Comment by Hendrik Hertzberg. Comment on Pres. Bush's proposal that taxpayers "should be given the right to check a box on their tax returns, so that up to ten per cent of their payments can go for one purpose alone: to reduce the national debt." Though offered as a new proposal at the Republican...

The Talk of the Town Seduction by Francis Wheen. Signed Talk story about William Shawcross's new authorized biography of Rupert Murdoch. Shawcross began the book as an unauthorized biography. His London pullisher, Carmen Callil, assumed that it would be negative The book turned out to be a hagiography, after Shawcross was wooed by Murdoch. But Callil vehemently maintains that...

The Talk of the Town Cocoon by Stephen Schiff. Talk story interview with Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, on the phone from his Madrid apartment. He has published a new book entitled "Patty Diphusa and Other Writings," a collection of comical pensees. The first half is a novella called "Patty Diphusa," recounting the adventures of his alter ego, a porn...

The Talk of the Town Rewriting History by Sidney Blumenthal. Talk story about letters revealing Thomas Dewey's efforts to persuade Richard Nixon to select George Bush as his Vice-Presid ential running mate in '68. In Bush's current reelection campaign, he has compared himself to Harry S Truman, who inflicted upon Dewey one of the great political humiliations of the...

The Talk of the Town Naked Came the Strangers by James Wolcott. Signed Talk piece about two recent books featuring nude models on their covers: "The Erotic Silence of the American Wife," by Dalma Heyn (Turtle Bay Books), and "Suicide Blonde," by Darcey Steinke (Atlantic Monthly Press). Neither book was a success. Praises Nicholson Baker's "Vox," where skin never met skin...

The Talk of the Town Secret Weapon by Peter J. Boyer. Talk story about Fred Drasner, the point man in Mortimer Zuckerman's acquisition of the bankrupt Daily News. Praises Drasner for cutting paychecks of low-level employees (the people who put the paper out), and firing editorial employees without arbitration and without relying on attrition. Praises Drasner for being from Brooklyn...

The Talk of the Town The Changing Times by Helen Thorpe. Talk story about N.Y. Times reporter & editor Jeffrey Schmalz, one of the few people with AIDS who are writing about the epidemic for a major news organization. He has written pieces about Bob Hattoy & Elizabeth Glaser, who spoke about their experiences with the disease at the Democratic convention...

Dept. of Raised Eyebrows FETUS, DON'T FAIL ME NOW by Robert Hughes. DEPARTMENT OF RAISED EYEBROWS about Whatizit, the fetus-shaped official mascot of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Writer imagines the marketing of Whatizit. Recalls his Catholic upbringing in Australia, when abortion was simply assumed to be a crime, as unthinkable as murder, and he was lectured by priests on the sin...

Around City Hall WHO GUARDS THE GUARDS? AROUND CITY HALL by Andy Logan. The level of contempt and hatred some members of the Police Dept. felt for Mayor Dinkins reached such a pitch that, on Sept. 16, they engeged in behavior the Dept. would surely have lebelled a riot. 10,000 off-duty policemen massed in front of City Hall, protesting proposed legislation that...

Letter from South Florida IN THE STORM by James LeMoyne. LETTER FROM SOUTH FLORIDA about Hurricane Andrew. The writer, with his wife, daughter, and sister-in-law, evacuated their apt. near downtown Miami and drove to a friend's concrete-block house about five miles inland. The worst of the storm struck between 10 and 25 miles farther south. 300 square...

Annals of Journalism NEWS FROM HELL by Anna Husarska. ANNALS OF JOURNALISM about reporters covering the war in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Describes the flak jackets & helmets worn by network jounalists. Free-lancers, many just starting their careers, come without any such extravagance. The Holiday Inn is the hacks' headquarters par excellence. Guests have been spotted scavenging water from...

A Reporter at Large THE PRISONER AND THE POLITICIAN by Mark Singer. A REPORTER AT LARGE about Brett Coleman Kimberlin, a convicted marijuana smuggler who says he sold marijuana to Dan Quayle in the early 1970s. Kimberlin is in prison for a series of bombings that occurred, at Indianapolis Speedway stores in '78--crimes he says he didn't commit. Kimberlin says he...

Fiction Beisbol, Etc. by Richard Merkin. Color cartoon spread about the artist's imaginary dream baseball team playing in Reverie Stadium. Shows Christy Mathewson, etc., and several self-portraits. Ran under dept. heading: AN ARTIST AT LARGE...

Fiction The Test by Jules Feiffer. Color cartoon spread about Rapunzel, living on the Upper East Side, testing candidates for Prince Charming role by asking them what their position is on the scandal surrounding the break-up of Woody Allen & Mia Farrow. Ran under dept. heading: STORYBOARD...

Fiction Playing with Dynamite by John Updike. One aspect of childhood that Geoff Fanshawe didn't expect to return in old age was the mutability of things--the willingness of a chair, say, to become a leggy animal in the corner of his vision. His second wife, Lorna, falls down the stairs while rushing togreet guests. She later...

The Art World (The Art Galleries) by Adam Gopnik.

Fiction Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz by George Saunders. Humorous science-fiction story narrated by a man who works in personal interactive holography==enabling people to experience fantasies, or the memories of others, through dream-like holograms. Depressed by the death of his wife, he consults a telephone service called GuiltMasters. He works in a mall across from a...

In the Garden FLOWERS OF EVIL by Jamaica Kincaid. IN THE GARDEN about the renaming of flowers taken from colonized countries. Quotations from "The Portrait of a Lady," by Henry James, & "Nervous Conditions," by Tsitsi Dangarembga, to show contrasting views of gardens. Quotations from "The Conquest of Mexico," by W.H. Prescott, to show that the Aztecs had gardens...

The Current Cinema SHTICK SHIFTS by Michael Sragow.

The Air (On Television) "SPOOKED" by James Wolcott.

Books by Whitney Balliett.

Shouts & Murmurs THE RULES OF THE GAME by Roger Angell. SHOUTS AND MURMURS about the firing of baseball commissioner Fay Vincent. A number of the owners were upset about his habit of appearing on the field before games. He was there as a fan. The hard-line group of owners who campaigned so aggressively to dethrone Vincent in midterm, and...

Poetry Lucky Strikes by Eva Salzman. Her father was smoking fortune's cigarettes...

Poetry Crackle by Eric Ormsby. It's hard not to like the wiseguy...

Poetry The Oldest Child by Charles Simic. The night still frightens you...