Fiction Puttermesser Paired by Cynthia Ozick. Ruth Puttermesser, fifty-plus, lawyer, rationalist, and ex-public official, takes a year off to live on her savings and think through her fate. It comes to her that what she ought to do is marry. She is preoccupied with the lives of George Eliot and George Henry Lewes: they...

The Talk of the Town Radical by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about the ceremonial lighting of an Aiwa sign on Times Square--the brightest sign ever there. Writer interviews one electronics magazine writer who tells him at the press conference that the Aiwa sign fills out Japan's hand in terms of neon signs in Times Square. "The Japanese still...

The Talk of the Town Stoki by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about the newly-restored version of Walt Disney's "Fantasia," which was given its premiere in Philadelphia last month, at a gala presented by the Curtis Institute of Music. The Philadelphia Orchestra, directed by Leopold Stokowski (affectionately known as Stoki) played in the film. Among those who attended the...

Comment by Philip Hamburger. Writer goes to Boston to attend controversial Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit "The Perfect Moment. Writer stopped off in the Public Garden & saw a wedding party. Nearby he noticed a fountain, its center occupied by the nude statue of a small boy. Water coursed in nervous spurts over his body, including...

The Diplomatic Round BUILDING A CAGE by John Newhouse. THE DIPLOMATIC ROUND about the Middle East crisis. The situation shows that the UN is actually capable of fulfilling its charter; it emerged swiftly as the political bulwark against Saddam Hussein. Some diplomats at the UN and elsewhere, take comfort from a line of thinking that is traceable to Brent...

The Talk of the Town Nacinovich Site by Mary Norris. Talk Story about an archeological dig in the backyard of the Mario Nacinovich house, about 300 feet from the East River in Astoria, Queens. The house dates from 1858; its site, on elevated land that would have been attractive to prehistoric Indians, has yielded artifacts dating from the Middle Archaic...

Profiles BELLS AND WHISTLES by Lawrence Weschler. Former rocket scientist & investment banker, now a circus clown...

The Current Cinema DUPLICITY by Terrence Rafferty.

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL DOWNHILL by Andy Logan. On the evening of Sept. 2, Brian Watkins, a 22-year-old visitor from Provo, Utah, in town with his family to attend the US Open tennis matches, in Queens, had been stabbed to death on a Manhattan subway platform. He had died in the course of a robbery by...

Poetry We Love It No End by Elizabeth Macklin. The sun set again and again...

Poetry Elegy for the Old Mexican Woman and Her Dead Child by Lars Gustafsson. Am I mistaken...