A Reporter at Large II-HISTORY IN SHERMAN PARK by Jonathan Schell. REPORTER AT LARGE about visiting a Milwaukee neighborhood in the fall of 1984 to find out how some of the residents were going to vote in the Presidential election. Much of the writer's time was spent with a couple he calls Bill & Gina Gapolinsky. Bill was for Reagan &...

The Talk of the Town Fish Trip by Mark Singer. Talk story about students from the Corlears School on W. Fifteen Street (an institution that stands forthrightly in the Francis Bacon-Fred Rogers think-do-feel tradition) and their visit to De Martino's Fish Market. Bianca Posner, the head teacher of what is called the fives-sixes class (even though...

Fiction Sugar by A. S. Byatt. This story is set in Amsterdam and England, where the narrator recalls her family--mostly her father and paternal grandfather. Her father was in a hospital in Amsterdam before he was sent back to England. He was uncommunicative all through his life. Now, in his final illness, he tells about...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Books by Susan Lardner.

Comment Comment, Pt. I by E. J. Kahn. Time was when just about the only way South Africans could learn about the detention of relatives & friends was through the South African press. Since the Botha government's latest crackdown, on Dec. 12, to publish any such names over there would constitute a criminal offense. We regret to have...

Fiction On the Deck by Donald Barthelme. There is a lion on the deck of the boat. The lion looks fatigued. Waves the color of graphite. A grid placed before the lion quartering him, each quarter subdivided into 16 squares total of 64 squares through which the lion may be seen. The lion a dirty yellow-brown...

The Talk of the Town What They Were Saying One Morning Last Week (7:45-8:30) by James Stevenson. Talk story where writer quotes various people he's overheard in the course of forty-five minutes one morning. Each line has a foot note wherein the speaker of the quote is revealed. He quotes a schoolgril on M7 bus, a second schoolgirl, a woman in a suit and sneakers to...

The Talk of the Town Of Our Time by Lillian Ross. Talk story about Richard J. Thalheimer, 38, President & founder, 9 years ago, of The Sharper Image, a $130-million-per-year catalogue-cum-coast-to-coast-shops enterprise, which specializes in selling items that Thalheimer himself uses. From his headquarters in downtown San Francisco, Thalheimer, who speaks of himself...

Jazz by Whitney Balliett.

Comment by John Updike. Writer wonders, What's all this lip-syncing? The nation's most adored TV show rarely purveys an episode without Bill or Phylicia or the kids mouthing air, rolling their eyes, and demonstrating labial stops while some pop classic from the bulging vaults unfurls on the soundtrack. Filmgoers still humming from Jessica...

The Talk of the Town by Philip Hamburger. Communication received by a friend from her empathetic neighborhood savings bank: "Please fill out the enclosed W-9 form by printing your name & address. Also fill in your correct SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER and then sigh, and return...

The Current Cinema LITTLE SHOCKS, BIG SHOCKS by Pauline Kael.

Poetry A Toast for a Composer's Widow in Tashkent by Strobe Talbott. The Uzbeks, whose exotic--or, as you would say, "Eastern"--midst...