Letter from Los Angeles by Joan Didion. The entire question of houses & what they were worth (and what they should be worth and what it meant when the roof over someone's head was also his or her major asset) was understandably more on the local mind than perhaps it should have been, which was one reason...

Dancing by Alastair Macaulay.

The Sky Line by Brendan Gill.

The Current Cinema TRUE DETECTIVE by Terrence Rafferty.

The Talk of the Town Hay by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about a man who had a leak in his apartment. He lives in a loft building on the southern fringe of SoHo. At three in the morning he was lying awake and heard a funny noise. He discovered that water was coming through the ceiling. He putsa couple...

The Theatre BEHAVIN' by Edith Oliver.

Fiction Fat Chance by Penelope Gilliatt. Story about Amanda and her father Stephen who live in London. The family is rather poor, especially since Stephen is out of work at the beginning. Amanda's mother decides to leave to marry someone else, but Amanda decides to stay with her father. They are very close, and are happy...

The Talk of the Town Four Guys and a Concept by Nancy Ramsey. A talk story about the development of a new gag gift, the Dirt Bag. The Dirt Bag is "dirt hermetically sealed in a clear plastic bag, inside a white box about five inches square. Retail price: twelve dollars." Brad LeBeau, who came up with the original idea for the Dirt...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Dancing by Alastair Macaulay. Brief overview of the work of choreographer Frederick Ashton, who worked with many British companies and was in New York in 1934. He died on Thursday, Aug. 18, 1988...

A Reporter at Large TEHERAN SUMMER by Robin Wright. REPORTER AT LARGE about Iran. In July Iran agreed to unconditionally accept UN Resolution 598 for a ceasefire ending the war with Iraq. This spring there were some anti-war demonstrations and clerics were making pilgrimages to tell Khomeini, bluntly, that the war was sapping public morale. This was a...

The Talk of the Town Pogies by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about the Soviet factory ship Riga, out of Murmansk, which recently dropped anchor off the coast of Maine near the fishing villages of New Harbor & Round Pond. The ship's mission is to buy 40,000 metric tons of dead pogies from local fishermen & render the pogies into...

Comment by Job. H. Lippincott. Comment about growing up in Chatham, NJ, in 1950... The long summer days were divided into 3 parts by compulsory breaks for lunch & supper. Everybody had supper back then--not dinner, except on holidays. We would play all morning, or canvass the neighborhood on our bikes to see who...

Poetry Twelve Medieval Arabic Poems by Christopher Middleton. Reflection of Wine" "Satire" "Galley Oars" "Honey River" "The Dove" "The Quince...