Fiction A Little Holiday by Edna O'Brien. Narrator describes a visit to her uncle's house when she was nearly 9. For years she had been begging to go there, to spend a holiday with him & his wife. A holiday was not something she was familiar with, but she imagined that on holiday one underwent some glorious...

Dancing by Arlene Croce.

The Talk of the Town The Dead and Dylan by Stanley Mieses. Talk story about attending a concert of The Grateful Dead with Bob Dylan at Giants Stadium, in the Meadowlands. Writer got a call at the last minute from his old friend the Music Maven inviting him, pleading with him because no one else would go and he had an extra...

Comment by Adam Gopnik. Throughout the weeks of the Iran-Contra hearings & particularly during the testimony of Rear AdmiralJohn Poindexter, the press & the members of the select committees have spent an enormous amount of time speculating about the existence (or nonexistence)of a "smoking gun"-some direct documentary evidence that the President...

Fiction Conjunction by John Updike. Geoff Parrish, approaching 60, had long enjoyed a relationship with stars. The images in "Wynken, Blynken & Nod"had made him queasy, testfying to a vastness of activity that went on without him all night. High school & college brought him word of what the stars really were, how senselessly...

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL MOOEY by Andy Logan. Each day, Mayor Edward Koch's office hands out a dozen or so press releases designed to demonstrate how well he is running the city despite the corruption scandals that continue to cloud the municipal scene. "You don't expect me to announce bad news, di you?" he asks reporters... Tells about...

The Talk of the Town Dessert by Anthony Hiss. Talk story about the promotion of frozen desserts, the newest of which are Shamitoff frozen fruit bars. David Braff is a 40-year-old Madison Ave. marketing and public-relations man, whose successful frozen-dessert introductions have made him a sort of summertime byword on the streets of Manhattan. It...

The Sporting Scene THE OLYMPIC CLUB AND THE OPEN by Herbert Warren Wind. THE SPORTING SCENE about the U.S. Open which was held at the Olympic Country Club this year, and won by Scott Simpson, in a close match with Tom Watson. The Olympic Country Club is in the area known as Lakeside, south of urban San Francisco. Writer gives the history of...

Letter from Israel by Amos Elon. In Israel, for the first time since 1948, one of the two major political blocs, the Labor Party, headed by Shimon Peres, was insisting that peace-or, at least peace talks-with Jordan & with moderate Palestinian nationalists was a distinct possibility. The other party, the Likud, headed by Yitzhak...

Books by Helen Vendler.

The Talk of the Town Walkabout by Naomi Bliven. Talk story about Tony Dunlap, a 46-year old Australian, who when he was getting ready to fly from Melbourne on his first visit to the U.S., packed his boomerangs. When he landed in N.Y.C., he linked up with Holly English-Payne, who referred him to Barnaby Ruhe, an American...

The Current Cinema A LADY SURRENDERS by Pauline Kael.

Poetry The Summer Hawk Two Poems by Leslie Norris. I wait in the blue light for...