The Current Cinema by Michael Sragow.

Comment by Mindy Aloff. A comment about Jinx Falkenburg and a breast exam writer took. Writer tells about going to a clinic for an x-ray and reading about forties cover girl Jinx Falkenburg while she was waiting. If you haven't heard about Jinx, or her Botticelli-like physical proportions you may want to...

The Talk of the Town Traffic Man by James Lardner. Talk story about Michael Primeggia, the deputy commissioner in charge of the city's Traffic Bureau, who gave the writer a tour of midtown Manhattan, explaining the various traffic signs used there. Some signs contain a whole series of instructions; Mr. Primeggia explains that these signs serve a host of needs...

The Talk of the Town Homage by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about documentary film director Frederick Wiseman. He has directed "Canal Zone," "Titicut Follies," "Near Death," "Welfare," "Central Park," and many other lengthy accretive documentaries, which, taken together, seem to be adding up to the most intently realized study of contemporary American life we possess. Writer writes story as...

Casual Rating the Hot New H2Os by Bruce McCall. Illustrated casual showing bottles of exotic water, which are described and rated as if they were wines. The waters are called Onkle Nep, Klush, Spiff, Arapaho, Pride of the Andes, Pompeii Premium Lite, Traffic Baby, Wasserstoff, and Klinka Klota. Illustrated in color...

Fiction The Handbook of Interracial Dating by Darryl Pinckney. The narrator, a black man, recounts his friendship with a black woman named Bargetta. They meet when they are college students, in New York; their other college friends are white. They are denounced as Uncle Toms by a consciousness-raising group called the Soul Sisters of Barnard. Bargetta dates a...

A Reporter at Large STARTING FROM SCRATCH by Fred C. Shapiro. REPORTER AT LARGE about Mongolia. In 1921 the country embraced Communism, &, within 3 years became the unofficial "sixteenth Soviet republic". Eight years ago, in a move almost unnoticed in the West, it became the first of the Eastern-bloc satellites to begin breaking away from Soviet control & from...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Reflections THE DISORDERS OF PEACE by Richard J. Barnet. REFLECTIONS about the post-Cold War world. In the first flush of the Persian Gulf victory, it was commonplace to assert that the U.S. had shown itself capable of deploying its military power in such a way as to usher in a new American Century. But, as the months have...

Books The Method of the Method by Michael Sragow.

Poetry Beautiful Miles by Sydney Lea. Thunder outdoors...

Poetry Bedrooms by Sandra McPherson. Who are you, coming without flash and standing high...

Poetry Naked Seed by Celia Gilbert. Look at this pinecone, Father...