The Talk of the Town Fulfillment by Bobbie Ann Mason. Talk story about a visit to "FACE TO FACE," the annual publishing conference and exposition, held recently at the Hilton. Writer walked through the Exhibit Hall, a maze of almost 500 booths representing such concerns as computer manufacturers, data-processing services, lithographers, printers, and paper companies. Even KLM Royal Dutch...

Musical Events Excursions by Nicholas Kenyon.

The Talk of the Town Mailbag by James Stevenson. Talk story about a letter from a man who watched his seventeen-year-old daughter, Edwina, get a turkey ready for roasting, on November 26th, Thanksgiving Day. It weighed twenty-two pounds, the time was 6 a.m., and one dozen guests were coming at noon. Writer sat at a table...

Books Two Late Arrivals, Featuring Resilient Females by John Updike.

Comment by William Edgett Smith. A true island, a piece of land surrounded by water, can only be reached by ship. The Seychelles, an archipelago of about ninety islands scattered across the northwestern Indian Ocean, were such islands until scarcely a decade ago, when the British, who had ruled since 1810, built an airport on...

Letter from Naples by William Murray. Writer returned to Naples after an absence of seven years, a place where he had spent part of his childhood. His first reaction was one of elation, but this gave way, as he entered the city's centre, to a feeling of uneasiness, a sense that something had changed, a change...

Fiction Visitors by Donald Barthelme. Bishop's daughter Katie is sick to her stomach, and her groans keep him awake. He is divorced, and he and his ex-wife half-jokingly tell Katie that their divorce was her fault. Bishop lives alone, and Katie tells him it's because he doesn't try hard enoughNhe should lose some...

U. S. Journal THROUGHTS WHILE RIDING A TROLLEY TOWARD TIJUANA by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL about the San Diego Trolley or the Tijuana Trolley, which runs about sixteen miles above ground, and most of the way along a railroad bed that already existed. As mass-transit projects go, it was not expensive. Its construction did not fall behind schedule, it does not require...

The Talk of the Town Talking the Fire Out by Ellen Bryant Voigt. 1. The stanchioned cows behind him,... A farmer stands at the door of the barn - ... he studies the remedial clouds,... 2. In that latitude, Come look... might mean bring a chair to the field and watch a king snake, wrapped around a moccasin, squeezing it like a stopped heart,... 3...

Fiction Camping Out by James Wilcox. Donna Lee is twenty-six years old, a lawyer in Tula Springs, Louisiana. She has taken some of her family and a new friend, Mrs. Norris, on a Christmas season canoe trip. She just couldn't face too many days in the family house. Her father, nephew, and brother-in-law...

Fiction Thanksgiving by Charlotte Holmes. The narrator stands on the porch of his family's beach house, watching his wife, Jean, walk along the beach. His mother stopped coming to the beach house for Thanksgiving after his father died, so he and Jean have the house to themselves. Jean is pregnant. She was in a bad...

The Talk of the Town Royal Wit by Wallace White. Talk story about attending, in London, the annual awards-presentation ceremony of the Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom, which was held at the Royal Automobile Club, or R.A.C. as it is called. The Royal Aero Club represents all the sporting-aviation disciplines in Britain and for the past...

Profiles A. I. by Jeremy Bernstein. PROFILE of Marvin Minsky, professor at MIT, who works in artificial intelligence. He was born in N.Y. in 1927. The term "artificial intelligence" is usually attributed to John McCarthy, a former colleague of Minsky's. He coined the phrase in the mid-fifties to describe the ability of certain machines to...

Poetry No Harm by Howard Moss. No harm would walk in and sit down...