The Talk of the Town In the Way by Susan Lardner. Talk story about another phone call from Janet. Last time she had broken her toe. Now she was calling from bed, recovering from "what could have been a broken spine." She explained: "I was on my way to a gourmet shop on 88th St. to get a little smoked something...

U. S. Journal A FEW BEERS WITH SUDS AND DREGS by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: READING, PA., about writer's visit to that town to have a few beers with Suds Kroge and Dregs Donnigan, the authors of "A Beer Drinker's Guide to the Bars of Reading." Writer became familiar with the book 5 or 6 years ago, when he ran across a copy...

Fiction Feb by Katinka Loeser. Narrator hates the month of February, so she calls it Feb. What is fun in Feb? she asks. There is one birthday in her family, her husband's. Gladstone, her husband, refuses to have his birthday celebrated with presents or cards. Instead, Narrator's children have arranged to gather at home later...

The Talk of the Town Auto Show by Wallace White. Talk story about the 1982 Greater New York Automobile Show. Writer lists some of the things he saw. There was a robot about ten feet tall. Visitors, by pushing a button, could cause the robot to move its arms and turn its head and -- by means of a voice from...

Musical Events Puzzles by Nicholas Kenyon.

Fiction The Tiny Baby by Mark Strand. Even before the tiny baby was born, its mother hired a sitter to prepare for the days when she'd need one. She told the sitter, "The baby's in the living room, but it's real small. If you don't see it, don't worry." Then the mother pretended to leave, and hid...

The Theatre HAPPY BACHELOR by Brendan Gill.

Fiction Moon Deluxe by Frederick Barthelme. Edward sees a woman in a carNhe often sees her, she looks like a young man. Big, with red hair clipped tight around her headNshe opens her mouth and runs her tongue around her lips. That night his neighbor Eileen invites him to her apartment for dinner. One of the...

Reflections "The Fate of the Earth" THE CHOICE by Jonathan Schell. REFLECTIONS describing the consequences of a full-scale nuclear war and writer's views about how to avoid the extinction of mankind which would be the result...

The Talk of the Town Rubber Rodeo by Andrea Lee Fallows. Talk story about a promotional appearance by Rubber Rodeo, a musical group from Providence that has been described as a punk country-and-Western band. The performance, which was for record-company representatives, was at Sundown, a club on East 56th St. Writer spoke with Don Rose, the master of...

Books An Intractable Metal by Helen Vendler.

Comment by Ann Beattie. We received a communication about a peculiar weekend from a young woman in Manhattan. First she told about Saturday night when four friends came over for dinner. After they left she turned on her answering machine. One call was from her friend Lynn, who asked if she had a sedative...

Poetry In the Mean Time by Charles O. Hartman. A sugar snow at the first of evening...

Poetry Upstate by Howard Moss. Graceful every tuck of the hills...

Poetry Later Today by Gerald Stern. Later today, when most of the ice is melted...