The Talk of the Town Farewell by Mark Singer. Talk story in which writer explains why he quit running in competitive marathon races. Compares different marathons: Boston, Pike's Peak, Jersey Shore, Fukuoka, and the N.Y.C. Marathon. Writer says his ambition was to beat reigning winner Bill Rodgers. Winning over him would have required running the distance--26.2 miles--more...

The Theatre by Brendan Gill.

Profiles New York Drummers by Whitney Balliett. PROFILE of three New York drummers: Tommy Benford, Freddie Moore and Sonny Greer. Tells about the changing style of jazz drumming in the twenties and thirties. Each of the drummers tells about his life, his family, and the bands he's played with. Benford, 74, has never been famous, but he...

Our Far-Flung Correspondents VULNERABLE by Richard Reeves. OUR FAR-FLUNG CORRESPONDENTS about diasters in the Los Angeles area. Describes a fire on Oct. 23, 1978 in Mandeville Canyon, in the Santa Monicas, that stopped just short of Sunset Blvd. Writer talks to Mrs. Harriett Weaver, who is considered LA's expert on brushfires. She says fires are a...

U. S. Journal TASTING by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: Baltimore, MD about Paula Rome, professional food taster, who is choosing proprietors for a food pavilion called Harborplace, a marketplace due to open in Baltimore in July 1980. Rome reviewed restaurants in Baltimore before beginning her current job. Mentions some of writer's favorite restaurants: Richard's, in Abbeville, Louisiana...

Comment by Jonathan Schell. Comment about Cambodia. Roughly half of the population that remains after the disastrous regime of Pol Pot is in peril from the famine within the next 6 months. Mrs. Zoharah Simmons, a young black woman who visited the country recently with a delegation from the American Friends Service Committee, tells...

A Reporter at Large ON THE WINDY ISLAND by William Knapp. REPORTER AT LARGE about wind energy, which is being produced on Block Island, among other places. In the 6 years since the energy crisis began the word "windmill" has been increasingly heard on windy Block Island. At least 4 moderate-sized experimental models, designed to produce electricity & technically known...

The Current Cinema by Renata Adler.

Fiction Violets by Edna O'Brien. A woman is preparing to receive a caller, a married man she met a month earlier at a Christmas party. He is rich, successful, very English. He is coming to lunch. Tells about her preparations for an hour in advance of his coming. She has read a line from Proust...

The Talk of the Town Odysseus Elytis by Katha Pollitt. Talk story about a young greengrocer, a Greek, who is thrilled that poet Odysseus Elytis has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is the second Greek Nobel Poet; George Seferis was the first. The young man believes that Yannis Ritsos will be the third. He quotes the other two...

Reflections NINETY MILES AWAY by William Pfaff. REFLECTIONS about the two centuries of U.S.-Cuban relations Writer is prompted to review the history by the recent dispute over the presence of 3,000 Soviet soldiers in Cuba, which the Russians might interpret as a purposeless act of the U.S. government or as a way to prepare Americans for...

Fiction Shadows by Harry L. Mountzoures. On Halloween, the writer takes his son David trick-or-treating with David's friend Peter, who lives across the street, and Peter's father, Louis. The writer is scared of Louis, who shows his temper easily. Louis was married for 15 years before his wife unexpectedly conceived; at times he seems...

The Talk of the Town Homage by Wallace White. Talk story about the first meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America, which has 335 members in the U.S. and Canada. The meeting was held in the Gramercy park Hotel. The society was organized earlier this year by J. David Grey, assistant principal of Junior High School 45...

Poetry The Visit by Susan Mitchell. This time I will set the table, I will place...

Poetry Einstein's Exile in an Old Dutch Winter by Norman Dubie. My theory withstood the light of the Hyades...

Poetry Ossipee: November by Philip Booth. The dark fold of the land...