Comment Comment Malice Toward Some by Hendrik Hertzberg. Comment on the Bush-Quayle re-election campaign's attacks on homosexuals. On ABC's "This Week with David Brinkley," V.P. Quayle revealed that he is pro-choice in one sense--he believes that homosexuality is a choice. This myth is indispensable to the prejudice against homosexuals, a bigotry the Republican Party...

The Talk of the Town Family Ties by Richard Cohen. Talk story about William Haley, son of Pulitzer Prize winner Alex Haley, and his disappointment over the auctioning of his late father's estate. George Haley, his father's younger brother and executor of Alex Haley's estate, claims that the only solution to the debtridden farm is an auction. William Haley, only...

The Talk of the Town Beltway Succession by Helen Thorpe. Talk story about Andrew Rosenthal and his new promotion as editor of the Times Washington, DC bureau. He is compared to his father, Abe Rosenthal, the executive editor of the Times who stepped down in 1986. Although driven like his father, Andrew's lack of a hot temper definately distinguishes the...

The Talk of the Town Arthur! Arthur! by Brendan Gill. Talk story about a 75th birthday party held for Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. Schleslnger celebrated his 75th birthday last week, at a party held in one of those marble-hailed, oak-panelled clubs that appear to exist expressly for such occasions. Serving as toastmaster, William vanden Heuvel made it clear...

The Talk of the Town Private Lives by Blake Morrison. Talk story about Sir Stephen Spender's battle with unauthorized biographer Hugh David...

Dept. of Advance Warning MADONNA'S ANTICLIMAX by Calvin Tomkins. DEPARTMENT OF ADVANCE WARNING about Madonna's picture book "Sex," which arrives this week to the sound of heavy breathing in the media. It is a book of erotic fantasies which is an international media event--a first printing of 750,000 copies, issued in 5 languages, together with a bonus CD...

The Diplomatic Round SHUNNING THE LOSERS by John Newhouse. THE DIPLOMATIC ROUND assessing the foreign-policy achievements & faults of Pres. Bush & former Sec. of State James Baker. Bush will be remembered for his preoccupation with foreign affairs, to the exclusion of domestic matters. No President can deal effectively with one at the expense of the other. History...

Casual Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Pundits by Michael Kinsley. Casual about the broad influence of political pundits on American politics. Kinsley cites Eric Alterman's "Sound & Fury: The Washington Punditocracy and the Collapse of American Politics" which says that pundits have a larger role than ever even though they are not held accountable for their predictions. He writes that...

The Talk of the Town Mailbox by Pamela Tamarkin. Use of the word "sussed...

Couch Reporter BOX POPULI by Harold Brodkey. COUCH REPORTER about the second Presidential debate, which writer felt Clinton won triumphantly. Bush is an aging Shakespearean figure, caught by his own history, betrayed and abandoned by nearly everyone; he is possibly ill, most likely worried about scandals breaking and to come. He seemed concerned chiefly not with gaining...

A Reporter at Large CRISIS IN THE HOT ZONE by Richard Preston. A REPORTER AT LARGE about an outbreak of Ebola Reston, a virus deadly to monkeys, but apparently harmless in humans. It is similar to Ebola Zaire, a virus which kills 9 out of 10 humans. Tells about the effects of Ebola Zaire on humans and about other diseases which have...

Letter from Dallas BIG D, LITTLE H.R.P. by Lawrence Wright. LETTER FROM DALLAS about H. Ross Perot. Like Perot, Dallas present itself as brash, and cocksure, infectiously optimistic and full of answers, but anyone who has come to know the city well will recognize a paranoid side, which is also mirrored in Perot: thin-skinned, suspicious, intolerant, easily offended, yet...

Fiction The Chinese Lobster by A. S. Byatt. The story takes place in a Chinese restaurant in central London at lunchtime. Dr. GerdasHimmelblau, the Dean of Women Students at a Londonuuniversity, enters the restaurant and notices a new lobster tank and feels sympathy for the lobster. Dr. Himmelblau has received a complaint from peggi nollett describing allegations that...

Ecologist at Large BREAKING GROUND by Anthony Hiss. AN ECOLOGIST AT LARGE about Mott Haven, a community-garden project at a lot in the South Bronx, at one of the city's worst drug-dealing sites. George Calderon, a neighborhood drug lord murdered last spring, employed 200 local people; he is remembered positively by quite a few for hiring...

Jazz by Whitney Balliett.

Musical Events by Paul Griffiths.

Books by Wilfred Sheed.

Books by Adam Gopnik.

Shouts & Murmurs STRANGER THAN FICTION by Julian Barnes. SHOUTS AND MURMURS about the writer's visit to Bulgaria upon the publication of his novel "The Porcupine." The novel is a fictional account loosely based on the trial of former Bulgarian Communist head Todor Zhivkov, who is now serving a seven-year sentence. Bulgarians are justly suspicious of Westerners writing...

The Film File Of Mice and Men by Michael Sragow. The director and co-star, Gary Sinise, has been quoted as saying “I saw the 1939 film version and it was such a product of its time that it meant nothing to me. I thought Lon Chaney, Jr., was real hammy.” Actually, Lewis Milestone’s version of John Steinbeck’s tragic fable, with...

Poetry The Doll's Museum in Dublin by Eavan Boland. The wounds are terrible. The paint is old...

Poetry Hitchhiker by Galway Kinnell. We were driving through the darkness...

Poetry You Brune Your List In Summer by Deborah Garrison. Where I am the sky has been trying...