Comment The Winning Hand by Hendrik Hertzberg. One of the rituals of American elections, from the humblest aldermanic race to the grand and gaudy Presidential pageant, is for the winner to proclaim that his or her victory is more than a personal, or partisan triumph--as, in truth, it almost always is. That ritual was duly enacted...

The Talk of the Town Hands Down by Helen Thorpe. Talk story about Bill Clinton's chief campaign strategist, James Carville, keeping a pair of black gloves on during the last days of the Presidential campaign, resolving not to take them off until the election was decided. Carville is intensely superstitious: Everyone in Little Rock knew for certain that Clinton had...

The Talk of the Town Heeere's Bill! by Richard Cohen. Talk story about President-elect Clinton's promise, reported by Larry King, that he will appear on CNN's "Larry King Live" at least once every six months while he is in the White House... The wise course would be for him to break it, unless he agrees with Ross Perot that...

The Talk of the Town Is the Party Over? by Lawrence Wright. Talk story about Ross Perot and the United We Stand, America Party that was created when Perot ran for president in the 1992 U.S. Presidential election. Carolyn Rathjen is one of Perot's blond daughters, who after Perot's consession speech was signing autographs and told reporters that her father's political campaign...

The Talk of the Town Cheers by William Finnegan. A talk story about election night in Donahue's bar, near Broadway and 72nd Street just east of Gray's Papaya. Tells how a black, retired civil servant, Henry Whitehead, watched the returns from the bar on an oversized television without any competing noise from the jukebox. Tells about a middle-aged...

The Talk of the Town Boola Boola! by Katharine Weber. Talk story about rumor that started on the Yale campus a week before the presidential election that George Bush would be the next president of Yale. Barbara Bush, it is assumed, would probably be delighted to pour tea on Hillhouse Avenue and provide Yale with a comfy, ar-home first...

The Talk of the Town Home Boys by Helen Thorpe. Talk story about efforts of the citizens of Little Rock, Ark., to insure that President-Elect Bill Clinton maintains a home there after he moves to Washington. For 12 of the past 14 years he has lived in the governor's mansion in Little Rock. It is rumored locally that a...

The Talk of the Town Drawing-Room Diplomacy by Hendrik Hertzberg. Talk story about Election Night gatherings at the Upper East Side homes of William F. Buckley, Jr., & Mortimer B. Zuckerman. The conservatives greeted the news of Clinton's taking over the White House with no outward show of horror. While waiters replenished the glasses of his guests, Buckley switched the...

The Talk of the Town Team Spirit by Helen Thorpe. It is unlikely that Little Rock will ever see a party like it again. Tens of thousands of Arkansas, a horde of journalists, and a sprinkling of national celebrities ignored a tornado warning and poured into the streets in the confident expectation of a Democratic victory. Fortunately, the victory happened...

Reflections THE TURN OF THE CYCLE by Arthur M. Schlesinger. REFLECTIONS about the cycle of conservatism and liberalism in American politics. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher transformed the political climate of the West. They came to power bearing dogmatic truths, pointed their governments in new directions, and greatly influenced the policies of other nations. After a while...

Report from Kuwait A WOMAN'S PLACE by Raymond Bonner. REPORT FROM KUWAIT about ill-treated domestic servants there and women's rights in general. Tells about the trials of Jenny Casa nova, who was abused in her position as a $165/mo. domestic servant. Writer interviewed her in the Philippine Embassy, where she sought refuge along with more than 200...

Letter from Washington CHANGE by Elizabeth Drew. LETTER FROM WASHINGTON about Bill Clinton's victory over George Bush and Ross Perot. While other "first string" Democrats decided that George Bush couldn't be beaten, Clinton decided to risk himself. Though it was commonly assumed that Clinton got into the race, as many do, as a "nothing to lose" candidate...

Annals of Crime REVENGE OF THE GREEN DRAGONS by Fredric Dannen. ANNALS OF CRIME about the Green Dragons, a Chinese gang in Queens, N.Y...

Convergences MAGRITTE STANDARD TIME by Lawrence Weschler. CONVERGENCES about Magritte illustrated by his "Time Transfixed" and a photograph of a crashed train. In olden days time was true. Noon occurred in every village at the very moment that the sun reached its zenith over the courthouse steeple. Trains--in particular, transcontinental trains--changed all that. In the...

Personal History MY FATHER'S HONOR by Anthony Hiss. PERSONAL HISTORY about the writer's father, Alger Hiss. On Oct. 29, at the Algonquin Hotel, there was a news conference to present a videotape of Col. -Gen. Dmitry Antonovich Volkogonov, chairman of the Supreme Council commission on K.G.B. and military-intelligence archives of the former Soviet Union, stating that a...

Fantasy Fantasy Rose by Allegra Goodman. This is the second story in a series about the Markowitz family centering around grandmother Rose visiting her son Ed and his wife Sarah after her friend, Eileen Meeker, passed on. Rose stays in Miriam's room, who is now engaged and off at Harvard Medical School. The room needs to...

The Theatre AT LONG LAST LOVE by Edith Oliver.

The Current Cinema GUNS AND LOVERS by Michael Sragow.

Books by John Updike.

Shouts & Murmurs PEROT: THE SEQUEL by Michael J. Arlen. SHOUTS AND MURMURS about Ross Perot's grab ("bid" hardly seems the right word)for the Presidency, and the frighteningly closeness with which he lost. Granted, some might say a third-place finish with only 19% of the vote doesn't seem close. But look at it this way. 19% of the...

Poetry On A Side Street by Charles Simic. If there are small shops...

Poetry Adages Of A Grandmother by Eric Ormsby. Grandmother said to me, "Keep thyself...

Poetry The Hustler De Paris by Debora Greger. Notre-Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, Sacre-Coeur by foot...