The Talk of the Town Three Nurses by Brendan Dealy. Talk story about the Gimmick-O-Rama Festival of horror movies organized by Bruce Goldstein at Film Forum 2. Goldstein installed such devices as the Tingler (that vibrates the seats during the movie), the Horror Horn, the Fear Flasher, Coward's Corner, and Emergo so that his viewers could have the...

Letter from Washington by Elizabeth Drew. The biggest surprise thus far in the Presidential campaign has been the change in Geo. Bush as a candidate-something the Dukakis campaign hadn't reckoned on. The tentative, frantic, & often awkward Bush has been replaced by a forceful, aggressive, & only sometimes awkward Bush. The difference comes from a...

The Talk of the Town St. Regis by Barry Singer. Talk story about visiting the 84-year-old St. Regis hotel on 55th St., now closed until it can be sold and renovated. It closed suddenly and writer decided to visit before it was changed too much. He was let in through the restaurant because the main doors were sealed...

A Reporter at Large CROCODILEANS by Diane Ackerman. A REPORTER AT LARGE about alligators... Crocodilians, birds and dinosaurs had a common origin about 230 million years ago, in the Mesozoic Era, in a group of early reptiles called thecodonts. Writer visits the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, with zoologist Dr. Kent Vliet, of the University of Florida in Gainsville...

The Sporting Scene ABERRATION by Tony Gibbs. THE SPORTING SCENE about the America's Cup match this summer between Stars & Stripes of the San Diego Yacht Club and New Zealand of the Mercury Bay Boating Club, which Stars & Stripes won, but which was marked by controversy. Much of the controversy was generated by Michael Fay, a...

Comment by Raymond Bonner. A comment about the upcoming Presidential election and the Third World... There is plenty of support in the Third World for a Bush victory. Earlier this year, an Indonesian political scientist who was eager for every scrap of news about the primaries--she was far more interested in them than...

The Talk of the Town Dune Shacks by Mary Norris. Talk story about Hazel Hawthorne Wernerand the dune shacks Mrs. Werner is 87, and lives in what she calls a supershack - a former two-car garage - in a wooded, almost rural pocket of Provincetown. She owns two other shacks-Euphoria and Thalassa. Since 1961 the Cape Cod National Seashore has...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Theatre 0 FOR 2 by Edith Olilver.

Fiction Father Must by Rick Rofihe. Story about a man who is an alcoholic and lives with a boy and his mother. The man's father was an alcoholic, except he never got drunk on Sunday. His mother died when he was 13 and his father 4 1/2 years later. He stayed in the house until he...

Fiction Everyone is Wearing a Hat by Janet Desaulniers. Story about a woman going to sleep with her husband; their son Natty was killed when he was run over by a hit and run truck driver nine months ago. Her husband never seems to be able to say or do the right thing. He is sure that he comforts...

Poetry Alabaster by James Merrill. The original word...