Jazz by Whitney Balliett. Entire column about the life and career of trumpeter Roy Eldridge, including a lengthy interview. Eldridge, 74, gave up playing six years ago because of failing health...

Anniversary by Nancy Ramsey. Talk story about Children's Express, the group of 8-to-13-year-old reporters who can be seen at major political events sporting bright-yellow T-shirts. The group was about to celebrate its tenth anniversary with a symposium on children's issues and the media. Writer visited them in a...

A Reporter at Large A STRANGE DESTINY by Lawrence Weschler. REPORTER AT LARGE about the discovery & successful promotion of Harold Shapinsky, a 60-year-old Abstract Expressionist painter of the generation of de Kooning & Rothko. He was completely unknown in 1984; he lived in New York City, with his wife in a tiny apartment, where he continued to...

The Talk of the Town Miracle with Vampire by Mark Singer. Talk story about a visit with Marcy Benstock, an active opponent of Westway since 1974. A few months ago Congress voted to withhold funds needed to build 242 acres of landfill in the Hudson-an integral element of Westway. Mayor Koch & Gov. Cuomo decided to trade in the federal...

Comment by Lillian Ross. We may be imagining things, but it seems to us that the building of a political career, together with the road to success in most other areas of life, has become simpler, clearer, and more direct than it used to be. For example, the leading politician of the last decade...

Books by George Steiner.

The Talk of the Town Lids by James Stevenson. Illustrated Talk story about different types of plastic lids & cups used to carry coffee from the place where man obtains it to the place where man intends to drink it. Despite the introduction of plastic, paper, and plastic-foam cups and accompanying lids, a variety of difficulties persist, ranging...

Fiction Tide Pools by Alice Adams. Writer lived alone in a small house near Minneapolis, where she taught Marine Biology. Lonely, she received a phone call from a childhood friend, Jennifer, on her birthday. Jennifer is still living in their childhood town of Santa Barabara, but since her parents death (of alcohol-related illness) writer has...

The Theatre INSOLUBLE RIDDLE by Brendan Gill.

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Fiction One Round in the Life of Vitaly Sergeyevich Yurchenko by Bruce McCall. In a Moscow press conference last week, Mr. Yurchenko rerevealed new details about his purported kidnapping by the CIA. Among other things, he charged that the agency had tried to conceal its tortures by forcing him to sunbathe and play golf so that he would appear healthy. -The Times. (Writer...

Poetry Icecap by James Merrill. Yes, melting changes/ the whole picture. That...

Poetry Ancestral Lights by Deborah Digges. I love to go to the light section...

Poetry The Moment by Patricia Hampl. Standing by the parking-ramp elevator...