Comment Comment, Pt. II by Berton Roueche. Writer is a frequenter of old cemeteries enjoying their "marble stories". The other weekend when he was down in Southampton, he paid a visit to its North End Graveyard. It had its first burial in 1717 & was "abandoned" in 1940. Tells about some of the gravestones. He wonders how...

Letter from Beijing by Fred C. Shapiro. Describes the city of Beijing a year after the Tiananmen Square massacre. In the aftermath of what the government now refers to as the "Tiananmen incident" of Jun. 4, 1989, the occupancy rate of many hotels has been 50% or less, and "China Daily", the official English-language newspaper, conceded...

In Fashion by Holly Brubach.

The Theatre INTERVIEW by Edith Oliver.

The Talk of the Town Heads Up by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about garlic. Allium Sativum(garlic)has not always enjoyed a kind reputation on these shores; a lot of people still associate it exclusively with bad breath and vampires. That's bound to change, though, now that garlic has its first queen; Jane Brody. A few Sundays ago, writer attended...

The Talk of the Town Whirligig by Adam Gopnik. Talk story about a collection of x-rated whirligigs purchased by Morgan Rank, an art dealer in East Hampton. Tells about the toy windmills...

A Reporter at Large BETWEEN DICTATORSHIP AND ANARCHY by David K. Shipler. REPORTER AT LARGE about politics in the Soviet Union, especially the meetings of the Congress of People's Deputies in March, which elected Gorbachev President. On Mar. 15 Gorbachev put his right hand on a binder that held the newly amended Soviet Constitution & swore himself in as the Soviet Union's...

Comment Comment, Pt. I by Garrison Keillor. Comment about writer and his son, whom he tries to call to wish him Happy Birthday. Instead, he gets a woman's recorded voice saying the number had been temporarily disconnected. She said, "No further information is available about this number," and further information was exactly what the writer wanted: where...

A Critic at Large THE ESSENCE OF LANDSCAPE by Terrence Rafferty. A CRITIC AT LARGE about Jean Renoir's classic film "The Rules of the Game" ("La Regle du Jeu"). The French title is richer, more apt, and more ambiguous, since jeu means more than a game: it can also refer to the playing of music, and to acting, the playing of...

Fiction Cold Heart by Jamaica Kincaid. A 19-year-old girl leaves her home in the Caribbean, becoming the live-in servant of Mariah, Lewis, and their children in an American city. Her friend Peggy introduces her to Paul, an artist with whom she forms a sexual relationship. As Lewis and Mariah's marriage fails, the narrator...

Poetry First Asthma by Mark Rudman. I must have been no more than six...

Poetry Outside Perpignan in Heavy Rain by Nicholas Christopher. The trees sway darkly...

Poetry Pentimento by Lizbeth Rosenberg. In the window of the door a ghost hand is waving...