The Talk of the Town Space by Philip Hamburger. Talk story about a visit to the new East Building of the National Gallery in Wash. D.C., designed by I.N. Pei & Partners. A moving rubber walkway connects the older building with the new. The old or "West Building" was designed by John Russell Pope and opened in 1941. The...

The Air (On Television) by Michael J. Arlen.

Fiction Aria by Donald Barthelme. Do they lie? Fervently. Do they steal? Only silver and gold. Do they remember? I am in constant touch. Hardly a day passes. The children. Some can't spell, still. They are small. Petite. Out of scale. They came and went. Doors banging. They were of different sexes but wore similar...

Dept. of Amplification by John McPhee. DEPARTMENT OF AMPLIFICATION AND CORRECTION re comment on the turbot served at Lutece and mentioned in PROFILE of Otto, owner-chef of farmhouse inn in the region of N.Y.C. Otto had said he guessed the turbot was frozen. Mr. McPhee says: "Otto guessed wrong...

Fiction Heart Trouble by Beth Harvor. A Canadian woman, divorced and with two sons, visits several "healers" in an attempt to have her health problems diagnosed. She has psoriasis. The first "healer" prescribes a macrobiotic diet and tells her she has a heart murmur and weakness of the liver and kidneys. The second sends her urine...

The Talk of the Town Cat by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story about the cat chosen for the role of Uncle Elizabeth in the forthcoming Broadway musical "I Remember Mama," starring Liv Ullmann and opening on Broadway May 3, after its world-premiere engagement in Philadelphia March 9 to April 21. The press and Tara Kennedy, 7, who plays Miss...

U. S. Journal IT'S JUST TOO LATE by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: KNOXVILLE, TENN. about the death in an automobile accident of FaNee Cooper, a teenage girl who fell in with a crowd who used drugs at Halls High School in Knox County, East Tennessee. They took Valiur marijuana, and LSD. Tells about strained relations with her father Leo Cooper...

The Talk of the Town Class by Wallace White. Talk story about master class by Jean-Pierre Rampal at the 92nd St. Y.M.-Y.W.H.A., on Lexington Ave. 350 people paid $15 each(half price for students) to watch him coach 10 students individually, giving about a half hour to each for a total of more than 5 hours. Describes...

On Photography by Janet Malcolm.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. Comment, occasioned by the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, about the fear the three great powers-the U.S., the Soviet Union, and China-have for each other. Each of the powers now appears to fear encirclement, and even eventual defeat, by one or both of the two others. Now, each is...

Onward and Upward with the Arts Rewriting American History-III by Frances FitzGerald. ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS about American history textbooks. Since the 1930's they have maintained a consistent level of dullness. In part this is because of their silences. The longest of these silences is on the subject of intellectual history. The substitute has been editorial moralizing. The texts...

The Theatre by Edith Oliver.

The Talk of the Town Arms Bazaar by Marion Knox Barthelme. Talk story about "Defense Technology '79 & Conference on Strategic Directions": a military arms convention, which opened last week in Chicago, sponsored by two military journals. The exhibition, held at the O'Hare International Exposition Center, was protested by thousands of demonstrators. Attendance was smaller than expected. The general public was...

Poetry 527 Cathedral Parkway by Rika Lesser. Squatting under the weight...

Poetry The Other by Peter Cooley. When you come to the other side...

Poetry Plato Elaborated by Joseph Brodsky. I should like, Fortunatus, to live in a city where a...