"You don't have to read it all, but it's nice to know it's all there," goes a radio ad for the New York Times. Not necessarily--at least not for Margaret Fishback, a Manhattan ad copywriter and author of light verse (TIME, June 28). Contemplating her 7-lb., 16-section, 739-page edition of the Sunday Times, Miss Fishback finally sat down and dashed off a few heartfelt lines of protest to the editor, which the Times dutifully printed two Sundays later, right next to the 200-page magazine section's table of contents.

I'd pay a little extra for

A whole lot less, instead of more

And more and more and more to read.

For more is what I do not need.

Old issues of The Times abound. They're everywhere. They're all

around.

Each bed and table bears its heap. I ask you, where am I to sleep?

My home's abulge, and getting

fatter

Because of so much reading matter. The New York Times should pay my rent And furnish me a heated tent.

In 1930, a young wag wrote: "Candy/ Is dandy/ But liquor/ Is quicker." Now comes an addendum by Verseman Ogden Nash, 66, for the new generation: "Pot is not."

Two summers ago, Nancy Janice Moore, South Carolina's entry in the 1965 Miss America contest, spent four weeks in Washington as an intern in the office of her state's Senator Strom Thurmond. Last week, her parents announced her engagement to Thurmond.

"We aren't sure when we will have the wedding," said Nancy, 22 and an English and political science graduate of the University of South Carolina. Said her 66-year-old fiance: "She's very smart. A straight-A student."

Though he made his reputation as a platform personality. Elvis Presley hasn't appeared before a live audience in nearly a decade. Instead, he's been cutting records and cranking out as many as three movies a year at an average of $1,000,000 each. Now the arithmetic has changed, and Elvis will be turning them on live in the future. "It's more profitable than movies," says a spokesman, explaining that $100,000 per concert is not out of line for a man of Elvis' talents these days. Thus a concert a week for ten weeks equals $1,000,-000--compared to the 15 work-filled weeks it takes to make a movie for the same price.

Remember those stories last month about Hans Kiesel, the lucky West German businessman who bought a grimy oil of a couple of nudes at the flea market in Paris for $40, only to discover a long-lost Monet hidden beneath it? The find was fully restored and authenticated by experts at the respected Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum in Braunschweig. One of the great impressionist's Gare St. Lazare paintings, it was dated 1877 and worth possibly $1,000,000. Well, last week Kiesel gleefully announced that it was all a rib. An artist friend had first removed the original scene of two nudes sunbathing, then faked in Monet's scene, "aged" it in front of a gas stove and out in the sun, and finally painted the nudes back on top. Said Kiesel: "We wanted to protest against the middle-class stock-certificate-on-theW&U COHCCpt Of 3^. Attd we wanted to demonstrate against the 'experts' who are a little too quick to 'authenticate' a picture." Done.

Of all the books published about Charles de Gaulle, the most engrossing may well be a little biography for children, complete with charming drawings and simple text. Yet the unknown author, writing under the pseudonym Xavier Arito-marchi, laces his pabulum with Tabasco. "La France est a moi," says young Charles as he plays soldiers, grabbing the French poilus for himself, while forcing his brothers to take the Ger man and English sides. There is another happy scene of Charles playing pyramid--standing on a shield held by his playmates. And on and on. The caption, beside a picture of De Gaulle nestled in a huge Mexican sombrero, announces that "The general travels a lot. In Mexico, he was a success because he sings in Spanish." Every Frenchman knows that De Gaulle sings only the Marseillaise, and that in Mexico he spoke only a few well-memorized words in Spanish. A schoolroom scene has le General lecturing to a group of rigid students, and the text relates: "When he presides over the Ministers' Council, everybody is of his opinion." The book slyly reports that De Gaulle "bought his two general's stars at the Bon Marche"--a sort of Prisian Macy's. And it goes behind the scenes at the Elysee Palace to show that "after dinner, the general and Yvonne watch television;" sketched on the television screen is a buxom young lady wearing a sweater emblazoned with "B.B."

Gin rummy, as played in Hollywood, is not always a gentleman's game. Even so, the games at the Friars' Club over a ten-month period during 1962 and 1963 were something out of the ordinary. Camera Industrialist Theodore Brislcin, for example, lost $220,000, Shoe Millionaire Harry Karl dropped $80,-000, and such cool hands as Phil Silvers, Zeppo Marx and Tony Martin lost heavily. An investigation by the FBI followed, and last week five players in the games (two real estate developers, an art collector, an investor and a professional card shark) were found guilty on 49 counts of conspiracy, face sentences of from five to 130 years. Their gimmick: to station a confederate at a ceiling peephole in the Friars' card rooms; the "peeper" would then transmit electronic signals about opponents' hands. But was it necessary? Not really, said Martin. "I'm a pretty poor player anyway. My wife beats me all the time."

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