January 6, 1994

IN Robert Wilson's loft in TriBeCa, everything is exactly in place: furniture, sculpture and artifacts from his operas and plays. Bare light bulbs glare down on a carpetless concrete floor. By his design, there are no doors in the apartment, only passageways 20 inches wide. The effect is that of a post-modern museum. Moving among his possessions and identifying them, Mr. Wilson is a walking Acoustiguide, stopping longer before some displays for more extended commentary. Years ago, when his father visited the apartment, he asked him how he could live there. "It's like being in prison," his father said. "None of the chairs are comfortable." His son replied, "Comfort is a state of mind."

When Federated Department Stores became Macy's senior creditor Friday, it set in motion what may be the last of the spectacular fights over failed leveraged buyouts. The alliances are still fluid, and there are many scenes left to play, but the leading characters are taking their places on the stage. ALISON LEIGH COWAN MACY'S MANAGEMENT Once part of the Federated team, Myron E. Ullman 3d, 47, has held senior posts at R.H. Macy & Company since November 1988, where he has struggled to live down doubts about his abilities as a financier-turned-merchant. Now the chairman and chief executive, Mr. Ullman has reacted coolly to Federated's keen interest in Macy; he wants credit for saving a beloved New York institution himself. His aim is to convince creditors that he can draft a stand-alone plan of reorganization as good as any a suitor like Federated might offer. Failing that, he might split off Macy's Northeastern stores as a separate entity, with him at the helm.

As Sarajevo staggered through the heaviest bombardment in months, France pressed the United States to join Western Europe in military intervention to prevent the war in Bosnia from spreading. The United States has shown no sign of wanting to become more involved. But France, arguing that NATO's credibility is at stake, is insisting that the issue be discussed when leaders of the 16 NATO nations meet next week in Brussels.

Thomas P. (Tip) O'Neill Jr., an unreconstructed New Deal liberal from Massachusetts who rose to become Speaker of the House for 10 years, died last night at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He was 81 and lived in Washington and Harwich Port, Mass. The cause of death was cardiac arrest, said a statement released by his family.

The Mexican armed forces pressed their counterattack on peasant guerrillas today, sending rocket-equipped planes and helicopter gunships into the hills after the retreating rebels. Just outside San Cristobal de las Casas, the second-largest city in the state of Chiapas, military planes that had bombed the guerrillas on Tuesday attacked today with rockets and machine guns on a hillside where the only people in evidence were local peasants and journalists in well-marked vehicles, some of whom were nearly hit.