Comment by Raymond Bonner. A comment about the war in Somalia. Tells about the intense fighting there between two similar Muslim factions. About fifty courageous doctors and nurses from the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Save the Children Fund(UK), Medicins san Frontieres, and smaller humanitarian organizations are struggling under appalling and...

The Talk of the Town Where There's Smoke by Caroline Fraser. Talk story about Joe Cherner, president of SmokeFree Educational Services, a nonprofit organization he founded in 1988, at age 30, with $100,000 of his own money; he is also a senior vice-president of Kidder, Peabody. He runs SmokeFree from his apartment in Battery Park City. He decided to found...

The Talk of the Town Old Enough, Young Enough by Anthony Hiss. Talk story about a visit with Fyvush Finkel just before the opening of his new hit show "Finkel's Follies" at the John Houseman Theatre on W. 42 St. Fyvush has been singing, dancing, acting, and telling jokes for the past 60 years-first on the Yiddish stage and in Yiddish...

Fiction Conversations About Art by Benoit van Innis. Spread of four drawings showing four well-dressed people conversing in landscapes that reflect different artistic styles: "Reflecting on Impressionism," "Debating Expressionism," "Analyzing Geometric Abstract Art," and "Scrutinizing Conceptual Art...

Fiction You Name It by Tom Drury. One Saturday, Sheriff Dan Norman of Grouse County, Minnesota, is repairing the roof of his trailer house when a woman climbs up with him and begins reading verses from the Bible. She introduces herself as Joan Gower. Dan gets an anonymous phone call, telling him to look in a shopping...

Profiles ARCHITECTS AMID THE RUINS by Lawrence Weschler. PROFILE of Iraqi architects Kanan & Mohamed Makiya; son & father. Mohamed thinks he was born in 1916. Since 1974 he has been based in London. His firm is Makiya Associates. It is not the bustling place it was in earlier years. At one point the staff included more than...

Jazz Bird Lives by Whitney Balliett.

Letter from London by Julian Barnes. Tells about P.M. John Major's bland problems since he took over from Maggie Thatcher in November of 1990. Mrs. Thatcher had been removed because enough members of her party thought that her domineering dogmatism had become electorally counterproductive. Major will probably face Neil Kinnock of the Labour Party in the...

Books The Dissenter by Louis Menand.

Poetry Ice by Charlie Smith. Torn white flaring heat, smoke-tipped...

Poetry Rapallo by Thom Gunn. Before the heavy hotel sink...