Comment by Veronica Geng. Comment about what we saw when we read The Times last Tuesday while wearing X-Ray Spex. (X-Ray Spex is a novelty item: glasses designed to give the wearer X-ray vision, and are sold by a Long Island Co. for $1.95.) What we saw - the news of the...

Reflections THE REACTIONARIES by William Pfaff. REFLECTIONS about the reactions of natives in Asia, Africa, and, more immediately, in Iran to Westernization. Iran can be taken as a model of how a developing country goes into shock as a result of economic developments, social change, and the resulting attack upon its traditional culture. Tells how what...

Dancing by Arlene Croce.

The Current Cinema NO COMMENT by Pauline Kael.

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Fiction Wanted: Short or Long Respite by Former Cineaste by S. J. Perelman. Writer reminisces about screenwriting days in Hollywood and great moments connected with the movies. Winston Finston's experience as a screenwriter made him fit for basic training in the U.S. Marine Corps. Hard of hearing, he was branded AWOL in a delicatessen named Woloshin's when he was supposed to be in...

Profiles BRIGADE DE CUISINE by John McPhee. PROFILE of the owner-chef of a sort of farmhouse-inn less than 100 miles from N.Y.C., where superb food is served. He asked that the writer not give his name, the name of the restaurant nor its location. His wife, Anne is always called by a nickname, which is...

U. S. Journal THOUGHTS OF A CONFIRMED INDOORSMAN IN THE GREAT INDOORS by Calvin Trillin. U.S. JOURNAL: MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. about the Skyway System of glassed-in second-story bridges between buildings. Minneapolis, and St. Paul, for that matter, has a dozen or so downtown blocks connected by Skyways. Tells how this is part of a trend in some American cities, and suburbs, toward "indoorism" which...

The Talk of the Town Over Here by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story about the Antiques and Memorabilia Show at the Statler Hilton. Mort Berkowitz, the man in charge, explains that it is the largest "nostalgia" show in the city and tries to explain the popularity of nostalgia. Mentions some of the items in the show...

The Talk of the Town Conference in Shubert Alley by Lillian Ross. Talk story about a meeting held at Shubert Alley to discuss promotion of "Zoot Suit", a play which opened in Los Angeles and is scheduled to open next month at the Winter Garden in New York. Written and directed by Luis Valdez, a farmworker turned playwright, "Zoot Suit" is a...

Jazz by Whitney Balliett.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. Quoted in Comment on the recent intrusion of religion into politics, especially in Iran where Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would have God Himself run the country. God's qualities (perfect, eternal, invisible, and absolute) make Him dangerous in politics. A democrat must hold to Gotthold Lessing's words: "Let each man say what...

Fiction The Faithful by Elizabeth Hardwick. The writer, an American, lived in Amsterdam at one point in her life - in retrospect, a very happy time. She recalls a married Dr. Z, a passive man by nature, well known for the lovers he acquired. He would always seem genuinely in love. His wife, a French woman, was...

The Theatre by Edith Oliver.

Fiction Golf Dreams by John Updike. Writer describes dreams he has during the winter, when snow covers the fairway, about playing golf. In dream golf, the shot never decreases in difficulty, but melts into deeper hardship. The fairway changes into an arbor, the ball becomes a cylinder like a roll of coins, the club bears a...

Poetry Signs and Portents by Stanley Kunitz. Jonathan, the last of the giant tortoises...

Poetry Aphrodite by Louise Gluck. A woman exposed as rock...

Poetry Ballet Blanc by Katha Pollitt. Baryshnikov leaps higher than your heart...