The Talk of the Town Work by George W. S. Trow. Talk story about Mme. Alix Gres, a designer of Paris, whose work using the motifs of drapery and easy form has been around since at least 1937. Writer meets her at the home of Mrs. Robert McKinney, president of the Musicians' Emergency Fund, which shows Mme. Gres's current collection at...

Dancing The Entertainer by Arlene Croce.

Onward and Upward with the Arts I-THE BLOCKBUSTER COMPLEX by Thomas Whiteside. ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS about trade-book publishing. Since the early 60s it has been subjected to some startling changes. The most drastic has been the merging of individual publishing houses with ever-larger corporate organizations. Tells about some of the takeovers. Another change is the increase in...

Fiction The Riddle of Matthew Arnold by Lynn Caraganis. Parody of a biography of the poet Matthew Arnold. He was not what he seemed. In the evenings after dinner he hammered and sawed in his workshop. He and his wife Ida were helping their children Patty and Brian onto the schoolbus one day when the little children called them...

The Air (On Television) The Ancient Mariner and the Wedding Guest by Michael J. Arlen.

A Reporter at Large REAGAN:1980 by Elizabeth Drew. A REPORTER AT LARGE about the most recent weeks of Ronald Reagan's Presidential campaign. His travels of the week of September 7th are intended to expand his political base in the nation's large industrial states. His aides, concerned by their candidate's tendency to speak off the top of his head...

The Talk of the Town Unaffiliated by Ian Frazier. Talk story about the 36th Annual Chinese-American Invitational Volleyball Tournament, in Columbus Park, in Chinatown. Teams came on chartered buses from San Francisco, Toronto, Montreal, and Washington, D.C. People were everywhere, and they were all speaking Chinese. The tournament was unaffiliated. It was not sponsored by Pepsi-Cola, McDonald's...

Comment by Jeremy Bernstein. Quotes from a letter from a chess-playing friend who recently bought a machine that plays chess. It is called the Sensory Chess Challenger, put out by Fidelity Electronics. He tells how it works. He started out at its "Beginner" level, then moved 2 levels up to "Experienced". He tried...

Fiction An Unscheduled Stop by Alice Adams. Claire Williston, West Coast editor of a national magazine, living in San Francisco, bursts into tears on a flight between Atlanta and Washington D.C., during a fact-finding trip for an article on the South. The plane makes an unscheduled stop at Hilton, the mid-Southern town where Claire grew...

Musical Events A Half-and-Half Affair by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Music by James Stevenson. Talk story about a middle-aged messenger named Rudy who started his musical career because he was tired of all the honking and noise in the streets. He hits things with a ball-point pen as he goes past. He started out with a plastic spoon, which he broke against...

The Talk of the Town Looking at the Cathedral by Mark Singer. Talk story about a visit to the stoneyard at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, which is located at 113th St. and Amsterdam Ave. Mr. Bambridge is the supervisor of construction for the cathedral, a master builder from Dorset, England. He is concurrently involved in the restoration of...

The Current Cinema AS SWIFT AS BUZZARD FLIES by Pauline Kael.

Poetry Revivals of "Tristan" by James Merrill. The loving cup was poisoned...

Poetry Hawaii Dantesca by Charles Wright. White-sided flowers are thrusting up on the hillside...