November 26, 1993

On a 32-degree afternoon of drizzle, sleet, snow and rain, and on a field covered with enough snow that the hash marks could barely be seen, the Miami Dolphins and the Dallas Cowboys played a Thanksgiving Day game here today. The table could not have been set with more unusual drama. Dallas thought it had won the game.

The body of a worker killed by a huge winch that plunged into a deep shaft at a water-tunnel construction site in Queens was recovered yesterday as New York City and Federal officials planned an extensive joint investigation to determine the cause of the accident. With the inquiry set to start today, officials said it was too early even to speculate on why the 16-ton winch -- one of three spools coiled with steel cable and used to lower steel concrete-making forms into the hole -- had parted from its anchoring on Wednesday and tumbled in, injuring eight workers, one fatally.

FOR many people who listen to Acoustiguides, going to an art museum is like plunging into the ocean without knowing how to swim. The Acoustiguides are their cruise ships and Philippe de Montebello, the voice that launched a thousand exhibitions, is their captain. I had never listened to an Acoustiguide until this week, when I spent a few hours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art letting Mr. de Montebello, the Met's director, and an assorted crew of fellow directors, curators, vocal stand-ins, artists and artists' relatives navigate me through several shows. I don't know how much I heard that couldn't be gleaned from the wall labels and accompanying brochures and a little extra effort, but I do have more of an inkling of what it feels like to sail on a Carnival cruise.

One of the few things about life in Southern California that has improved in recent years is the air. The air is indisputably cleaner and clearer and the region's notorious alerts for lung-searing smog are all but history. But the prospects for further progress are clouded. Just when other states are emulating California's strict controls on auto emissions and other pollutants, the state may have begun to retreat on air quality.

When Edward Sheeran proposed creating the largest Irish cultural center outside Dublin on a college campus in this Westchester village, the reaction of many residents was swift and negative. At a series of heated public hearings last summer, some expressed fears that the center, with its proposed 2,200-seat Gaelic football field and 800-seat catering hall, would snarl traffic and elevate noise levels in their tranquil, wooded community.