A Political Journal by Elizabeth Drew. Martin Feldstein, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, has said that projected budget deficits were the result not of increases in domestic spending but of the tax cut and increases in defense spending. There is pressure on Reagan to raise taxes to balance the budget. Reagan doesn't accept...

Fiction The Deeper Crisis in Banking by Prudence Crowther. Writer describes the different banks she has used. Her first account was a perquisite of a job she had at a genteel nonprofit establishment. The staff got free checking at a local bank that belonged to one of the directors, and the arrangement spoiled her. She stood on line next...

The Talk of the Town Voices from Nowhere by William McKibben. Talk story about a press conference held by Digital Equipment Corporation to introduce DECtalk, a new way for computers to talk with an unlimited vocabulary. When one types words onto DECtalk's keyboard, it repeats them instantly with a simulated voice. DECtalk spoke in five of its eight voices, and recited...

Comment by Alastair Reid. According to W.H. Auden, poetry could be defined as "memorable speech," and in his writings he left behind him much that was memorable. In this city, he keeps intruding into the talk of those who knew him as they unwrap their carefully kept glimpses of him like talismans. The New...

Books by John Updike.

Fiction Return Trip by Alice Adams. Emma, the narrator of the story, is a middle-aged writer who is on her second marriage. She looks back at the important times of her life. She spent one summer in Yugoslavia with the first man that she loved, a poet named Paul, who died soon afterward from a...

Dancing by Arlene Croce.

Reflections THE ABOLITION I-DEFINING THE GREAT PREDICAMENT by Jonathan Schell. REFLECTIONS about nuclear arms. The first effect of the invention of nuclear weapons was to fatally undermine the institution of war. Nuclear war meant human extinction, so war no longer made any sense. If war was given up, then some other means would have to be found to resolve disputes...

Books by John Updike.

Books by John Updike.

The Theatre DANCING FEET by Brendan Gill.

The Talk of the Town Brother by James Lardner. Two-part Talk story about writer-director John Sayles and shooting his film about an alien who comes to Harlem. Its title was "The Brother Who Fell to Earth.O Writer watched a scene being filmed at the Peacock Lounge at 148th St. and Frederick Douglass Blvd. He spoke to two...

Poetry Literal Dream by Robert Penn Warren. You know the scene. You read it in a book...

Poetry Drawn By Stones, By Earth, By Things That Have Been In the Fire by Marvin Bell. I can tell you about this because I have held in my...