The Talk of the Town Buttons by Bobbie Ann Mason. Talk story about the button collection on display at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. Divides the buttons displayed into categories and lists examples of each. Basic: Dish-type, inkwell, saucer, roll-rim, etc. Sublime: Sensuous shapes of jade, nephrite, agate, serpentine, and lapis lazuli, etc. Fanciful: Floral displays painted on porcelain...

Fiction Third Monday by Bobbie Ann Mason. Ruby MacPherson, a single woman living in Western Kentucky, has had a mastectomy. The man she cares about, Buddy Landon, doesn't yet know about her operation. She sees him once a month. They first met at the fairgrounds at Third Monday, the flea-market held on the third Monday of...

Letter from Europe by Jane Kramer. LETTER FROM EUROPE about what has become of Portugal in the years since the revolution of April 25, 1975. Writer says the country seems sleepy again, as if the effort of democracy has worn the Portuguese down as much as the oppression of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar's 36-year regime...

Comment by Jonathan Schell. In the last two years, Pres. Reagan has proposed, and Congress has passed legislation that, taken in its entirety, will very likely create the largest deficits in the federal budget in our history. Now this same President and an apparent majority of this same Congress have announced their support of...

The Talk of the Town Oktoberfest by William McKibben. Talk story about the fifth annual Octoberfest held in July at the Queens Botanical Garden. The 18-day Octoberfest, modeled on the famous Munich celebration, is held in July, according to Roland Wade, the executive director of the Queens Botanical Garden, because it meets "the season's demands" (i.e. heat). The...

The Talk of the Town Keeping Score by Charles McGrath. Talk story about the playing of a baseball team of eight- and nine-year-olds. The writer is the man who has been coaching them. He's been trying to doctor up his score book so that it will look a little better when he hands it over to league officials...

Musical Events American Verismo by Anthony Hiss.

The Talk of the Town Free but Worth It by Mark Singer. Talk story about a seminar called "How to Get Free Publicity," given by a woman named Fern in an apartment on the West Side. The apartment belongs to a woman named Joan. Ten people have signed up for the seminar, all of whom need free publicity for one reason or...

Books India Going On by John Updike.

Profiles IMPRINT by Herbert Mitgang. PROFILE of publisher Helen Wolff, who, with her husband Kurt, transformed the nature of publishing in this country by introducing first-rate foreign writers. In 1942, soon after their arrival from Europe, they began Pantheon Books, which continues today as a division of Random House. Their imprint "A Helen and...

Fiction The Spoons in the Basement by Ursula K. Le Guin. Story of a woman named Georgia who finds a set of six silver apostle spoons while she is cleaning her daughter's closet one day. The house, built in 1899, has had many owners and Georgia suspects that one of them had put the spoons in the closet for safe-keeping...

Poetry Liddy's Orange by Sharon Olds. The rind lies on the table where Liddy has left it...

Poetry Transmigration by Brendan Galvin. When your bones go...