Dance At the National Shoe Fair at the Coliseum (Estimated Attendance: 11,000) by Ian Frazier. Talk story consisting of snatches of conversation heard at the National Shoe Fair alternating with descriptions of shoes the writer is looking for: "Ralph. Giorgio. Hey, all the big hitters are her today." Looking everywhere for a tennis shoe with a protective toe pad to reduce all that dad-blamed...

Affairs of State by Richard H. Rovere. In most opinion surveys, large majorities consider Pres. Carter a fine, intelligent, dedicated man, but unsuited to lead the nation. In an election held now, he would lose to Gerald Ford. Among the people who voted for him only half feel he should seek reelection; most Democrats would prefer Edw...

The Talk of the Town Recognition by Stanley Mieses. Talk story about 89-year-old Italian-born Dominick Longobardi, longtime resident of the South Village. He walks every day from Broome St. to Washington Square Park. He greets neighborhood people & others and shows them photographs that he carries with him, and talks about the neighborhood. Writer accompanies him...

The Talk of the Town Crash by Wallace White. Talk story about the Sixth Annual Latin and Greek Institute given at the Graduate School and University of the City University of New York on West 42 St., in cooperation with the School of Humanities of Brooklyn College. It is being given for 11 weeks this summer. For the past...

The Talk of the Town Summer Headquarters by Anthony Hiss. Talk story about free Jazzmobile concert by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers at Grant's Tomb. C. Steven McGann, who works for the National Planning Data Corporation, an Ithaca, New York, group that assists corporations setting up affirmative-action programs, introduced the writer to his friends in the audience. He...

The Current Cinema A NEW RUSSIAN CLASSIC by Penelope Gilliatt.

Fiction The Trip(Illus.) by Charles Saxon. A story told by means of drawings and captions. Driving back to Hartford on a summer day Grayson Thomas, insurance salesman, pulled off the road and stopped his car. He wandered into a small grove of birches. There he met a beautiful, gossamer girl, who asked about his work, and...

Books by Sanford Schwartz.

Fiction The Bus by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Jewish writer recalls a crazy bus trip he took in 1956 from Geneva through Spain. His first travelling companion is Celina Weyerhofer, a grotesque woman who tells him she is a refugee from a concentration camp married to a Swiss banker who is on the bus but does not ride...

The Race Track THE RACE TKACK by G. F. T. Ryall. Although Affirmed beat Alydar by a length and three-quarters at the Travers Stakes at Saratoga last Saturday, the stewards disqualifed the colt for interference down the backstretch, placing him second to Alydar. Pincay, who was riding Affirmed, was given a seven-day suspension, beginning this Friday. John Veitch, Alydar's...

Meditation Drifter by Michael Meyers. Meditation on evolutionary changes in the human face and the nature of reality: "Like continents, our facial features are adrift. They move across the bone plates of our heads. Our eyes are not moving capriciously but are slowly working their way toward the ears. This movement is the physical result...

Comment by Donald Barthelme. A friend writes that he is not easily dazzled, but the plans for the new Senate Office Building-cum-Hanging Gardens sent him into ecstasies of awe. At 135 million dollars, that's 1.3 million per senator. Mere splendor cannot be the explanation for such an extravagant outlay. The senators must...

Fiction What They Did by Freddy Bosco. In which we learn what they did, from book titles found in the catalogue of a famous American university library. They all come out. They all need to talk. They all want to write. They builded better than they knew. They called me Alfred. They came as friends. They came...

Reflections BOOM AND CRASH by Robert Heilbroner. REFLECTIONS about the current state of capitalism. After a period of growth from 1950 to 1972 there was a crisis in late 1973 & growth was halted. By now almost all capitalist economies have recovered. Yet a sense of a problem unsolved lingers. The immediate cause of the crisis can...

Dept. of Amplification by Barbara L. Nichols. DEPT. OF AMPLIFICATION on Comment on abortion from issue of July 3, 1978. In it reference was made to groups who "pay nurses for lists of women who have abortions." Writer, who is President of the American Nurses' Association in Kansas City, Missouri, says such activity constitutes unprofessional & unethical...

Poetry The Messenger by Jean Valentine. In the strange house...

Poetry Fergus Falling by Galway Kinnell. He climbed to the top...