Comment by Mark Danner. Comment about the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War. The real aftermath of the war--not the parades and other celebrations--its effects on Iraq and Kuwait and other parts of the Middle East--has steadily receded from our view. On Mar. 6, a week after the ceasefire, the six...

The Talk of the Town Kentucky Spring by Bobbie Ann Mason. Talk story about the hot race for governor in Kentucky. The writer moved back to Kentucky after more than two decades in the Northeast. The wild stuff is going on among the Democrats. Gov. Wallace Wilkinson can't succeed himself so his wife, Martha, trotted forth to claim the office. She...

The Talk of the Town Beaver Works by Caroline Fraser. A talk story about beavers. Hope Buyukmihci founded the beaver defenders in the nineteen sixties, after she and her husband scraped together enough money to buy eighty-five acres of swampland in an area of the New Jersey Pine Barrens called Piney Hollow, about halfway between Philadelphia and Atlantic City...

The Talk of the Town The Guy Who Dares This by Alison Rose. Talk story about watching the Dutch performance artist Gerd Verschoor creating a landscape in the windows of Barneys Seventh Avenue. In 1985, Gerd presented Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands with a bouquet of plastic flowers. It was a big hit with the Queen. She said, "The guy who dares this...

Fiction Los Angeles, Once Upon a Time by Bruce McCall. One-paragraph casual, with a large color illustration captioned "Buddy's Fly-Inn, 1934", showing an airplane approaching a restaurant with a built-in landing strip and a roof-top swimming poool. The text describes Jimmy Doo-little's landing on the building, and tells how he wouldn't go in with Buddy...

Fiction More Songs About the Titanic by Edward Allen. The narrator describes the summer that he and Judy Vantassel were friends for the last time. After college, they move back into the homes of their respective parents, in New Jersey. Judy had been living in a communal house in Boston, the residents of which owned three Saabs; the engines...

Fiction Margaret and Bud by Frederick Barthelme. The narrator's brother, Bud, leaves his wife, Margaret, and adopted son, Conrad, and moves to California. Bud asks the narrator to help out while he is "out of pocket." Margaret asks him to move in with her and Conrad, which he does. Margaret worries that Conrad, 13, spends too much...

A Reporter at Large THE POLITICS OF NEIGHBORHOOD by David K. Shipler. REPORTER AT LARGE about Moscow, especially the Krasno-Presnensky neighborhood. In Mar., 1990 the country's first truly free elections were held. The Communist Party has been diminished, but not destroyed. Avowed democrats have been elected but not empowered & authority has been fragmented but not redistributed in any clear fashion...

The Theatre COSA NOSTRA by Edith Oliver.

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Current Cinema OUTLAW PRINCESSES by Terrence Rafferty.

Our Far-Flung Correspondents KEEPERS OF THE FLAME by Mark Singer. OUR FAR-FLUNG CORRESPONDENTS about theNational Tom Mix Festival, held this year at the Imperial Palace Hotel in Las Vegas. Writer meets with Richard Seiverling, the founder and chairman of the festival; this is the 11th annual. The festival had a 10-year-run in DuBois, Pennsylvania. Writer tours Seiverling's...

Poetry Metaphysical by Daniel Halpern. Yes, I thought this to be everlasting...

Poetry Old Landscape, Umbria by Cynthia Zarin. The animosity of the inanimate doesn't...

Poetry On the Run by David Lehman. Too late," said Uncle Alvin, checking his watch. He was supposed to...