The Show That Did Not Open
Closed mid-July 1989 · On stands late July 1989
The Front
Index of the Season
Midyear box-office totals, ozone-alert days, the summer's drought-county tallies
On Language
'Sound bite' turns from a term of art into an accusation
The Bat and the Balance Sheet
Batmania's merchandising windfall — how the summer's biggest film became the summer's biggest licensing deal
The Essay
The Show That Did Not Open
The Corcoran Gallery's withdrawal of the Mapplethorpe retrospective in June and the question it leaves standing: which images a serious institution can still put its name behind
The Foreign File
The Provincial Question
On the shape a common European market is expected to take by decade's end
The Feature Well
The Contractor's Ledger
A profile of the savings-and-loan wreckage and what it is doing to regional construction economies across the Sun Belt
The Producer's Voice
A profile of the producer-driven pop duo dominating the summer charts, and the manufacturing behind the sound
The City
Subject: Rent stabilization hearings and the summer's list of buildings up for conversion
The Back
Books: Review essay on the season's new fiction in translation · Art: Notes from the summer benefit circuit · Film: A survey of the summer's action pictures against their reviews