Onward and Upward with the Arts II-CABLE by Thomas Whiteside. ONWARD & UPWARD WITH THE ARTS about cable television. Recently new means have been developed for electronically generating & conveying printed characters onto television or home computer screens, using videotex or teletext. Teletext is a one-way medium; videotex allows viewers to respond. This new technology threatens commercial territories that...

The Current Cinema TIDAL by Pauline Kael.

The Talk of the Town Game by Mary D. Kierstead. Talk story about Paul Magriel, who gave a tour of 50 of his favorite sculptures in the Metropolitan Museum. He gives 3 tours: sculpture, painting&miscellaneous objects. They are unofficially conducted every once in a while for the pleasure of his friends&anyone fortunate enough to latch on...

Comment Comment-Part 3 by Stanley Mieses. We received a letter from a young man we know who writes about Mother's Day. He had plans to lunch with his parents at their favorite Hungarian restaurant on the upper East Side&see the much publicized foreign-film hit"The Gods Must Be Crazy." His mother had had...

Books by George Steiner.

Comment by Jonathan Schell. In recent weeks, the U.S. has been in crisis, a public relations crisis, which crystallized around the President's visit to Bitburg, to lay a wreath at the graves of German soldiers who died in WWII. Public relations is the chief medium through which we conduct our political affairs, so we...

Dancing by Arlene Croce.

Fiction The Ravages of Time by Daniel Menaker. Last May Dave and his wife, Elizabeth, took his Uncle Sol, 89, up from the city to the farmhouse in Mass. which Uncle Sol recently decided to leave not to the Alliance of Socialist Youth, but to Dave. This was the first real encounter between Soland Dave's 10-month son...

Fiction Janus by Ann Beattie. Andrea was a real-estate agent and when she thought that some prospective buyers might be dog-lovers, she dropped her dog Mondo at the house when they were looking at it. She also placed a bowl she'd bought at a crafts fair on a coffee table. The wonderful thing...

Comment by Wallace Shawn. We have just received a letter from a friend in his early forties: I don't feel very well. I may be suffering from a mid-life crisis. I was born during WWII, and one of the things I've believed all my life, without really thinking about it, is that we...

The Theatre by Edith Oliver.

Reflections MANIFEST DESTINY by William Pfaff. REFLECTIONS about Central America&how very little has changed in its history of relations with the U.S. President Reagan cannot be accused of innovation in the conduct of U.S. policy toward Nicaragua. Gives history of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua from the 19th century onwards. Social Darwinism said that there...

Musical Events by Andrew Porter.

Poetry Wounded Whale by Laurie Sheck. What has not been touched is the deep black...

Poetry The Other Great Composers by John Ash. They lived in places tourists don't care to visit...