The Talk of the Town Approachable by Mark Singer. Talk story about columnist Hank Grant and singer Bobby Vinton. For 25 years Hank has written 5 weekly "Rambling Reporter" columns for the "Hollywood Reporter," in which he has kept track of movieland subcurrents. Along came a guy who gave him a hard time. Hank has had an excellent relationship...

Fiction Stamps (Illus.) by Bruce McCall. This parody of the disintegration of the United States Postal System takes place at the end of this century or early in the 21st. The 11 illustrations depict increasingly high-priced postage stamps. They are meant for stamp collectors. Writer also tells of deteriorating postal service. By 1997, at the...

The Art World (The Art Galleries) The Antic Mouse by Calvin Tomkins.

On the Street Trucks by James Stevenson. Illustrated Talk Story about trucks on the streets of Manhattan. Their business is usually stated in simple terms in plain type on the sides of vehicles, but there are exceptions. Brunckhorst (Boars Head meats) is one example, and Zampiere Brothers Bakers presents a stylish baseball script in gold on red...

The Sporting Scene IN THE COUNTRY by Roger Angell. THE SPORTING SCENE about Ron Goble, a former minor league pitcher who is now pitching for a local semipro league in Burlington, Vt. Writer tells of correspondence with Goble's girlfriend, Linda Kittell. Quotes extensively from Kittell's letters. She describes how she and Goble met. She was in graduate school in...

The Talk of the Town Flag by Kennedy Fraser. Talk story about impressions of a friend who was visiting relatives in a Yorkshire village on the eve of the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana. Writer describes the excited anticipation in the village where her aunt and uncle live. The village shop and home facades had been...

Comment by William Houlton. A friend who regards himself as a dedicated jogger writes that now is the time for a Magna Carta redefining the rights of the Central Park Reservoir users. Otherwise a Runnymede-type confrontation between the new, speedy breed of runners and the traditional Reservoir-path pedestrians is inevitable. The reason...

Fiction Jean-Pierre by Elizabeth Spencer. A short story about an English-Canadian woman in Montreal, married to a French-Canadian man. When he inexplicably leaves for a while, Callie, the wife who works at a library, seeks solace in the poetry of Emily Dickinson...

Letter from Rome by William Murray. The climate of erratic public violence that culminated on the afternoon of May 13th, in the shooting of Pope John Paul II, is still one that most Italians are not used to. Despite more than a decade of terrorist killing, kidnapping, a rising crime rate, and confrontations in the streets...

The Talk of the Town The Apprentice by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story about a woman who enjoys sewing clothing and working with various fabrics. On the way to a fabric store with a friend, she recounts her apprenticeship to a seamstress, Miss Doreen, on a small Caribbean island where she grow up. Although she had basic sewing skills when she...

Musical Events Gospel of Peace by Andrew Porter.

Books Ladies' Day by George Steiner.

The Theatre SHADOW PEOPLE by Brendan Gill.

Poetry Victoria by John C. Witte. The world is the most that we can see...

Poetry Times Square Water Music by Amy Clampitt. By way of a leak...