The Talk of the Town Bashert by Stanley Mieses. Talk story about Yiddish actress Reizl Bozyk, who performs in the film of the play "Crossing Delancey", by Susan Sandier. Writer watched the filming at the RAPP Arts Center on East Fourth Street, recently. Joan Micklin Silver is the director. Two of the performers are Amy Irving & Peter Riegert...

A Reporter at Large BLOODY GAMES by Eqbal Ahmad. REPORTER AT LARGE about Afghanistan which was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979. The Soviet Union has had a long-standing interest in Afghanistan. After Lenin came to power the Afghans were the first recipients of Soviet & military aid. As time went on Afghanistan, at home, was free...

Onward and Upward with the Arts THE AUTHORSHIP QUESTION by James Lardner. ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS about the disputed authorship of Shakespeare's writing. There are two schools of thought on the subject, the Stratfordians, who believe Shakespeare to be the author of the works attributed to him, and the Oxfordians, who believe the true author to be Edward de Vere...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Hoppers by Garrison Keillor. Talk story about jumping over a stream of water created in the street by a hydrant... A hydrant was open on 7th Ave. above 23rd St. last Friday morning & we stopped on our way east & watched people hop over the water. It was a brilliant spring day. The...

Books by Naomi Bliven.

Around City Hall by Andy Logan. The current effort of the Bank of New York to take over the Irving Bank Corporation led the Bank of NY to settle out of court a suit with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Tells how Mayor Koch supported passage of Local Law 19, which forbids the...

Fiction The Boy on the Train by Arthur Robinson. In 1891, at the age of 5, Lewis Barber Fletcher travelled alone from Jacksonville, Fla., to the little town of Camden, 31 miles northwest of Utica, N.Y. His parents had separated & were later divorced. At first, he was to stay with his father but then his father sent him...

Fiction Numeromancer by Michael Caruso. Parody of science fiction novel "Neuromancer" by William Gibson, and Bill James Baseball Abstract... Tells about a futuristic version of baseball played with computers, or cyborgs, or a combination of the 2. The hero, Chiz, played for a local team, the Fine Young Chemicals, then for the New New York...

The Talk of the Town Camp-In by Susan Orlean. Talk story about camping out in American Museum of Nat. His. Here is the wilderness creed we lived by last weekend, when we joined 47 pre-teen Girl Scouts who were camping in for the night at the American Museum of Natural History: 1. Be Judicious in Your Choice of...

The Theatre BOARDING-HOUSE BLUES by Edith Oliver.

The Talk of the Town Neo-Latin by George W. S. Trow. Talk story about Latin, and about "Hermes Americanus," an American Latin-language journal... Here is a concept: Neo-Latin. Neo-Latin"is the 3rd & last major epoch in the history of Latin, succeeding the ancient Roman & medieval periods." It is the epoch we are in. Writer relays information...

Comment by Cynthia Zarin. Comment about the violence in Northern Ireland... In a picture of violence--two soldiers killed when they ventured accidentally close to an IRA funeral, a Catholic priest, kneeling beside the body of one of the soldiers, seems to be attempting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The priest was 54-year-old...

Dancing by Alastair Macaulay.

Poetry Nightshade by Eric Pankey. Those shadows, those flame shapes below...

Poetry Ultramundane Traveller by Susan Prospere. Because you were the youngest, we told you...