TEACHING THE "VORLAGE" AT STOWE: OR KEEP YOUR FANNY FORWARD

NO table conversation in the Northern U.S. this winter seems complete without talk of the new ski slope or the latest office victim of an ill-conceived jump turn. Skiing is quickly coming of age as a major U.S. participant sport. Wherever there is snow, thousands are heading for the slopes and skiing's high, heady adventure; from New Hampshire to New Mexico and West Virginia to Washington State, skiers roll up record business for resort operators and equipment sellers. A dedicated band of cultists, skiers seem oblivious of skiing's built-in hazards. Asks one: "Isn't it worth maybe a broken leg every five years?" Typical of skiing's expansion is the fact that in a sport once confined to rugged men, a central figure today is a determined and independent Eastern socialite who is not a championship skier, but a man of venture capital whose enterprising push brought the 1960 Winter Olympics to the U.S. For a look at the popular sport and its sometimes unpopular man, see SPORT, Bonanza in the Wilderness.

There also comes a time at every dinner party--somewhere between the soup and the souffle--when conversation seems to wane. At that time the successful hostess will show her mettle, provided of course that she has stocked up on a variety of conversational cues. She can always start up a new buzz by casually reciting a line of poetry such as: I talk to the fire hydrant, asking: "Do you have bigger tears than I do!"

The hostess must be ready, too, for any conversational emergency. Example: if Mr. Smathers down the table should remark: "Beethoven's Quartet, Opus 18, Number 6, is truly magnificent," the Prepared Hostess will instantly reply (preferably with an imperceptible flutter of the eyelashes): "Yes. but Bartok scores the gaps. That's the difference." This will immediately show the guests that she is the sort of person who knows about hollyhocks, and almost guarantee that the guests will hurry home to hunt up their copy of this week's TIME, flip quickly to NATIONAL AFFAIRS, and read Fried Shoes.

AND did you hear about the disk jockey who stayed on the job for 200 hours without any sleep? Sure it was a sort of pressagent stunt. But medical researchers are hard to intimidate. They'll go to any unlikely place to get at the facts, and they wanted to learn more--they already know a little --about what happens to a man's mind and body when he goes without sleep. The medicine men, lured by the scent of big data, moved in on the ballyhoo of a Times Square stunt, set up an elaborate laboratory in the Hotel Astor, poked and pried and quizzed Disk Jockey Peter Tripp for 200 sleepless hours. It will take months to sift the stacks of data they gathered. Tripp gave his verdict the moment he was saved by the clock: "You can't stay awake alone. You need someone there to keep telling you, 'Up, boy, up.' " See MEDICINE, Sleepless in Gotham.

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