Comment by Penelope Gilliatt. An English friend writes that the comment she most often heard New Yorkers use about our past summer was, "Of course, it's not the heat, it's the humidity." She was surprised when taken to a disco on East Fifty-second Street, called New York New York, at which the terrific...

Books A View from the Top by Mollie Panter-Downes.

Around City Hall Nothing Personal by Andy Logan. On Sept. 8th, the city's Primary Day, Mayor Abraham Beame came in third in the race for the Semocratic nomination, with 18% of the vote. Rep. Edward Koch, 52, came in first with 20% of the vote, and Mario Cuomo, 45, the secretary of state in Albany, came in second...

The Current Cinema The Sacred Oak by Pauline Kael. Review of "Padre Padrone", Paolo and Vittorio Taviani wrote and directed this adaptation of Gavino Ledda's 1974 autobiography. The film opened at the New York Film Festival on Sept. 25th...

Fiction Bobby Bison's Energy Budget For The Eighties by George W. S. Trow. These days if you press Bobby too closely about his energy budget, Bobby will get too anxious. I'll run down some of the things that have come up so far to delay the energy budget. First of all, Bobby has felt a little "fat" lately. Bobby thinks that he should...

A Reporter in Germany A BACKWARD LOOK by Daniel Lang. A REPORTER IN GERMANY about Germans recalling Nazi times. Writer visits Wolfgang Kaphammel of the Ministry of Finance in Bonn, the seat of the Federal Republic of Germany. Kaphammel tells about the program of restitution, called Wiedergutmachung, for Nazi victims. The program was the result of edict issued by the...

Fiction O'Phelan Drinking by John F. Murray. My brother, hateful Martin O'Phelan, has brought me to the admissions office at St. Justin's Hospital. He tells the man in the office that this man, his brother, is a shiftless, drunken bum who has just escaped from a Boston booby hatch and finds himself in desperate need of treatment...

The Talk of the Town U.N.U. by E. J. Kahn. Talk story about United Nations University with hq. in Tokyo. Writer interviewed Alexander A. Kwapong, a native of Ghana, who is currently the Vice-Rector of UNU, in charge of planning & development. Until Dec., of 1975, Dr. Kwapong, a Cambridge-educated classicist was presiding over the University of Ghana...

The Race Track Ladies in the Mud by G. F. T. Ryall. Canadian Bound, the colt by Secretariat, ran in a race for the first time last week, at Evry, near Paris, and finished second. He was ridden by Freddy Head, one of the very top jockeys in France...

The Talk of the Town Taxi Jokes by Mark Singer. Talk story about taxi driver jokes. The writer used to subscribe to "Taxi Drivers Voice," the organ of the New York City Taxi Drivers Union Local 3036. Quotes from an editorial titled "Taxi Driver Humor," which suggested that taxi drivers should learn to laugh along with comedians' jokes about taxi...

The Theatre DOING EVIL by Brendan Gill.

The Air (On Television) Getting the Goods on Pres. Monckton by Michael J. Arlen.

Dept. of Amplification by Edward Handman. DEPT. OF AMPLIFICATION & author's reply on the Aug. 1 REPORTER AT LARGE about NYC employees. Handman, who is the Director of Public Relations for District Council 37, criticizes the press, in general, and Ken Auletta's article in "The New Yorker," specifically, for blaming the fiscal crisis on the NYC...

The Talk of the Town Encyclopedists by Thomas Whiteside. Talk story about the one-volume Random House Encyclopedia, priced at $70. James Mitchell, the editor-in-chief of the encyclopedia and chairman of the firm of Mitchell Beazley, Ltd., in London, told the writer some of the background of the origins and development of the encyclopedia. The idea for...

Poetry The Lizard in His Medium by William Logan. Sly, like the French horn's plunge...

Poetry We Came Back by Philip Levine. Those of us who came back...

Poetry Mushrooms by William Heyen. A dark sky blowing over...

Poetry Ox Cart Man by Donald Hall. In October of the year...