The Current Cinema COMEDIANS by Pauline Kael.

Letter from Europe by Jane Kramer. The war panic in Germany is real. A lot of Germans are convinced there will be a war soon in Germany and they will all die in minutes in what the military calls a "theatre nuclear exchange" between American Pershing II missiles and Soviet SS-20s. Young Germans march for...

Fiction A City of the Dead, a City of the Living by Nadine Gordimer. Samson Moreke, his wife Nanike, and their baby live in No. 1907 Block C, in the Sub-Economic Township of black Johannesburg. They also have a woman lodger living with them, and a family living in an attached garage. Moreke works in the city as an itinerant gardener. Across the...

A Reporter at Large I-AMERICAN JOURNEY by Richard Reeves. REPORTER AT LARGE about following in the footsteps of Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited the U.S. from France in 1831 for a 9-month stay. After returning home in 1832 he wrote a two-volume book "Democracy in America" He arrived in Newport, R.I., went on to New York City...

The Art World (The Art Galleries) The Urban Capacity by Calvin Tomkins.

Musical Events Down in the Valley by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Configuration by Elizabeth Tallent. Talk story about a night visit to the Somers-Bausch Observatory, near the Planetarium on the University of Colorado's Boulder campus to view Saturn and other planets. There was a circular cement platform supporting the 24-inch telescope. A young man touched some keys on a computer console and the...

The Theatre Off Broadway by Edith Oliver.

Comment by Marion Knox Barthelme. A young woman who lives in the Village writes: Two months ago, my daughter was born. On a Wednesday shortly before her birth, I was uptown shopping for some sensible shoes, and the salesman in the store began to tell me about the birth of his first child. It had...

A Reporter in Washington THE REPUBLICANS by Elizabeth Drew. A REPORTER IN WASHINGTON, D.C., about the weekend meeting of Republican elected officials at the Tidewater Inn, in Easton, Maryland. This was the 5th of such meetings, which were originated by Sen. Bob Packwood, of Oregon. This year, the Republicans found out how hard it is to address issues when...

Fiction Polaroid by Sally Wells. Ted and Didi rented a house in Rhode Island every summer so they could get away from New York City and spend a month near Ted's parents and the group of cousins and friends with whom Ted had spent the summers of his childhood. Didi felt ill at ease with...

The Talk of the Town Award by James Stevenson. Talk story about the demonstration along Sixth Ave. near the New York Hilton where Henry Kissinger was scheduled to present the Charles Evans Hughes Gold Medal "for courageous leadership in governmental, civic and humanitarian affairs" to Pres. Reagan at the 17th annual award dinner of the National Conference of Christians...

Fiction Siegfried's Memoirs by Mavis Gallant. Parody of the current tendency to lionize Nazi figures. A writer named Charles Filandreux wondered if Siegfried von Handelskammern would complete his long-awaited memoirs of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, in Paris, where from Jun. 1940 to Aug. 1944 he was the hub of an intellectual revival. Handelskammern was a...

The Talk of the Town Matisse by Natacha Stewart. Talk. Writer was walking on upper Madison Ave, intending to stop for a flower and a brioche (a friend was expected for tea) when she saw this modest sign in the window of Lucien Goldschmidt's: "HENRI MATISSE Pasiphae--Chant de Minos. Ninety original linoleum cuts composed and cut by Henri...

Books On Such a Beautiful Green Little Planet by John Updike.

Poetry The Other Side of the River by Charles Wright. Easter again, and a small rain falls...