"Satchmo, will you get to Heaven?/I doubt it," said Soviet Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenlco in a poetic tribute to the late Louis Armstrong. "But if you do,/Do as you did in the past./And play./Cheer up the state of the angels." The outspoken Yevtushenko has bothered Russia's bosses for years, blessing and blaming with small regard to the Communist Party line. And he has not changed. In one part of his Armstrong's Trumpet he says, "A poet and a great jazzman are equal brothers in what they give the world." Soviet leaders, who frown upon both jazz and angels, have made no comment at all.

It sounded like a new form of Chinese torture: having an appendectomy under local anaesthetic, then getting pierced with needles. While on a tour through Communist China, New York Times Columnist and Vice President James Reston, 61, was flattened with appendicitis. He permitted local surgeons to operate, then with journalistic bravado let them try to relieve the pain by acupuncture--an ancient method of rerouting the forces of yin and yang by sticking needles into parts of an ailing anatomy, but not necessarily near the site of the operation. At week's end, Reston was reported to be recovering nicely.

"He has to be the ultimate skywatch pilot," says his boss. "He lends more credibility to skywatching than anyone you could imagine." Francis Gary Powers, who garnered embarrassing fame in 1960 by getting caught spying on Russia in a U-2 airplane, is still spying --this time on traffic conditions on Los Angeles' freeways. Filling in for a vacationing traffic reporter, Powers says that the biggest change he can spot from his single-engine Cessna is that in the early '60s "when I flew at high altitudes, I could see from the Gulf of California to the Monterey Peninsula on a clear day. Now at 3,000 ft., with all the smog we have, sometimes I'm lucky to see three miles."

It was a dyspepsia-provoking thought. Julia Child, giantess of French cooking, appearing with the Boston Pops Orchestra? Admittedly, she looks like a Wagnerian soprano, but could she sing? As it turned out, she didn't even try. The orchestra played and Julia beamed, mugged and moved her chaotic voice through the narrator's role in Tubby the Tuba. The Boston audience loved it and gluttonously demanded an encore. Reverting to her metier by wheeling out a cartful of bottles, the obliging Julia rapidly concocted a cocktail and served it to Conductor Arthur Fiedler precisely on time with the orchestra's final tonic chord.

Out of the past shimmered the memory of delicate high notes and feminine charm. Soprano Lily Rons, who once warbled Fs above high C, was back in the news. The famed opera singer of the '30s and '40s was honored by the French government with the badge of Commander of the National Order of Merit for her "services to France," including her patriotic work during World War II. One enduring memory: petite Pons singing La Marseillaise to tear-drenched thousands in Rockefeller Center the day Paris was liberated in August 1944.

How far should a makeup expert go in pleasing his clients? Only as far as a reporter's pencil, if the latest utterances of famed Beautifier George Masters count as proof. Interviewed by the Washington Post, Masters called Actress Liza Minnelli "a disaster -- too bad because she's nice, but ugly." Jacqueline Kennedy "has eyes so far apart that one of them is on the other side of the room." Lee Radziwill "is a nice lady but she listens to Truman Capote and she has spots all over her face." As for Lynda Bird Johnson: "She killed me when she walked in and asked if she needed makeup. I said, 'Are you kidding--with that face?' " Marilyn Monroe "had mannish tendencies." Nancy Reagan is "the worst con woman I know," while Joanne Woodward "has a flat nose, and Raquel Welch is silicone from the knees up." Concluded Masters: "I transform a pig into a raving beauty every day."

A group of 22 Americans from the Midwest climbed aboard the ship Pocahontas and headed for Palestine. On the way, there was a mutiny on board, an engineer committed suicide and the passengers arrived in Tel Aviv on the heels of an Arab riot. That was 50 years ago. By now the tribulations have taken on a nostalgic aura for Israel's Premier Soldo Meir and the seven other former passengers who sat down with her to reminisce about old times. Recalled the 73-year-old stateswoman: "Someone said as soon as we got off the boat that now the Americans had arrived, things would get better. Little did they know we didn't even have enough money to rent apartments."

There was a newspaper strike on, and the only printed opening-night review was terrible, said veteran Broadway Producer Harold Prince, "but I had never been more certain of the show's ultimate success." Now Fiddler on the Roof has proved Prince correct by racking up more than 2,845 performances to pass the mark set by Hello, Dolly! and become the longest-running musical in Broadway history. After the record-setting performance, balloons were dropped on the audience, New York's Mayor Lindsay kissed the original Fiddler, Zero Mostel, a birthday cake (artificial) was cut and a party held at the theater. Said the jubilant Prince: "I think we can run another year."

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