The Talk of the Town. In Fashion by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about a visit to the Fashion Institute of Technology, to see the current exhibition "Three Women: Madeleine Vionnet, Claire McCardell, Rei Kawakubo. "Writer attends show with two women, Mary (the art director of a fashion magazine)and Rebecca (a friend who used to model clothes and knows a...

Fiction Bears by Alice Mattison. Carolyn, the narrator, is a divorcee with 2 children. She lives in New Haven and works as a paralegal. Her friend Pauline urged her to send her children to the cooperative day-care center where her daughter went, and she promised Carolyn that she'd like Louis Feingold, who worked there...

The Theatre HAPPY HUNTING by Edith Oliver.

A Reporter at Large THE CATASTROPHE by Doris Lessing. REPORTER AT LARGE about Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Writer went to Peshawar, in the northwest, because it is a center for Afghan-resistance activities. Writer had been involved with an organization called Afghan Relief, which invited her to come from London with a group of filmmakers & journalists to see...

Comment by Adam Gopnik. A popular history of Siena tells a horrible & curious story. Apparently, during the war between Siena & Florence in the middle of the 13th century, the Florentines attempted to start a plague in Siena by catapulting dead donkeys over the city walls... It isn't just the damage inflicted on...

Profiles COLORED MUDS IN A STICKY SUBSTANCE by Calvin Tomkins. PROFILE of John M. Brealey, an art restorer who runs the Sherman Fairchild Conservation Center for the Metropolitan Museum... Tells about Brealey's restoration techniques & contrasts them with those of others. During the last decade, Brealey has been the prime mover in a campaign to transform the theory & practice...

Fiction Looking for Love by Judy Troy. Jodi Horton, who lives with her stepfather, just graduated high school, and is being given a graduation party by her uncle, grandmother, and Lowell, her stepfather. The only person Jodi wants to invite is Eduardo Espada, an illegal alien who works at the gas station. Jodi had a son, Duane...

The Talk of the Town Hugues Cuenod by Jane Boutwell. A talk story about Hugues Cuenod, 84, the distinguished Swiss tenor... "If you sing a phrase as you would speak it, the music will attach itself naturally to the words," said Cuenod. He is making his Metropolitan Opera debut this week in Franco Zeffirelli's new production of Puccini's "Turandot." His...

The Talk of the Town Miss Pancake by Mark Singer. Talk story about Miss Pancake, a title given out on Shrove Tuesday at Peggy's Restaurant, on Franklin Street, near the Criminal Court Building; while you're there you have to eat a ten-inch apple pancake faster than anyone else on the premises. Peggy Doyle, the owner, was there, in a...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Books by Helen Vendler.

Poetry The Music of Lost Hours by John Harney. On Sundays, after Mass, the bells tolling...

Poetry The Patience of White Birches by Brendan Galvin. Because they come up...