Comment by Lincoln Caplan. Comment on recent decisions made by the United States Supreme Court striking down a law against hate speech, prohibiting spoken prayer at graduation ceremonies of public schools, and the decision about abortion that allowed broad regulation, but reaffirmed the right of women to choose it. Writer notes that the decisions...

The Talk of the Town Experiment by James Lardner. Talk story about a coin-operated, self-cleaning "automated public convenience," one of 3 pay toilets involved in a 4-month test, which went into operation last Tuesday. A French company, J.C. Decaux, supplied the toilets, while local interests saw to the water and sewer hookups, and permit the company...

The Talk of the Town Adios by Bryan Di Salvatore. Talk story about the carnivorous plants in the Biology Department's greenhouse complex at California State University, Fullerton, run by Leo C. Song, Jr...

The Talk of the Town Heaven by Richard Preston. Talk story about the writer attending his 34th nursery-school reunion. St. Anne's Playschool was in Cambridge, Mass., and it was run by Episcopalian nuns. The nuns lived in St. Anne's Convent, a white Victorian house. The play-school was a cinder-block extension that looked like a bomb shelter...

Fiction The Furniture Reunion by John S. P. Walker. Color cartoon spread showing pieces of furniture and who they are in the family...

Fiction A White Horse by Thom Jones. Ad Magic, an American "ad writer," is on a tour bus in Bombay when it is rear-ended by a truck; the impact throws him down the aisle and causes a lozenge to become lodged in his throat. A Bahrainin tourist knocks it out, much to the delight of his...

Annals of the Antiquities Trade THE ANGEL ON HER SHOULDER-I by Dan Hofstadter. ANNALS OF THE ANTIQUITIES TRADE about the theft and sale of Byzantine mosaics from the church of Panagia Kanakaria, in Lythrankomi, Cyprus. Four years ago, Peg Goldberg, a fledgling Indianapolis art dealer, bought four of the mosaics from a man posing as Aydin Dikmen, a Turkish businessman. She paid three...

The Current Cinema THREE STRIKES by Michael Sragow.

Letter from Sudan by Raymond Bonner. In June, 1989, a coup brought down the government of Sadiq al-Mahdi, which was corrupt but highly democratic. It was initially unclear what Brigadier General Omar Hassam Ahmad al-Bashir and his fellow-conspirators had in mind. In Dec. 1990, Bashir declared Sudan an Islamic state, and the government...

Books by John Updike.

Poetry Poems By Ships at Sea by Kenneth Koch. Bearing cargo, heavy cargo over the plain...

Poetry Gettysburg: July 1, 1863 by Jane Kenyon. The young man, hardly more...

Poetry Cicadas by James Reidel. The coloratura of Brood 14 stirs...