Fiction For Scale by Laura Furman. The narrator is moving away from the East, where she has lived all her life. She and her sister meet at Port Authority and take a bus to great Barringon, Mass. Their father and stepmother have a summer house in the Berkshires. Describes the house and the quiet. Next morning...

The Theatre by Edith Oliver.

The Talk of the Town Inner Circle by Jane Boutwell. Talk story about the 1979 Inner Circle Show, "What--me worry?" an evening of political satire annually presented by a group of past and present City Hall reporters at the New York Hilton. This year's script was sharper than some previous efforts, reflecting, perhaps, the tensions that have come to...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. One of the strangest aspects of the Vietnamese-American War was the North Vietnamese government's steadfast denial of the well-known fact that its troops were carrying the main burden of the fighting in South Vietnam. For several years, a large part of the N. Vietnamese Army vanished into the...

Affairs of State by Richard H. Rovere. According to the National Taxpayer's Union, 28 state legislatures, 6 short of the required two-thirds, have passed resolutions petitioning Congress to call a convention for the purpose of proposing and ratifying a constitutional amendment that would mandate a balanced federal budget... It seems more than likely that this Congress...

The Talk of the Town G-L-O-R-I-A by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story about a party held by publishers Double-day for Gloria Vanderbilt's new book "Woman to Woman." Half of the story is dialogue of people at the party and half of the story is a list of titles, chapters and photograph captions in her book...

The Current Cinema Lamplights by Penelope Gilliatt. The Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda is being accorded a retrospective at Hunter College. Writer discusses Polish cinema. The retrospective includes "Kanal" and "Ashes and Diamonds". Reviews one of the newer films, "Man of Marble", made in 1976. Mentions "Lotna" (1959). Review of the 1968 "Everything for Sale...

The Sporting Scene LES CANADIENS SONT LA by Herbert Warren Wind. THE SPORTING SCENE about the Montreal Canadiens, officially called Le Club de Hockey Canadien, the most glitteringly successful hockey team. A preexpansion team, the Canadians have dominated the National Hockey League, the top league in N. American, for over half a century. Tells about their record-which includes winning the...

Fiction The Fig Tree by V. S. Pritchett. The narrator is a widower who runs a nursery near London. At the start of the story he visits the home of a couple he knows, with his mother. He is having an affair with the wife, Sally. Duggie, her husband, is a pompous man, who is often away on...

A Reporter at Large AUTHENTIC ACCOUNTS OF MASSACRES by Ian Frazier. REPORTER AT LARGE about attending last summer's centennial celebration of the Last Indian Raid in Kansas. Since about 1956 such a celebration has been held at the Last Indian Raid Museum in Oberlin, Kansas (named after Oberlin, Ohio). Writer learned about it from Mrs. Kathleen Claar, who has been curator...

The Talk of the Town Eclipse by David Roe. Talk story about the eclipse of the sun seen from a peak in the Rockies in Montana. Twelve men and women (and a dog named Stryker) climbed 9,000 feet on cross-country skis, camped in the snow during the night, and hiked to the top to view the eclipse at...

The Talk of the Town Birds by Henry S. F. Cooper. Talk story about a visit to the Milliken Gallery at Prince Street where the artist Arlene Slavin was working on a large wall mural for her exhibition. The mural, composed of brightly painted birds, was painted directly to the walls by Slavin and her assistants, and after the exhibit it...

Fiction The President's Resignation by Mark Strand. Writer covers the resignaton of a president whose mail concern while in office was the weather. He was criticized for spending too much on a National Museum of Weather and for his war on fluorocarbons, known as the "gas crusade." Lists Cabinet members with absurd title? present at the President's...

Poetry The Cove by Amy Clampitt. Inside the snug house, blue willowware...

Poetry The Repetitions by Howard Moss. All this loose activity: the quick...