The Talk of the Town Jazzy by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story about a fashion show at the Casablanca Disco, 215-32 Jamaica Avenue, Queens Village. Sheryl Nash, who runs Jazzy Inc., was the sponsor of the show. Marcus St. John, a young man with a deep voice, presided over the dance floor, where the young people performed dances to SWAT...

The Talk of the Town Benefactors by Rogers E. M. Whitaker. Talk story about a festival of restaurants, called "A Taste of the Big Apple," and about the Edinburgh Festival. Stuart Levin, president of HIFNY, has a project to array miniature open-air versions of 100 New York restaurants side by side along the Central Park Mall on Saturday, May 22nd...

Fiction Largely An Oral History Of My Mother by Harold Brodkey. Story about the writer's early life as the adopted child of Jewish parents in a Midwestern town. He recalls his mother in her younger years, when she adopted him at age 33, and her middle years, when she was beginning to lose her beauty. He was 1 year 18 mos...

The Theatre THE FASTIDIOUS GENTLEMAN FROM HARTFORD by Brendan Gill.

On Photography Diana and Nikon by Janet Malcolm.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. Comment deploring that the lessons of the Nixon Presidency, which curtailed freedom, have not been learned. For example, Att. Gen. Edward H. Levi has issued "guidelines" for the FBI which would permit it to investigate members of groups whose actions "will" break federal law and have the result of substantially...

The Talk of the Town Smithsonian Gathering by Geoffrey T. Hellman. Talk story about the third Bicentennial display of the National Portrait Gallery, "Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation, 1776-1914," which is a loan exhibition of some 300 items highlighting observations made by distinguished foreigh visitors to this country. It has just opened in Washington in the building that...

The Current Cinema Genius, Genia, Genium, Ho Hum by Penelope Gilliatt. Review of Ken Russell's film "Mahler...

The Race Track Prize Pupil by G. F. T. Ryall. The two-dollar bill is circulating again. Back in the days of bookmakers, to get a deuce was said to be bad luck. To Sam Hildreth, a famous trainer of fifty year ago, who handled the horses of August Belmont & Harry F. Sinclair (though not at the same time...

Fiction On Not Shooting Sitting Birds by Jean Rhys. The writer started out trusting everyone and now, at 22, she trusted no one. She has a few acquaintances and no close friends. One day she met a young man who smiled and talked with her, so she agreed to have dinner with him a couple of days later. At...

Books Russia by V. S. Pritchett.

Musical Events Two Donnas and a Devil by Andrew Porter.

U. S. Journal A Cloud on the Title by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: COSTILLA COUNTY, COLORADO about a land dispute between residents of Costilla County and John T. Taylor, of New Bern, North Carolina. In the 1850's Don Carlos Beaubien, of Taos, acquired the million-acre Sangre de Cristo land grant, in what is now northern New Mexico and southern...

Poetry One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. The art of losing isn't hard to master...

Poetry The Message by Paul Petrie. Day, day, dark day...

Poetry The Funeral Singers by Dave Smith. Somewhere on a side porch, in a viny haze of light...