrations held around the country in reaction to the recent nuclear accident on Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pa. Across the country and in other parts of the world, there was evidence of widespread fear and indignation. In New York, two thousand demonstrators assembled in front of...

Books by George Steiner.

Fiction Gov. Beige by Patti Hagan. Parody of the way Gov. Jerry Brown, of California, speaks. Press interview with Gov. Beige in the question-and-koan format Gov. Beige prefers. Q: "Gov., how'd you get to where you're at?" K: "During my senior year in the Berkeley vicinity I wrote my poli-religi-psy thesis, 'Zen...

Poetry Five Poems by Octavio Paz. Light holds between its hands...

Poetry April Again by Robert Long. In the restaurant...