A Reporter at Large I-THE NEW ORDER by Raymond Bonner. A REPORTER AT LARGE about Indonesia... Indonesia is a country whose potential role in world affairs seems to be inversely proportional to the world's general knowledge of it. With 170 million people, it is the world's fifth most populous nation & its Muslim population is larger than that of any...

Fiction Mendocino by Ann Packer. A young woman named Bliss drives from LA to Mendocino County to visit her brother, Gerald, whom she hasn't seen in over a year. It is the tenth anniversary of their father's suicide. Bliss and Gerald were once close, but now he has adopted a more bohemian lifestyle. He has...

The Talk of the Town Dismount by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about Mark Kindschi, a 37-year-old, self-taught slack-walker, and ex-street performer. Writer speaks with him aboard his tugboat on the Hudson where Kindschi talked about his past and present performing, and his decision to leave New York City Slack-rope is different than tightrope...

The Talk of the Town Beatrix Potter by Laurie Colwin. Talk story about the Beatrix Potter exhibition at the Pierpont Morgan Library. The show is entitled, "Beatrix Potter: Artist and Storyteller," but Potter was first and foremost a naturalist, and the walls of the Morgan testify to that. Tells about the life of Potter, who was born in 1866. A...

Fiction Boys Who Do the Bop by Rick Rofihe. Writer relates story of his four-day weekend stay in Boston with Enid, a friend who once wanted to be a singer, and who entertains him with several songs, including "Boys Who Do The Bop," as he tries to learn typing from an instruction book. He spends the night on...

The Talk of the Town Armen and Arman by Brendan Dealy. Talk story about Armen Armirian and Arman Shahikian, whom writer calls the Armenian car men. On the third Monday of every month, they give free over-the-air advice to anyone who calls into WNYC with car trouble. Writer went down to WNYC not long ago, sat in Control Room...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Books by Jeremy Bernstein.

In Fashion THE RITES OF SPRING by Holly Brubach. IN FASHION about the 1988 Fall collections in Milan, London, Paris, and New York. Writer notes overall trends and discusses the fashion press and the role of design and designers. She saw: Romeo Gigli, Dolce & Gabbana, Gianni Versace, Gianfranco Ferre, Giorgio Armani, Fendi, Ferragamo, Franco Moschino, Bruce Oldfield, Caroline...

The Theatre A STORY OF MORE WOE by Edith Oliver.

Comment by Mark Herstgaard. Comment about Manuel Noriega, the military strongman who runs Panama, and who is an alleged drug trafficker under indictment by two federal grand juries, and the man the Reagan Administration has been struggling to force from power since early February. This 4-month crusade against Noriega has been pathetic to...

Reflections HOW THE LAND LAY by V. S. Naipaul. REFLECTIONS about Tuskegee Univ. in Tuskegee, Ala. It was founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington. When writer was a child in Trinidad, his father read him"Up from Slavery"as a fairy story & in the part of his consciousness where it was lodged it was stripped both of...

Poetry Mountain Time by Eavan Boland. Time is shadowless there. Mornings reoccur...

Poetry Notes on the 1860s by Lars Gustafsson. George Boole's book on the laws of thought appeared in...