Society & Culture

Language commentator Geoffrey Nunberg looks back on the long nights he spent in a private club in Rome where the only requirement for membership was that you be a native-English speaker. He reflects on how the language brought together people who otherwise had nothing in common.

Short story writer and novelist Alice Adams. Her fiction deals often with women in transit and transition. She's best known for the 1984 novel Superior Women. Her new novel is titled Second Chances.

Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar. He compares his films, like "Law of Desire" and "What Have I Done To Deserve This?," to the films of the American film director John Waters. Like Waters, Almodovar's films take a humorous view of popular culture's cliches.

Comic Sandra Bernhard. She's best known for her appearances on "Late Night With David Letterman" and in the Martin Scorsese film "The King of Comedy." She's now starring in the Off-Broadway one-woman show "Without You I'm Nothing," that is part stand-up comedy, part satire on the "women of rock and roll."

George Whitmore, author of Someone Was Here, profiles of people whose lives have been transformed by AIDS, like the 32-year-old New York advertising executive, a counselor in a gay men's health center, health workers at an AIDS clinic in a municipal hospital. The book grew out of a highly acclaimed 1985 article in The New York Times Magazine about a man with AIDS and his counselor at a health center.

Essayist Harry Stein. Stein wrote the popular "Ethics" column for Esquire Magazine. He writes a syndicated column for the United Features Syndicate. He's written a book titled One of the Guys: The Wising Up of an American Man. In it, he shares his thoughts on why men are the way they are.

Actress Patricia Neal. A star of stage and film, Neal is almost as well known for her private life - her love affair with the married Gary Cooper, the tragedies that befell several of her children, the breakup of her 30-year marriage to the British writer Roald Dahl, and the stroke that almost took away her speech. Her films include "The Breaking Point," "The Fountainhead," "A Face in the Crowd," and "Hud," for which she won the Oscar.

Tango innovator Astor Piazzolla. Since the early 60s, Piazzolla has been leading groups that play an updated tango that connects this Argentinian form with the musical innovations from Europe and America, both classical and contemporary. The adjustments have earned him the enmity of Argentinians, and for most of the 70s he lived in France where he wrote film scores. Piazzolla is a classically trained composer who wrote symphonies and studied with Nadia Boulanger, the renown French instructor of composition.

Critic-at-Large Laurie Stone discusses the new ABC show "Home." The format is similar to the morning news shows, like "Good Morning America," and "The Today Show," mixing live interviews with pre-produced segments, all of which revolve around domestic issues, like how to make pot scrubbers out of onion bags.

Language commentator Geoffrey Nunberg discusses the new book They Have a Word for It. The book is a collection of foreign words and expressions for which there is no ready English translation.

Travel writer Mary Morris. Her new book, Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone, recounts her travels, alone, through Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala, and what it means for a woman to travel alone. Her earlier works include Vanishing Animals & Other Stories and The Bus of Dreams.

Film director Fran Rubel Kuzui. She's just completed her first film, "Tokyo Pop," about a young American punk singer who moves to Japan in the hopes of reviving her stalled career. (Interview by Faith Middleton)

British child development expert Penelope Leach. Leach is considered one of the foremost authorities on child care. Leach has said of her work that it is for the moments "when love is impossible ... the seventh time that night that you've woken up and you wonder `is it mine or do all babies behave like this?'" Her books include Your Baby & Child: From Birth to Age Five, Babyhood, Your Baby and Child and The First Six Months. (Interview by Faith Middleton)

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Bright Lights, Big City," the long-awaited adaptation of the best-selling novel by Jay McInerney about life in the fast lane in New York City. The film stars Michael J. Fox, Kiefer Sutherland and Dianne Wiest.

Cleve Jones, founder of the Names Project, which inspired the sewing of three-foot by six-foot panels in memory of victims of AIDS. The project culminated in the assembly of the patches in Washington last October in a quilt the size of two football fields. A 24-city tour of the quilt to raise money for AIDS research starts later this month. (Interview by Faith Middleton)

Playboy and Village Voice columnist Cynthia Heimel. Heimel brings her sassy wit to the plight of the single woman of the 80s, beset with such traumas as tackling urban life and surviving the Great Boyfriend Crunch. Her books include Sex Tips for Girls and But Enough About You. (Interview by Faith Middleton)

Ed White, author of the autobiographical novels A Boy's Own Story and The Beautiful Room Is Empty, which tell of his coming of age and maturing as a gay man. White now lives in Paris and writes for Vogue magazine. (Interview by Faith Middleton)

New York based post-modern dancer and choreographer Bebe Miller. Her choreography stands out for its energetic, aggressive physicality and for its themes of family and relationships. Miller is the winner of the prestigious "Bessie" New York Dance and Performance Award. In 1984, Miller formed her own company, Bebe Miller and Company.

British novelist Fay Weldon. Her works include The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Praxis and Down Among the Women. Her latest novel, a love story, is titled The Hearts and Lives of Men, and was written as a serial over the course of a year for the British magazine Woman. (Interview by Faith Middleton)