Comment The Gardener of Bratislava Comment by Paul Wilson. Comment on Alexander Dubcek who was a living oxymoron and a popular communist in Czechoslovakia. On Saturday, November 7th Alexander Dubcek (a popular communist) died of injuries received in an automobile crash. He was in his seventy-first year. His life ended at a time of endings: on January 1st...

The Talk of the Town Really Something by Christopher Buckley. Talks story about the late Dorothy Walker Bush... Yet, by all accounts, Dorothy Bush was a much mor dominate force in his life. Barbara Bush once told an interviewer that her mother-in-law had "ten times" the influence on her son that his father had...

The Talk of the Town Burning Question by Ian Parker. Talk story about Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle. In the evening on Friday, November 20th Windsor Castle went up in flames, and everyone was taking pictures including amateur, and world press photographers. They felt this was "a once in a lifetime opportunity." The Windsor people felt the issue was...

The Talk of the Town Rules of the Game by Benjamin Brantley. Talk story about a party for the movie "The Crying Game," held above the Tribeca Grill, as being the subject of the movie, created by Neil Jordan, the forty-three-year-old Irish romanticist who also made "Mona Lisa" and "The Miracle...

The Talk of the Town Pipe Dreams by Alison Rose. Talk story about American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout who speaks to a known artist and sculptor about smoking and his views. Jimmie Durham who is an artist and sculptor has done paintings of poppies with what appears to be a cigarette burn in it, and smoked half a pack...

Letter from Washington THE ORDER OF THE BOOT by Sidney Blumenthal. LETTER FROM WASHINGTON is about the recent Presidential election and how both American political parties got help from their counterparts in England. The Republicans, realizing they were way behind in the polls after the Republican convention, called on their counterparts in England, the conservative Tories. In April of this year...

Casual Artichoke by Polly Frost. Casual about a forty year old woman who is finally taking control of her sexuality and marketing it by writing a book. The book will be "a foray into today's relationships between men and women, with a lot of descriptions of me having sex. I don't intend to titillate my...

Annals of Radiation THE CANCER AT SLATER SCHOOL by Paul Brodeur. ANNALS OF RADIATION about cancer cases among employees & children at Louis N. Slater Elementary School, in Fresno, Calif., which is next to high-voltage power lines on Emerson Ave. Teachers & parents at the school became concerned about the problem in 1990. Most of the cancers had occurred among...

Fiction What He Was Like by William Maxwell. The story is about a man, a father, who lived a completely different life in his diaries than he did in reality. He kept his diary for his own pleasure. He was in his 70s now and his days passed quickly, so he wrote down what he had done and...

The Sporting Scene SHADES OF BLUE by Roger Angell. THE SPORTING SCENE about the World Series and the baseball season describes many other players, problems and teams, but mainly focuses on the Toranto Blue Jays and the Atlanta Braves and the pennant and World Series games. Mentions the many high-salaried teams and their corrolating bad seasons, the Dodgers...

Musical Events by Paul Griffiths.

The Theatre CELLMATES by Edith Oliver.

Books by James Lardner.

Books by James Lardner.

Books by Whitney Balliett.

Shouts & Murmurs The Small Picture by James Wolcott. James Wolcott says he gets restless sitting through entire movies, so he really goes to the movies now to see the trailers. Not that a great trailer always guarantees a good time. A lively trailer augurs a lively movie, and a mediocre trailer means "Don't bother putting on your mittens...

Poetry Burning Trash by John Updike. At night--the light turned off, the filament...

Poetry Flood by Linda Bierds. In that gill light of late-autumn evenings...

Poetry Argument by Mary Jo Salter. Lunch finished and pushed aside, lost...