Jazz by Whitney Balliett.

Fiction A Schropshire Lad by Roz Chast. The writer's version, in a series of cartoons with captions, of "A Shropshire Lad". This one is different; he lives in Queens for one thing. He is called "Schropshire" instead of "Shropshire...

Comment by Jonathan Schell. When Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, spent a few days in France recently, the coverage here was unusual in its thoroughness and detail. He and his advisors had apparently made a study of Western public-relations techniques, and American commentators seemed...

The Current Cinema HEROINES by Pauline Kael.

Landmarks by James Stevenson. Illustrated Talk story about some of the buildings on Webster Avenue in the Bronx, which are visible from the commuter trains on the Metro-North New Haven line. Writer thinks that commuters who tend to look out the window probably have their own mental lists of urban landmarks they are...

The Talk of the Town Incunabula by Lincoln Caplan. Talk story about Robert Saudek, 74, chief of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress in Washington. He went to work for NBC in 1938. He thought up and produced "Omnibus" which became one of the most highly-honored series of the fifties. He...

Fiction A Terrible Saga of Entrees by Frank Gannon. Like the Mafia before them, Hell's Angels have begun to diversify into quasi-legal businesses. The FBI claims that neo-yuppie bikers have even started a catering service." -Newsweek The story works over the concept of a motorcycle gang which operates a catering service. ("No women in slacks now,' one...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Sporting Scene AN OLD CAB HORSE AND TWO NEW ONES by Herbert Warren Wind. THE SPORTING SCENE about English tennis champion Fred Perry and the 1985 U.S. Open. Perry played in the 1930's, when he won three victories at Wimbledon and each of the other major world championships at least once. Last year, on May 20th, Perry attended a gala ceremony at the...

Comment by William McKibben. A friend writes: Not long ago, I wrote a piece for this page about the line halfway between the pole and the equator; the millenium; and the conflict in South Africa. In it, in a single-sentence aside, I recounted how once, on a cross-country trip, I had crossed...

Books by John Updike.

The Talk of the Town Schooners by Charles McGrath. Talk story about the 19th annual Mayor's Cup race in New York Harbor, which the writer observed from on board the sloop Clearwater, which had been chartered as an observation boat by the South Street Seaport Museum. Tells about the race, which was interrupted by a fierce, but quick, thundersquall...

Letter from Europe by Jane Kramer. In France the Greenpeace affair is not really about the ecology of the South Pacific or secret agents blowing up the protest boat called Rainbow Warrior or France's right to test its bombs at a safe distance of halfway around the world because it owns some suitable atolls there. A...

Fiction Basil From Her Garden by Donald Barthelme. In dialogue form, two men, possibly psychiatrist and patient, discuss adultery. Q states that adultery is a sin, while A says that the seventh commandment may be a mistranslation from the Aramaic. He suggests that recognition of this would take the pressure off, were it true. A adds that he...

The Theatre by Edith Oliver.

Profiles A NEW KIND OF CITY by Berton Roueche. PROFILE of Portland, Oregon...

Poetry Anka by Czeslaw Milosz. In what hat, from what epoch...

Poetry Kafka's Watch by Raymond Carver. I have a job with a tiny salary of 80 crowns, and...

Poetry Yard Journal by Charles Wright. Mist in the trees, and soiled water and grass cuttings...