Faster than a speeding bullet? Not likely, when Superman's bright blue leotard bulged from a paunch that was bound to blunt the man of steel's airstream in flight. Actually Texas Senator John Tower, 53, never did get airborne, but otherwise the conservative Republican performed nobly in a Superman spoof mounted in Dallas by a drinking club of politicians and newsmen. "I was born to play Superman," acknowledged Tower, flipping his cape for dramatic emphasis.

For Pope John Paul II it was a curiously connubial week. First, in the Vatican's stately Pauline Chapel, the Pope kept a promise to a Rome street-cleaner's daughter who had boldly asked him to officiate at her wedding. The glowing bride, Vittoria lanni, 22, received a papal buss and so did the nervous groom, Mario Maltese, 24. "May you have long life and may you see the sons of your sons," prayed the Pope in nuptial blessing. Later in the week, the Pope tuned in the state-owned second radio network to catch the premiere broadcast of The Goldsmith's Shop, a play in verse by Polish Dramatist Andrzej Jawien. That, it turned out, was the nom de plume John Paul had chosen in 1960, when as auxiliary bishop of Cracow he wrote the heavily symbolic study of three marriages.

Country Rock Singer Jerry Lee Lewis owed the feds $165,093.12 in back taxes, and the feds were tired of waiting. That's why a posse of IRS agents suddenly showed up at Lewis De Soto County, Miss., ranch last week and seized a $68,000 Rolls-Royce, a Cadillac Eldorado, a Corvette Stingray, a Lincoln Continental, a Jeep, a '56 Caddy, a '35 Ford, a '41 Ford convertible, a tractor and five motorcycles. "I'm sure it's a breakdown in communications and something will be worked out," moaned the singer. "You know, you don't run from those people if you've got good sense." Or drive away from them either.

For New York City Ballet Superdancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, two weeks in Washington was a head over heel experience. Midway in the company's Kennedy Center program, Misha gave a special performance in the White House East Room; while dancing with Ballerina Patricia McBride, he soared so high in a flashing cabriole that his head very nearly collided with a massive crystal chandelier. Surviving that, Baryshnikov, alas, was unexpectedly hobbled by a familiar dancer's affliction, an aggravated Achilles' tendon, and forced to miss his final performances.

On the Record

Barbara Tuchman, historian, deploring lack of American recognition of the arts: "Every French town has an Avenue Victor Hugo. We never have a Mark Twain Street."

Herman E. Talmadge, Georgia Senator, after hospitalization for alcoholism: "I took my personal problems to the bottle rather than to my Maker."

Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, lecturing in Mexico City: "No Communist country has solved the problem of succession."

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