Anniversary Many Happy Returns by Brendan Gill. Talk story about a party at the Whitney Museum to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942). 2,583 guests attended, including 400 artists-whose works are in the Whitney's Permanent Collection. Tells the history of the Whitney. Lists the luminaries encountered on various floors of...

Books An Irishman in England by Lis Harris.

The Talk of the Town Boat Show by Wallace White. Talk story about the seventieth annual New York National Boat Show, held at the Coliseum last week...

The Talk of the Town Pills by Marion Knox Barthelme. Talk story about physicist Leonard Solon's proposals to lessen the effects of radioactive iodine on New Yorkers in case of a serious accident at Indian Point, the nuclear power complex in Westchester County. He is the director of the Bureau for Radiation Control of the city's Health Dept. Administering potassium...

Musical Events Opera of a Kind by Andrew Porter.

Letter from Opec by Joseph Kraft. The 55th meeting of OPEC convened on Dec. 17 in Caracas, Venezuela. Present were ministers representing 13 member nations. Four days of hectic negotiations followed. The sessions featured a struggle for primacy between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Saudis drew to their side 4 other Persian Gulf states that were...

Around City Hall Squaring Off by Andy Logan. Municipal labor union contracts expire this June, and union leaders are expected to demand much more than they did in 1975, when the fiscal crisis began, or in 1978, when they settled for an increase of 4%. Executive director of District Council 37, Victor Gotbaum, who was influential in the...

Profiles PEOPLE START RUNNING by James Stevenson. PROFILE of independent film maker John Carpenter, 31, who has worked in Hollywood. His horror film "Halloween", released in 1978 has grossed well over 19 million dollars in this country. lt is the most profitable independent picture of all time. Tells about his work and styding film at the University...

Dancing Shuffling Cards of Identity by Arlene Croce.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. Writer analyzes the dual nature of U.S.-Soviet relations since the end of WWII. They have assumed the form of a pyramid with day-to-day economic, political, and quasi-military dealings throughout the world forming its base and the nuclear strategic standoff forming its apex. In maintaining this structure...

Obituary by William Shawn. Obituary of St. Clair McKelway, who died Thursday, Jan. 10, 1980. He had been a member of The New Yorker's staff for the last 47 years...

The Talk of the Town Expense Account by Jamaica Kincaid. Talk story consisting of itemized listing and description of presumed costs incurred by the various participants in a recent press breakfast, held in honor of the new book and television series "Free to Choose: A Personal Statement," by Milton Friedman and his wife, Rose. Friedman is the Nobel laureate economist...

Fiction Time Out by Jane Mankiewicz. Kate has been sick for one year, in and out of hospitals, and unable to leave the city. At the end of her recovery period, before she is to return to work, she goes to an inn in the country for five days. It is raining when she arrives and...

Fiction Something for Little Robert by Douglas Dunn. The story takes place in Scotland, in 1954. Robert is the son of Letty Duncan, housekeeper ("hired friend") to the wealthy Mrs. Mure-Thompson. As the two women await Robert's arrival from school Mrs. Duncan reluctantly assents to Mure-Thompson's desire to take Robert to town and buy him a...

Poetry Near Aberdeen by Jay Parini. On a blue scarp, far out, musing...

Poetry The Examined Life by John N. Morris. Were it possible for us to wait for ourselves to come...

Poetry Letters from the Ming Dynasty by Joseph Brodsky. Soon it will be thirteen years since the nightingale...