Comment by Suzannah Lessard. The glacier left the North Shore of Long Island with an irregular topography. A flat plain lies a few miles inland, and the main routes tend to be built there while the back roads near the shore plunge and twist and swerve. In summer a jungle of honeysuckle, wild grape...

Around City Hall AROUND CITY HALL LINGUISTICS by Andy Logan. While Cuomo is often portrayed by his detractors as a political Hamlet, he described himself to the Republican-controlled State Senate as very hard to fight with. Recently he was given the Award for High Civic Service by the Citizens Budget Commission, a local watchdog group. Cuomo had asked state...

The Talk of the Town Whaling and Beyond by James Stevenson. Illustrated talk story about the Whaling Museum of Sag Harbor, Long Island. The writer went there on a recent Sunday afternoon. The museum occupies a Greek Revival house with tall Corinthian columns and there is an arch of 2 10-foot long right-whale jawbones on the portico just outside...

Books Hot Air and Steam by Jeremy Bernstein.

Jazz Wein World by Whitney Balliett.

The Talk of the Town Scavenger Hunt by William McKibben. Talk story about 35 AFS International exchange students who go on a scavenger hunt to learn about N.Y. City. The students have been going to high school in rural Maine for a year and were visiting N.Y. under the audpices of AFS, which used to be known as the American...

Fiction Indian Summer by David Updike. Writer visits his grandmother's farm in Southwestern Ohio, where she has lived all her life. After his grandfather died she bought a horse named Talbot. She got thrown off riding Talbot & doesn't anymore. In the absence of people, his grandmother has surrounded herself with animals-the horse, dog...

The Talk of the Town Visitor by Wolcott Gibbs. Talk story about a Westport couple who, after selling their home faster than they expected, moved into a studio apartment on East 54th Street for a month. They moved in on Friday evening, vowing to improve themselves by doing all the city things they'd previously put off, starting the next...

Musical Events Child of Sin by Andrew Porter.

The Sporting Scene OAKMONT AND THE OPEN by Herbert Warren Wind. THE SPORTING SCENE about the U.S. Open played at Oakmont golf course, near Pittsburgh, and about the course. The match, held last month, was the sixth U.S. Open hosted by Oakmont. It was won by Larry Nelson with Tom Watson the runner-up. In 1903, 15 years after the first...

Reflections RUSSIA-THE QUEST FOR LEGITIMACY by William Pfaff. REFLECTIONS about the impasse in Russia. By reintroducing Russia to cold war the Reagan Adm. has provided it with a certain relief from its deepest problem, which is the problem of autonomy. The Soviet leaders are assured by America of their importance, of the fear they inspire, of the reach...

Fiction Instructor by Frederick Barthelme. David sends his vita to Southwestern Alabama University for a one-year, non-tenure-track instructorship in biology. The chairman of the department calls him for an interview & he flies down. He meets Sonia, an associate professor from Kansas. She invites him to dinner with her &...

The Current Cinema HYSTERICS by Pauline Kael.

Poetry The Place by Robert Penn Warren. From shelving cliff-darkness, green arch and nave...

Poetry Nova Scotia by Stephen Dunn. Jellyfish washed up...