Fiction Hyppolite by Natacha Stewart. Narrator was in Haiti in 1950, on her honeymoon, when she and her husband bought a painting by an artist named Hyppolite, who was becoming famous. Narrator was suffering from asthma and she was frequently up most of the night. Her husband spent some nights with a Yugoslav who was...

Reflections WRITING ITSELF: ON ROLAND BARTHES by Susan Sontag. REFLECTIONS about the late Roland Barthes, French man of letters, who died in early 1980 when he was struck by a van. Of all the intellectual notables who have emerged since WW II in France, it is Roland Barthes whose work the writer is certain will endure. Barthes's writing, with...

Musical Events Fluting by Nicholas Kenyon.

The Talk of the Town A Reading by Naomi Bliven. Talk story about attending a marathon reading by well-known writers & actors from some "banned" books at the Public Theatre on Lafayette Street. Nearly four years ago, the American Center of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists, or P.E.N., the writers' association, formed a Freedom to Write Committee...

Letter from London by Mollie Panter-Downes. The Argentine invasion of Britain's Falkland Islands, in the South Atlantic, has bewildered and angered most Britons. Calls for the resignation of Mrs. Thatcher, Foreign Scretary Carrington, and Defense Secretary John Nott have led only to the departure of Carrington, and his replacement by Francis Pym. A large naval task...

Comment Comment (Pt. 1) by Andrea Lee Fallows. We have received a report on the historic April blizzard from a young woman we know: Just after dark on the evening of what people were already starting to call the Blizzard of '82, I went cross-country skiing with a friend in Central Park. Since I have no car...

Personal History RUSSIAN BLOOD I-SHIDEYEVO by Alex Shoumatoff. PERSONAL HISTORY about the writer's Russian family on his father's side. His grandmother was born Elizaveta Nicolaevna Avinoff, Dec. 18, 1888, in Kharkov. She died sixteen months ago, and was always called Mopsy by her children and grandchildren. At the time of her birth, her father commanded an infantry regiment...

The Talk of the Town Initiative by Mark Singer. Talk story about an interview with Harold Willens, about a California referendum for next Election Day, Nov. 2, calling for a bilateral nuclear-weapons freezeNa proposal that the governments of the U.S. and the Soviet Union "agree to immediately halt the testing, production and further deployment of all nuclear weapons...

Comment by Garrison Keillor. A young man who lives in Minnesota was impatient for apring to arrive because of a trip he took south to Virginia in February for three warm days, which moved his clock ahead. When he flew back north to winter he was set for April. The deep snow on the...

Fiction Rain Check by Frederick Barthelme. Narrator is on a date with a woman named Lucille, who is much younger than he. He is almost forty. She has chosen the restaurant, which is called Red Legs. All the waiters work in dresses. Their waiter is a stumpy guy in a hoopskirt. During the meal, Lucille tells...

The Talk of the Town Stoves by James Stevenson. Illustrated Talk story about an exhibit at the New-York Historical Society of cast-iron stoves called "Cast with Style: Nineteenth Century Cast-Iron Stoves from the Albany Area," which got under way not long ago. Eighty antique black beauties were displayed on the second floor of the museum. Illustrations...

Poetry The Swan at Sheffield Park by David St. John. It is a dim April...