Around City Hall NIBBLING by Andy Logan. AROUND CITY HALL about the city budget deficit, & subsequent firings by Mayor Beame. In Nov., Beame said the city's $11-billion, 100-million budget would have a deficit of $430-million. Comptroller Goldin said the most conservative estimate by his office was a $650-million deficit. Cuts would have...

The Talk of the Town Being Present by Jacqueline Onassis. Long talk story about the new International Center of Photography which occupies the mansion that formerly served as headquarters for the Nat'l Audubon Society at 5th Ave. & 94th St. The week before the Center's recent opening, writer spoke with Cornell Capa, its executive director & with Karl Katz, one...

Comment by Jonathan Schell. Comment about the reactions of the defendants after the Watergate verdicts were handed down. Writer recalls a time in the Nixon White House when ordinary moral standards were doubly inverted. In 1971, Patrick Buchanan, a speech writer for Pres. Nixon, noted in a memo that the plan to harass Daniel...

The Talk of the Town Meetings by Mark Singer. Talk story about a meeting of the Melville Society at the N. Y. Public Library. Robert Penn Warren, the poet and writer, was to preside, but he was absent. Sanford Marovitz, the program chairman, announced the absence. The meeting included the presentation of a paper about film versions of "Moby...

Fiction A Knack For Languages by Anne Tyler. Susan is watching her Italian linguist-husband study Arabic. As she watches him in the lamplight she reminisces about his family and hers. He is warm and passionate and she is cold. Susan thinks of the fear she had in school when she dated him. At that time she was...

The Talk of the Town Gatherings, by Geoffrey T. Hellman. Talk story about the Rockefeller Public Service Awards which have been given annually since 1952 out of the capacious pocket of John D. Rockefeller 3rd and which are administered, without the donor's participation, by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University. The awards are given...

The Talk of the Town And So To Bed by Anthony Hiss. Talk story about New Year's morning at the Brasserie restaurant, one of the few all-night midtown restaurants. There were nearly 100 breakfasting revellers Writer describes the motley crowd at the restaurant & gives snatches of conversation overheard. Writer spoke with Rita Daniels, who designs clothes for The Godfather II...

The Current Cinema Woman on the Road by Pauline Kael. Lengthy critique of her acting in review of "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", a Martin Scorsese film...

Profiles TIME TO THINK by Calvin Tomkins. PROFILE of Robert Wilson, playwright, and detailed examination of his recent play, "The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin", put on last winter at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It is a 12-hour, 7-act play with 6 intermissions. The cast of 144 is mostly amateur-friends and students...

Musical Events A Hundred, Not Out by Andrew Porter.

The Talk of the Town Gatherings by Geoffrey T. Hellman. Talk story about the presentation of the William J. Donovan Award by the Veterans of the Office of Strategic Services. Hugh Downs, the former host of the "Today Show," made a speech at this year's O.S.S. Veterans' Dinner...

Fiction They Were Expandable by Ralph Schoenstein. Satire in diary form on professional sports: hockey, baseball, football, and basketball. Writer tells the story from the point of view of a member of the Chicago Liens, a little expansion club that plays baseball. Many teams have financial difficulties which makes their operations uncertain. Writer describes change of team...

The Talk of the Town At the Garden by Hendrik Hertzberg. Talk story about the George Harrison concert at Madison Sq. Garden in 1974. It was the climactic event of the 1st American tour by a former member of the Beatles, so it should have been epoch-making, but instead, the evening was full of dissonances, contradictions, shortfalls. Harrison seemed ambivalent...

The Theatre Tennis With the Net Down by Brendan Gill. Discussion of dialogue of the play "The Hashish Club". Writer said he is put in mind of Yeats' having to sit through a rendition by his friend John McCormack of the lachrymose ballad "Mother Machree". Said Yeats in anguish, pounding his fist on his knee, "Oh, the damnable clarity of...

Books The Mystery of Life by Jeremy Bernstein.

Poetry Snow by Carl Dennis. Thirty-four years haven't put a dent...

Poetry The Counting Houses by W. S. Merwin. Where do the hours of a city begin and end...