Around City Hall THE WORST OF TIMES, THE BEST OF TIMES AROUND CITY HALL by Andy Logan. New Yorkers have received contradictory messages from their political leaders recently. Early last month, and later, in his State of the Union Message, President Reagan advised Americans that they were in the "worst economic mess since the Great Depression." He called for significant budget cuts, many of which would adversely...

Fiction The Conner Girls by Edna O'Brien. The narrator is a young girl living in a town in Ireland at the beginning of the story; at the end, she is married, with one small child. In the town are two sisters, Amy and Lucy Conner, who are aloof, Protestant in a predominantly Catholic town, and wealthier than...

The Theatre Off Broadway by Edith Oliver.

Musical Events Images by Nicholas Kenyon.

Books An American Tragedy by Naomi Bliven.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. With the arrival of the Reagan Administration, a new social class has appeared on the political scene. It is the class of the "truly needy." Not to be confused with the needy pure and simple, the truly needy happily require no more federal assistance than turns out to be available...

Fiction Abandoned by George W. S. Trow. Ten-part satire on welfare and philanthropic programs, commitment of upper class toward helping the poor, dehumanization. Scene: an abandoned building where children live, that is being redeveloped by "sweat equity." Some of the incidents: a) Abandoned children are placed in a fumigated, dehumanized environment where they are presented with...

U. S. Journal QUACKSCAM by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: BEARDSTOWN, ILL., about a raid to search for poachers in Beardstown, Illinois. On December 3rd, enforcement officers of the Illinois Department of Conservation and the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service entered houses all over Beardstown, Illinois to look for evidence of poaching and game violations. The raid-referred...

The Talk of the Town Towns by Jervis Anderson. Talk story about the Association of Towns of the State of New York's annual meeting at the Hilton the weekend of Washington's Birthday. Writer talked to two residents of Colonie, Geoff Davis and William Sanford, who discussed with him the problems facing small towns today and the purpose of the...

The Current Cinema TRAMONT'S MIRROR WOMEN A LA MODE by Pauline Kael.

The Talk of the Town The Gorilla by Mark Singer. Talk story about a street peddler named George Ellis, who is in his early forties, black and hefty, and who used to be a distributor for Afro-Kola. Most mornings he drives a yellow school bus he owns to one of two spots on West StreetNeither downtown, near Pier 40...

Dancing Think Punk by Arlene Croce.

Letter from Zimbabwe by Anthony Lewis. Last April, after a bloody 7-year guerrilla war Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and the black majority took power in a govt. headed by Robert Mugabe, the leader of what had been the most active guerrilla force. The degree of continuity between old and new is astonishing. The private secretary and...

The Talk of the Town Taping Max Roach by Joan Bennet. Talk story about jazz drummer Max Roach and a nonstop, eight-day, twenty-four-hour-a-day, two-hundred-hour tribute to him. It will be broadcast on WKCR, the non-commercial radio station of Columbia University. Bill Goldberg, a Columbia senior, has been putting the program together for the...

Poetry For Stephen Drawing Birds by Pattiann Rogers. They catch your eye early, those rising black...

Poetry First Snow by Mary Oliver. The snow...

Poetry Jealousy by William Logan. Philosophers rise at 3 A.M. to undercut...