Dancing Prose into Poetry by Arlene Croce.

The Theatre Off Broadway by Edith Oliver.

Fiction Flora by Sylvia Townsend Warner. The story of Flora's two visits to see Hugo Tilbury, an intellectual recluse. Edward, Flora's lover, first introduces her to Hugo at his secluded cottage. She finds him unpleasant. Hugo and Edward talk about calligraphy while Flora daydreams. Later, she tells Edward that Hugo does not like women. Edward wonders...

Obituary Arthur J. Russell, Jr. by William Shawn. Arthur J. Russell, Jr., who died a week ago, was a cherished member of "The New Yorker's" business staff from the time he came to work here, as an advertising salesman, in 1929, until he retired as the company's president, in 1968. (Date of his death was Dec. 4, 1977...

The Talk of the Town "Conversations" by Wallace White. Talk story about Dictaphone Corp. devices designed to carry on phone conversations without people. Some new products can engage in automatic telephone solicitation--junk calls. Dr. Walter Baer, a physicist with the Rand Corp., and others filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission, asking the commission to insure that...

Books A Perfect Gold Mine by Joseph Kraft. Writer analyzes a number of recent Washington novels and also discusses some old ones. Writer goes over, at some length, the atmosphere in the capital...

The Talk of the Town The Best of Everything by Anthony Hiss. Talk story about E.M. Frimbo's recollections of luxurious travel, which he called first-class-plus. He spoke of his friend H. Rex Holland (he calls him His Royal Highness because of his initials), who is a caterer. Holland recently became head of on-board services for Amtrak's dining cars. Tells...

Comment by Jonathan Schell. The award season in literature is coming up soon, and before the planning for it gets too far advanced, we would like to suggest a new category of book for which a prize should be given: unwritten books. The prize would go to a person who had declined a publisher's...

U. S. Journal SOME THOUGHTS ON THE INTERNATIONAL HOTEL CONTROVERSY by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: SAN. FRANCISCO about the illegal occupation by tenants of the International Hotel in San Francisco. This was a run-down three-story building where in 1968 about 150 people were living,many of whom were Filipino, many of them elderly, most of them paying low rents. In the...

Profiles WITHDRAWING WITH STYLE FROM THE CHAOS by Kenneth Tynan. PROFILE of English playwright Tom Stoppard. Stoppard's family left their native Czechoslovakia when he was 2, in 1939, to escape the Nazis. They settled in England in 1946. Discusses his early profession as a journalist, first in Bristol, later in London. Discusses Stoppard's philosophical attitudes toward life and art, and...

Musical Events The Sun's Return by Andrew Porter.

The Current Cinema Cutting Light by Pauline Kael. Review of Luis Bunuel's latest film "That Obscure Object of Desire". It's taken from Pierre Louys's short novel "La Femme et le Pantin", published in 1898. This is the fifth movie version - tells about the others...

Fiction A Prior Claim by John Rolfe Gardiner. Dewey, age 10, and his uncle Ridenour loot an abandoned brothel, looking for hidden money. The title refers to Dewey's claim as first looter, and Ridenour's claim as an old resident; both of which are frustrated. When Dewey learns that an oil company plans to raze the house, he breaks...

The Race Track Six-Million-Dollar Boy by G. F. T. Ryall. Fanfreluche, Canada's 1970 Horse of the Year - valued at half a million dollars, and in foal to Secretariat - who was stolen from Kentucky's Claiborne Farm last July 25th, and for whom a worldwide search had been going on ever since, has been found, the F.B.I. and the Kentucky State Police...

Poetry Homage To Paul Cezanne by Charles Wright. At night, in the fish-light of the moon, the dead wear our...

Poetry The Silence by Philip Guerrard. It knows my name...