Books by Brad Leithauser.

The Talk of the Town Gardel by Richard Brookhiser. Talk story about the life of Argentine entertainer Carlos Gardel, who died in 1935, & about a program in his honor at the United Nations. In 1935, at the age of 44, Gardel, an Argentine singer, composer and movie star, died, at the height of his career, in a plane...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Comment by Suzannah Lessard. Comment about how the two most popular novels in America this summer, John le Carre's "The Russia House" & Martin Cruz Smith's "Polar Star," have central characters who are Russian. Readers are drawn into the details of Russian lives & details from the Soviet Union have been flowing for some...

Fiction Read Chinese by Rick Rofihe. Narrator says that you can read Chinese, maybe not a book, but for sure a newspaper. In any language a newspaper's a newspaper. Some of the words they don't translate. Some people's names they don't translate. So you have a bunch of Chinese characters & then you have a name...

The Current Cinema A WOUNDED APPARITION by Pauline Kael.

Fiction Jungle Video by Ralph Lombreglia. Six months ago, Walter, an actor who just broke up with his girlfriend of 3 years, sublet the first floor of a house in Boston from Dwight & ANita, a couple famous for the news programs, documentaries, & specials they've written, directed, & produced. With a friend named Doctor, they...

Reflections I-ENCOUNTERING THE COUNTRYSIDE by Anthony Hiss. REFLECTIONS about the countryside. Writer tells about visiting the old Klein farm, in northeastern Queens. It's the only working family farm in New York City. The farm is only a little bit of land that didn't get swallowed up 40 years ago by N.Y. Life Insurance Co. when they built...

The Talk of the Town Sweet by Adam Gopnik. Talk Story about the writer's downtown loft & how recently he discovered in the middle of the night that something that looked like blood was dripping in sheets from the ceiling. It was leaking down the wall around the heating pipe. For the next two weeks the ceiling kept hemorrhaging...

Jazz by Whitney Balliett.

The Talk of the Town T.L.C. by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about attending a session of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission's "taxi court". There, among other things passenger complaints against drivers are heard and judged. Writer and her husband took her parents in a taxi to a midtown hotel and told the driver they would be...

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL; UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS by Andy Logan. Tells about the political repercussions of the indictment on eleven counts of perjury, of Joseph DeVincenzo, on Aug. 4. Although only a handful of New Yorkers had ever heard of him until recently, Joe D., as he was known, had been one of the most powerful figures in city government...

Poetry In the Country by Nicholas Christopher. The lamplight, whirring...

Poetry An Old Trembling by Marvin Bell. Often one wonders what the snake does all day in its pit...

Poetry The Morning Train by W. S. Merwin. In the same way that the sea...