Musical Events Too-looral-lay! by Andrew Porter.

Fiction The First American by Lore Segal. Ilka Weissnix was 21. It had taken her more than a decade to get from Vienna to New York. She had left in 1938, when Hitler came to power. Ilka found out that she had a cousin in America named Fishgoppel. She sent her a cousin a visa &...

The Current Cinema FUN MACHINES by Pauline Kael.

A Reporter at Large TUSCAN SPRING by Bill Barich. REPORTER AT LARGE about spending a spring in a rented villa in Arcetri, a suburb south of Florence, in Italy. Writer lists the various kinds of pasta. He says a comprehensive list can be had from the Museo Storico degli SpaghettiNthe Historical Museum of SpaghettiNin Pontedassio, near the Italian Riviera...

Books All Things Both Great and Small by Mollie Panter-Downes.

The Sporting Scene MOSTLY ABOUT NICKLAUS by Herbert Warren Wind. THE SPORTING SCENE about the 1983 Masters golf tournament, held in early April in Augusta, Georgia, and a lengthy account of the life and career of golf champion Jack Nicklaus. This year's Masters was won by Severiano (Seve) Ballesteros, a young Spanish golfer. Nicklaus was forced to withdraw from the...

Fiction Zip Coda by Daniel Menaker. The writer describes the various ways in which advertising and fund-raising mail is addressed to him and his wife: "I am CAR-RTE-SRT Ms. Roberta Menaler. I am Norbert D. Menniker. I am Dab Menajer. The Annex will teach me party skills. Ted Weiss seeks my favor. Tote...

The Talk of the Town Solzhenitsyn by Mollie Panter-Downes. Talk story about Alexander Solzhenitsyn's address in London as this year's winner of the nondenominational Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. The award, given annually to an outstanding person who has been chosen by a panel of 8 international judges, was founded in 1972 by John Marks Templeton, a 70...

Fiction Memorial Day by Peter Cameron. The narrator, a 16-year old boy, is eating grapefruit with a spoon his mother bought last summer. He thinks how much has changed since then. His mother has remarried a man named Lonnie and his father has moved to California. Though the boy talked a lot in school, he...

The Theatre Off Broadway by Edith Oliver.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. The Washington Post recently ran a story reporting that the Soviet military had launched a huge offensive against the rebel forces in Afghanistan. "The heaviest Soviet-supported air and ground artillery bombardments of Afghan guerrilla positions in the area north of Kabul since the war began in 1979 has staggered...

The Talk of the Town Flavors by Wallace White. Talk story about the National Stationery Show (for the trade only), which occupied all four floors of the Coliseum last week. The writer stopped at a booth run by Retail Sales East, where he spoke to Patricia Duerr. She showed some ballpoint pens that were shaped like candy sticks, candy...

The Talk of the Town Energy by William McKibben. Talk story about Brookie Maxwell, a local artist who goes on a periodic expedition to chronicle the rotting splendor of midtown. Building by building, Miss Maxwell photographs, draws, and then sculpts the south side of 42nd Street--a process that will someday yield a 36-foot-long sculpture, which will...

Poetry Commelina Virginica by Stanley Plumly. Sky-high, the light would be gold already...