The Current Cinema Why Are Movies So bad? Or, The Numbers by Pauline Kael. Entire column about the poor quality of movies over the last couple of years. If for this period Hollywood couldn't seem to do anything right it's the result of recent developments within the industry. Conglomerates have taken over movie companies. Studio heads want nothing more than to make money and...

Musical Events Summer Miscellany by Andrew Porter.

Books Imagining Things by John Updike.

Fiction A Late Show by Janet Desaulniers. The narrator has graduated from college and returned from Denver to her home in Kansas City, where she intends to look for work. The long drive home had afforded her time to reflect on her position in life and to remember her father, who died when she was 14. Since...

The Talk of the Town Two Book Parties by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story about a book party for "Baseball Diamonds", edited by Richard Grossinger and Kevin Kerrane. The man from one of the city's daily newspapers had several drinks at the bar. Then he strolled happily around the room talking with people. He looked up and his eyes met those of...

Profiles Ferdinand La Menthe by Whitney Balliett. PROFILE of Ferdinand La Menthe, popularly known as Jelly Roll Morton, the jazz pianist who died in 1941. Much of Morton's fame has benn posthumous, as the result of a number of retrospective albums of his music. The writer acquired much of his information through interviews with people who knew...

Comment by Alec Wilkinson. It's the time of year when a number of people are moving to summer quarters. The character of our street is different. Whole families sit out in front of their buildings. There are lots of children around. The largest number of children gather in the macadam park at the end...

Fiction Mizpah by Robert Henderson. In the spring of 1945 Matthew comes to visit Jane Macdevit, his father's cousin, at her cottage near Aberdour, Scotland. Jane is in her eighties, and a scrupulous Calvinist; she had come to the United States in 1922, leaving behind her younger brother Joseph, whom she had raised after the...

The Talk of the Town Temperence Hill, 53-1 Shot Wins Belmont Stakes by Ian Frazier. Talk story about the conversation overheard at the race track after the upset victory of Temperence Hill in this year's Belmont Stakes...

Comment by Jonathan Schell. The June 6th edition of the Times brought the usual collection of reports. On page 14 there was an item that cast the rest of the news in a different light. The headline read "Computer Error Falsely Indicates a Soviet Attack", and went on to reveal that for almost 3...

A Reporter at Large 1980: THE FINAL ROUND by Elizabeth Drew. REPORTER AT LARGE about the last stage of the primary contests for the Presidential nomination. The last primaries were held in 8 states on June 3. Carter was far ahead in the delegate count but the Kennedy people believed that if Carter did not do well in the 3 biggest...

The Talk of the Town Punk-and-Dagger by James Stevenson. Talk story about an interview with Ian Copeland, president of FBI (Frontier Booking International) a New York company that books New Wave bands in the U.S., including his brother Stewart's band, the Police. The Police are produced and managed by IRS, a London-based record company operated by Miles Copeland...

Poetry Accident by Sydney Lea. Never to remember...

Poetry Three Poems by Charles Wright. Sun like an orange mousse through the trees...