Comment by Raymond Bonner. A comment about the South African government's funding of Inkatha, a Zulu-based organization accused of attacks on its opponents. On July 10th, after President Bush announced at a White House news conference that the US was lifting sanctions against South Africa, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs...

The Talk of the Town Cordially by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about an open house given by Radio City Station post office for people in its Zip Code. The invitations for the event, reading "The manager/postmaster New York Division and the employees of Radio City Station cordially invite you to our open house," were sent to residential customers...

The Talk of the Town Mellow by Amy Clyde. Talk story about actor David Marquis and his most recent work, a monologue about the beach town in California where he grew up. He writes what he calls "visual theatre works" & produces them downtown, in the outer boroughs, and in an array of Eastern Bloc countries. He is performing...

The Talk of the Town Hacks by Mark Singer. Talk story about a poetry reading called "Hack Poetry at Castillo". It was held in a building on Greenwich Street at the Castillo Cultural Center, home base for a collective of artists & political activists. They rent theatre space to nice guys like Terence Gelber, who writes poetry under the...

Fiction Summer Visitors by Huguette Martel. Full-page color spread about a farmhouse in upstate New York that is visited by famous people. John Wayne rides the neighbor's cow, a French delegation looks for truffles Lassie's boyfriend, Fritz, eats a roast, and Thoreau inspires the owners to start a compost heap...

Fiction The Afternoon of June 8, 1991 by Ian Frazier. Humorous piece in the form of a university commencement address, headed by a quotation from the magazine Insight: "Those who adopt satanism come from all walks of life.... They include doctors, lawyers, professors, university presidents." A university president intersperses his commencement address with satanic chants and noises. At the conclusion...

Journals FROM THE SEVENTIES AND EARLY EIGHTIES--II by John Cheever. JOURNALS describing the writer's involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous, his strained marriage, and his homosexuality. He has love affairs with a woman identified as H. and a man identified as M. He writes his final short novel, "Oh What a Paradise It Seems." Reminisces about John Updike (after hearing a false...

The Sky Line IMPROVING LINCOLN CENTER by Brendan Gill.

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Letter from New Delhi by Ved Mehta. Tells about Indian politics and the general elections, as well as the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. The number of candidates in an election is large, because of the ease with which a candidate can get on the ballot. Rajiv was assassinated by members of a Sri Lankan secessionist Tamil group...

Obituary by Philip Hamburger. Obituary of Milton Greenstein, who died on Monday, July 29 1991, at the age of 79. He had been with "The New Yorker" for almost forty-six years as legal counsel, vice-president, and friend...

The Film File Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey by Michael Sragow. Spotty, amusing, and openly silly. For those who missed the first entry, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are boyz n the burbs with dysfunctional families and zero brains. They channel their energies into a teen-age mutant vocabulary (Dude! Duder! Excellent! Bogus!) and a series of synchronized hand riffs....

The Film File Mobsters by Michael Sragow. When Christian Slater, as young Lucky Luciano, tells Meyer Lansky (Patrick Dempsey), Bugsy Siegel (Richard Grieco), and Frank Costello (Costas Mandylor) that it’s time to play “with the big boys,” he’s delivering the statement of purpose for this bloody bore of a Mob travesty. It’s an excuse for the latest...

The Film File Point Break by Michael Sragow. Keanu Reeves keeps a straight face and gets a few intentional laughs as Johnny Utah, an F.B.I. agent searching for a band of surfer bank thieves. “My character is a total control freak,” Reeves told an interviewer, “and the ocean beats him up and changes him.” Actually, the director, Kathryn...

Poetry Makers of Labyrinths by Charles Simic. I must be absolutely alone when I think...

Poetry Air-Conditioned Air by Debora Greger. Of windows closing on muslin curtains...