The Theatre TENDER GRAPES by Mimi Kramer.

Books by Helen Vendler.

The Sky Line by Brendan Gill.

A Reporter at Large II-LOOKING FOR A SHIP by John McPhee. REPORTER AT LARGE about the U.S. Merchant Marine. Writer accompanied second nato George Anderson Chase on the S.S. Stella Lykes on a voyage to the West Coast of South America Capt. Paul McHenry Washburn is 65; average age of the crew was 51. There were 33 crew members and all...

Report from Romania DOWN WITH THE TYRANT by Robert Cullen. REPORT FROM ROMANIA about the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu. Describes the events leading up to the apparently spontaneous revolution in Romania, and the revolution itself. The uprising began when a pastor, Rev. Laszlo Tokes, in the ethnically Hungarian region of Transylvania, refused to listen to authorities who wished to silence...

Television Fiction by Larry Doyle. The story, which begins with a quote from Pynchon's new novel, "Vineland," is about television culture. Zenith Remotecontrol has prepared a paper on excessive TV viewing which she will deliver to the J.F. Muggs Institute for Video Studies. She wakes up reciting the lyrics to the "Brady Bunch" theme, eats...

The Talk of the Town Harping by Mindy Aloff. Talk story about a harp concert in Alice Tully Hall. The writer talks with the harp soloist, Maria Casale of North Hollywood. Casale was the winner of the first annual USA International Harp competition, and as a prize she received the concert date and a $23, 000 harp. She speaks...

Comment by Allan Nairn. Comment about human rights in Central America. Last December, on the day after the invasion of Panama, the "Wall Street Journal"wrote that Manuel Noriega had "learned, and others like him should take note, that there are limits to the uncivilized behavior that the US will accept or endure." American...

The Talk of the Town Mellow by Guy Trebay. Talk story about a six-year-old Percheron who works nowadays for the Big Apple Circus. Until recently, the horse, named Dio, was unemployed and lived on an upstate farm owned by a Quaker gentleman named Henry Wheeler. When writer met Dio several years back, he was owned by Paul...

Homage HOMAGE TO MUMFORD by Brendan Gill. A tribute/obituary for Lewis Mumford. Tells of his complex understanding of the nature of the city as the locus of civilization. Describes Mumford's affection for the city of Pompeii, which he considered a better city than those we live in today. Everything was within walking distance, and its buildings...

Fiction Smoke by Michael Chabon. Matt Magee, a baseball petcher, is going to the funeral of his catcher in Pittsburgh. The catcher, Eli Drinkwater, had just hit his prime, while Magee has hit the skids. On the same evening that Drinkwater died in a car wreck, Magee was sent down to Buffalo, a. minor team...

The Talk of the Town Cross-Trainers by Deborah Garrison. Talk story about the writer's trip to buy a type of shoe, called cross-trainers, which are designed to be used in a variety of athletic and fitness pursuits. The writer goes to the Athlete's Foot on the corner of Houston and Avenue A, and talks to the manager, Efrain...

Poetry April Fool's Day, New York State by Harold Brodkey. The ignorant daffodil white-and-yellow light...

Poetry The Prepositions by Sharon Olds. When I started junior high I thought I'd...

Poetry The Badlands Said by Jean Valentine. I am the skull...