March 1, 1992

Artistic images of the Holocaust are typically ghastly and shattering: the mounds of bones, masses of shorn hair and haunted ovens of Auschwitz in the classic documentary film "Night and Fog." Or they are as glib and deceptive as the bright, pretty, red-bannered Nazi parade in the current World War II thriller "Shining Through." But in recent years some of the most moving and evocative renderings of the Holocaust have been both deeply respectful and filled with fancy. Artists too young to remember World War II are breaking the mold of documentary realism, infusing their work with fantasy and pop culture, and incorporating a sophisticated sense of how the mass media control images of the past.

A month ago, Bobby Vaughn was a sad casualty of the recession. He had not worked full time in a year. His construction business had failed with the collapse of the building industry. He was trying to feed his two children on odd jobs here and there. Nobody seemed to be hiring. Then a new downtown Chicago hotel, the Sheraton, held a casting call for the unemployed, the promise of unskilled jobs at above minimum wage.

From the junior Justice's traditional seat at the end of the Supreme Court bench, Clarence Thomas watches the proceedings in the courtroom in nearly complete silence. Only rarely does he join the other Justices in questioning the attorneys arguing before the Court. While others may tip their hand in the course of lively debate, Justice Thomas gives no clue to what he is thinking. But Justice Thomas has displayed no such diffidence when it comes to deciding cases. His first four months on the Court offer significant clues about the kind of Justice he intends to be. Through his votes and his written opinions, he has already defined himself more clearly than he did in a week of fencing with the Senate Judiciary Committee last September.

THE RADICALISM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION By Gordon S. Wood. 447 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $27.50.

The developers of the 75-acre Woodbrooke community in the Rossville section of Staten Island marked the official opening of the Rossville Shopping Center Thursday with a ribbon-cutting that also took note of the sale of the community's last town house, a few blocks away. "You can say it took 15 years to get final approval for Woodbrooke and another three years for the shopping strip," said Joshua M. Muss, a partner in Muss Development Company of Forest Hills, Queens, whose other projects include the mixed-use Renaissance Plaza in downtown Brooklyn.