Places & Travel

New Orleans-based musician Dr. John, aka Mac Rebennack, performs a few songs by one of the greats from his home city.

For six years, Joseph Pistone worked undercover for the FBI to investigate the Mafia. His testimony helped convict over one hundred people, including those involved with the Pizza Connection heroin operation. His new memoir is titled Donnie Brasco -- the name he used when working with crime families.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Eva Hoffman's new memoir, Lost in Translation, about the writer's childhood in Eastern Europe and later move to North America. Leonard says the book deserves the same praise as other literary memoirs like Nabokov's Speak, Memory and Kingston's The Woman Warrior.

Lewitzky is based in Los Angeles where, early in her career, she danced in a number of motion pictures. Her choreography for the stage conveys simplicity of movement, divorced from any suggestion of narrative. Lewitzky performed until the age of 62.

Jane Kramer regularly writes about the culture and politics on the continent. She says immigration -- and the xenophobic response to immigrants -- has played a big part in shaping Europe's changing identity.

Director Stephen Frears directed the adaptation of the play, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, about a contest of sexual conquest and infidelity. Film critic Stephen Schiff praises how it handles eroticism. Despite some casting missteps, he believes it's "a brilliant tarentella" of a movie.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says that a number of New Orleans musicians left the city after they rose to prominence. He reviews a new series of albums featuring the innovations of players who stayed in their hometown.

After weeks of playing the music that has influenced him over the years, performer-in-residence Malcom Rebennack sings some of his own songs.

Wade wrote the script for the new movie Working Girl, starring Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver, and directed by Mike Nichols. Wade was originally a playwright; Working Girl is his first film.

Journalist Jack Newfield has cowritten a book with Wayne Barrett, City for Sale, about the corruption associated with New York City mayor Ed Koch, who is currently serving his third term. Newfield calls attention to the political influence of organized crime and the nepotism involved in filling civil service positions.

Book critic John Leonard says that Len Deighton's thriller Spy Hook, the first in a planned trilogy, lacks the edge of the author's earlier work, and spends too much time setting up the sequels.

Russo's latest book, The Risk Pool, is set in an upstate New York town, similar to where the author grew up. He says he didn't realize until later in his career how much inspiration he could draw from his formative years.

The writer inherited his family's ranch, but later sold it when he moved to Iowa for graduate school. Kittredge critiques the belief that humans have the moral authority to develop and tame the American West. This mythology, he says, has led to ecological destruction and the genocide of American Indians. His new collection of essays about the subject is called Owning it All.

Film critic Stephen Schiff praises Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a wildly-stylized farce that he says is weirdly touching.

Essayist Paul Gruchow has a new collection of essays called The Necessity of Empty Places, which celebrates the American wilderness. Rejecting the macho, survivalist approach to confronting nature, Gruchow sees the wilderness as a place of meditation and discovery.

Organized crime groups in China, called triads, have become some of the biggest forces in the international heroin trade. Writer Gerald Posner links their rise to the power vacuum left by the Sicilian mafia, as well as the policing policies of Chinatowns throughout the U.S. Posner's book about the subject is called Warlords of Crime.

Smith is host of a popular PBS television program and author of the best-sellers The Money Game, Supermoney and Paper Money. His new book, titled The Roaring 80s, looks at the previous decade, which he says has been characterized by easy debt, easy spending and an amiable hands-off attitude by Washington. Smith says a camparison with another era of high living - the roaring 20s - is unavoidable.

Book critic John Leonard reviews African Madness, a new collection of travel essays by Alex Shumatoff, a New Yorker staff writer who seeks to capture the changing face of sub-Saharan African.

Performer-in-residence Harry Connick, Jr. performs to two tunes about his hometown.

Rock historian Ed Ward profiles New Orleans rocker Lloyd Price was one of the earliest black rock 'n rollers. He first recorded on the Special T label, and had hits with the songs "Personality" and his version of the old folk tale "Stagger Lee." He adopted a pop sound after New York City, started a few record labels, and owns several nightclubs.