Fiction Weeding by Katinka Loeser. A woman weeds her garden in the company of her cats, Ms. White and Mr. White. It is springtime and she wishes to clear the weeds before the flowers bloom. Describes the flowers in the garden, the insect life and her process of weeding. She has difficulty distinguishing the weeds...

Fiction Route 17 by Jonathan Mark. Misha, a small boy, travels to the Catskills with his orthodox Jewish family for the Passover holidays. His grownup brother Tigran tells him stories drawn from Sholem Aleichem; his mother holds him in her lap and tries to lull him to sleep by singing a lullaby. They ride along Route...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Fiction A Foggy Mirror by Daniel Menaker. Parody of "A Distant Mirror" (The Forward To a Study That Will Do to 1978 What Barbara Tuchman Has Done To The Fourteenth Century.) This study was undertaken in the hope that a chronicle of 1978 might illuminate our own time. At first glance, that year would seem to have...

The Talk of the Town Craft by Kennedy Fraser. Talk story about an artist friend's visit to a printing plant in New Jersey where he worked on the colors for the children's book he did. He unfurls the long white roll of uncut pages on the floor of the writer's apartment and tells about his visit to the plant...

The Talk of the Town Taped by James Stevenson. Talk story about Ralph Gelbert, newsstand proprietor on the northwest corner of Forty-sixth Street. Taped music issues from. two speakers attached to either side of his newsstand. Interspersed with the music are announcements, taped in Gelbert's voice, advertising various newspapers and magazines. Gelbert, a former child star, talks about...

The Talk of the Town Famous by Mark Singer. Talk story about Selma Glasser, of Borough Park, who teaches a course in the adult education program of Brooklyn College, titled Writing for Prize and Publication. Tells about the course, which lasts 8 weeks and costs $20. Mrs. Glasser teaches people how to win prizes or contests, such as those...

Comment by Anthony Lewis. Comment about letter by the Directorate of Publications, in South Africa, explaining why it banned a pamphlet, published by the National Union of South African Students, that argues against the demolition of Crossroads, a squatter camp near Cape Town where African families live. The 20,000 Africans built the camp themselves...

Books by Lis Harris.

The Talk of the Town The Story by James Stevenson. Talk story about events on the soap opera, "General Hospital." Writer quotes the 19-year-old daughter of a friend:"Heather and Jeff...no, wait... Jeff is all upset and stuff..he was in a quarantine because of Lassa fever...during that time, the chief of staff.. he doesn't know...

A Reporter at Large PRINCE by Mark Singer. A REPORTER AT LARGE about roguish Oklahoma politician and businessman, Gene Stipe, a 52-year-old trial attorney and Democratic state senator who lives in McAlester, the seat of Pittsburg County, in the southeastern part of the state known as Little Dixie, whose residents have not been law-abiding citizens...

Our Far-Flung Correspondents THE DIAMOND-STUDDED SAXOPHONE by John Bainbridge. OUR FAR-FLUNG CORRESPONDENTS about Lawrence (Bud) Freeman, noted jazz musician who started playing saxophone over 50 years ago in Chicago, where he was born. Writer meets Freeman in his room in London's Portman Hotel where he plays in weekly jam sessions with Roy Williams, John Barnes, and others. Freeman...

The Theatre BORROWINGS by Brendan Gill.

The Talk of the Town Bookbinders by Wallace White. Talk story about bookbinding - an exhibit of bound books at the Morgan Library and a class in bookbinding held at the Center for Book Arts. The Morgan Library exhibit, entitled "Twelve Centuries of Bookbindings," includes a Coptic leather binding of the Acts of the Apostles dating from the fifth century...

The Current Cinema DISARRAY by Penelope Gilliatt.

Poetry Casualty by Seamus Heaney. He would drink by himself...

Poetry Bird-Window-Flying by Tess Gallagher. If we had been given names to love...