Comment by William Finnegan. When Dr. David Linder & his wife, Elizabeth, appeared before a Congressional panel recently, they were harshly rebuked by Rep. Connie Mack, a Republican from Florida, for criticizing American support for the Nicaraguan Contras who had killed their son, Benjamin, on April 28. "I can't understand how you can use...

Letter from Europe by Jane Kramer. The Milanese gave a reputation for sophistication, but they like to think of themselves as plain, provincial people, at the mercy of fast-talking southerners like swindler/psychoanalyst Armando Verdiglione, who was arrested for fraud, extortion & assualt & who had been a local personage in the manner of Giorgio...

Dancing by Arlene Croce.

The Sky Line Optimistic Ziggurat by Brendan Gill. THE SKY LINE about the Guggenheim. Writer talks about the history of the museum, from its conception to the present. Writer also discusses the current controversy over a proposed addition, and explains both points of view. He concludes, "As a friend of Wright's, I am not so foolhardy as to...

Letter from the Space Center by Henry S. F. Cooper. One of the Space Center's main projects waiting to go is the Mars Observer, which will orbit Mars to study its geochemistry and photograph its surface at very high resolution. The date of this project is still uncertain as are others. The Soviet Union has announced plans for a series...

Fiction Helping by Robert Stone. This story is set somewhere in Massachusetts. Elliot had joined Alcoholics Anonymous 15 months earlier, and he was sober day in and day out. Sober until the day Blankenship came into his office. Elliot worked as a social worker at the state hospital. He was supposed to counsel Blankenship, but...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Fifty by Nancy Ramsey. Talk story about a visit to the World Trade Center's observation deck for breakfast and cake provided by DC Comics in honor of Superman's upcoming fiftieth birthday. Carl Scheele, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution, is putting together an exhibit called "Superman: Many Lives, Many Worlds" which will include articles...

The Talk of the Town Midwestern State by Mark Singer. Talk story about the Nebraska Society of New York's Taste of Nebraska festival... 3 1/2 tones of Nebraska cuisine("the largest carry-out order ever," according to one Nebraskan) got delivered one recent Sunday afternoon to 50th St. & Park Ave.--the site of St. Bartholomew's church... The Nerbraska Society...

Books by Janet Malcom.

The Theatre BOGOSIAN by Edith Oliver.

The Talk of the Town The Mini by Harold Brodkey. Talk story about the miniskirt. Writer tells how at its first birth it was a symbol of shamelessness, of the defeat of the bourgeois attitudes. It was a style for the end of the world. Is it a style for the end of the world this time, too? Or has...

Poetry Horse-Chestnut Trees and Roses by James Schuyler. Twenty-some years ago, I read Graham Stuart Thomas's...