Comment The Third Man by Hendrik Hertzberg. Comment on the independent Presidential candidacy of H. Ross Perot, and his being allowed to participate in the Presidential debates. Perot has advocated what he calls the "electronic town hall." The stockholders got a taste of what this brand of technological plebiscitarism might actually entail when they called Perot's toll...

The Talk of the Town War of Words by Helen Thorpe. Talk story about suit by author Gordon Lish against Harper's Magazine for publishing a letter to his writing students without permission. Harper's claims that the letter is a form letter and an"piece of sales promotion" while Lish claims that the letter serves as "an exhibition of a certain kind...

The Talk of the Town Voice Vote by James Albrecht. Talk story about treatment for Clinton's voice strain during the Presidential campaign. Clinton's Little Rock laryngologist, Dr. James Suen, referred the candidate to Dr. Wibur James Gould of the Center for Communication Disorders at Lenox Hill Hospital. Gould has treated at least one candidate in every Presidential election since 1960...

The Talk of the Town Confidential Memorandum by Christopher Buckley. Talk story about the new $75 million residences of Sid and Mercedes Bass in Fort Worth and New York City. The story is in the form of a press release from the Zeit and Geist Public Relations firm on how to present the Bass' extravagance as concern for the economy...

The Talk of the Town Free-for-all by Helen Thorpe. Talk story about Robert Casey's speaking engagement at Cooper Union. Cooper Union and the Village Voice invited Casey, the Democrat governor of Pennsylvania, to present his pro-life position. Casey was prevented from doing so at the Democratic National Convention. Neither Nat Hentoff, columnist for the Voice who introduces Casey...

The Talk of the Town Atwater's Legacy by Sidney Blumenthal. Talk story about Lee Atwater, former chairman of the Republican National Committee and George Bush's campaign manager in 1988, who died last year. Matalin, who was Atwater's protege and is now deputy campaign manager of the 1992 campaign, discusses how much she misses Atwater and how his unique talents cannot...

Postcard from Berlin GUNTER'S GHOSTS by Ian Buruma. POSTCARD FROM BERLIN about Gunter Grass. His latest novel, "The Call of the Toad," was savaged by the two popes of German literature: Marcel Reich-Ranicki, whose TV show builds & destroys literary reputations, and Frank Schirrmacher, literary editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Other German reviewers were more charitable...

Letter from Washington High Noon by Elizabeth Drew. When James Baker threw the long bomb at the end of Sept. by having George Bush, who had been avoiding debates, suddenly call for four of them, he caught the Clinton campaign in mid-ambivalence. The Clinton campaign was deeply divided over whether debates were in Clinton's interest. The disagreement...

Postscript LAST SET by Whitney Balliett. POSTSCRIPT on the late Sylvia Syms. Her last show was in May, at the Algonquin (it was the first time she'd worked there). She had put together a tribute called "Sylvia Syms Celebrates Sinatra," backed by Russ Kassoff on piano & Steve La Spina on bass. Writer interviewed her in...

Casual Issues and Non-Issues by Ian Frazier. Casual about the American Prosperity Foundation, Inc., an office-based sampling organization which seeks to define issues as issues or non-issues. Although some pairs were clearcut (ISSUE: My taxes/NON-ISSUE: Your taxes), others were harder to define. Asseries of new bosses are brought in and Marcie, who is...

A Reporter at Large THE VELVET PURGE: THE TRIALS OF JAN KAVAN by Lawrence Weschler. A REPORTER AT LARGE about Jan Kavan, a Czech dissident, who was accused of collaborating with the Czech secret police or StB, and was "lustrated" or purged from Parliament as a result, and his campaign to clear his name. Also tells about lustration there in general. His father was a...

Artist's Notebook HAIL TO THE CHIEFS by Adam Gopnik. ARTIST'S NOTEBOOK about artist Morgan Monceaux, showing his portraits of Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan... Monceaux is an artist who has been homeless for part of his career. He was born 44 years ago...

Fiction Zalla by Ann Beattie. The narrator speaks of his family. His Uncle Thomas Sr. died from a pneumonia. But, family legend had it that he died from a fall. Thomas Sr's cousin, Pete, had been struck by lightning. These two deaths were always recounted together. The narrator discusses his cousin, Little Thomas, who as...

The Theatre CAPRICE OF THE GODS by John Lahr.

The Current Cinema MEN OVERBOARD by Terrence Rafferty.

Musical Events by Paul Griffiths.

Books by John Updike.

Books by George Steiner.

Shouts & Murmurs JUST DESSERTS by Adam Gopnik. SHOUTS AND MURMURS about the passing of the classic N.Y. French restaurant--an institution that developed just after the World's Fair of 1939 and now seems to be on the way out. Of about 50 French restaurants listed in a 1980 N.Y. restaurant guidebook 32 have disappeared, many in the...

The Film File Sarafina! by Michael Sragow. It promises to adopt a daring street-cabaret approach to the Soweto children’s rebellion in 1976. But after a couple of big numbers shot and cut in the ragged, grabby style of “Fame,” the movie version of Mbongeni Ngemi’s musical drama settles into a conventional coming-of-political-age story. Inspired by an idealistic...

Poetry Money by Charlie Smith. My father and I argue over money- his loss...

Poetry On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane by Philip Levine. Brooklyn, 1929...

Poetry Iowa by William Logan. The plains of Iowa dreamed, or seemed to dream...