The Talk of the Town Comics by Emily Hahn. Talk story about exhibit of past & present comics at Lever House in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of this form of art. Alfred Andriola, creator of "Kerry Drake," discussed with the writer the first comic strip which appeared in the N.Y. "World" Sun, Feb. 16, 1896 edition and became...

Fiction The Story Thus Far (Illus.) by Donald Barthelme. Borys Althusser, wealthy young manufacturer of sensitive electronic instruments, for which he has immense govt. contracts, discovers one evening that something has come between himself and his beautiful wife Evelyn. Illustration shows a huge device separating them. Subsequent illustrations & text tell of his efforts to solve the problem. He...

The Talk of the Town Ping-Pong Parlor by George W. S. Trow. Talk story about a visit to a ping-pong parlor at 96th & Broadway. There were also pin-ball machines. One was Midway's Carnival...

U. S. Journal SOME QUESTIONS THAT OCCUR TO AN OLDIE TAKING THE SUN by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: FLORIDA compares today's college students, who may go for days without passing out from the effects of alcohol, to the students of 20yrs. ago, who tossed footballs around and drank beer. The football throwers & beer drinkers variety still vacations at Fort Lauderdale & Daytona Beach, although neither...

The Talk of the Town Slow and Serene by Susan Sheehan. Talk interview with Paul Wohl, 70, who lives with 12 turtles. Until last fall, Wohl, who is the Communist-affairs specialist for the "Christian Science Monitor," lived with 47 turtles, but was forced to give most of them away due to his advancing age & the necessity of giving up...

Our Far-Flung Correspondents BURIAL IN VENICE by Francis Steegmuller. OUR FAR-FLUNG CORRESPONDENTS about the burial in Venice, on April 15 of the exiled Russian composer, Igor Stravinsky...

Comment by Richard H. Rovere. Viewing the veterans' demonstration against the war this past week, we were struck by the thought that a handful of these same veterans might just possibly make a great & early contribution to ending the war. The President has said that there will be American troops in S. Vietnam as...

The Talk of the Town Bench by Lillian Ross. Talk story about Earth Week. Writer took a sandwich & a pear to one of the benches that were set up in the middle of Madison Ave. for two hours each day at lunchtime. One of her bench companions was Mrs. Powell Robinson, who was working on a needlepoint representation...

Letter from Washington by Richard H. Rovere. A Washington-Peking axis is a possibility, & merely by keeping the possibility alive the Administration & all of us can benefit in large ways & small. There was a time when Richard Nixon would have cried treason if a Pres. had talked about China as he has been talking...

The Race Track No Selections by G. F. T. Ryall. With Jim Stewart Mervyn LeRoy runs Hollywood Park in the Los Angeles area...

The Theatre by Edith Oliver.

Musical Events by Winthrop Sargeant.

Fiction F.R.A.N.K. by Penelope Gilliatt. Matthew Paget is a cyberneticist working on a Family Robot Adapted to the Needs of Kinship(FRANK). He is a young Englishman teaching in a New Hampshire university. His wife is away working in Rome & he is at home with their four year old daughter, Aston & housekeeper, Mrs...

Reflections Custine by George F. Kennan. Astolphe de Custine was a 19th century French aristocrat, who wrote a book called "La Russie en 1839", after a visit to Russia in that year. It is strangely disturbing that he found conditions of despotism that foretold later Russian history, up to the present. Although his viewpoint was narrow...

The Talk of the Town At The Factory by George W. S. Trow. In a talk story about a visit to the Factory of Andy Warhol to view a new film, Paul Morrissey told the following anecdote about a stuffed Great Dane that was there. "That's a dog that once belonged to Cecil B. De Mille," Mr. Morrissey said. "He was a very...

Poetry Home by Seamus Heaney. Bushing the door, my arms full...

Poetry Old Apple Trees by W. D. Snodgrass. Like battered old mill hands, they stand in the...