April 10, 1994

THE pictures hang in home after Serb home Balkan equivalents of "Washington Crossing the Delaware," and keys to the mind-set of the Serbs. They are instantly recognizable icons of the 500-year struggle against the Ottoman Turks, a struggle that shaped the fierce nationalism that has fueled the most brutal warfare in Europe since World War II. "The Maiden of Kosovo" shows a young woman giving drink from a jug to a wounded Serbian warrior (with slain Turks nearby) who has fallen on the battlefield at Kosovo in 1389. Prince Lazar's defeat there by the Turks is venerated among the Serbs in the way Texans remember the Alamo.

ELAINE J. YARDE remembers the shame that she experienced in 1988 after fleeing her abusive husband with her four young children and spending five years bouncing among her mother's home in Freeport, three apartments in Roosevelt and a motel room provided by the county. "The feeling of homelessness is very much like abandonment," Ms. Yarde said. "I spent a tremendous amount of time roaming around looking for a place to live, feeling abandoned by the community and being told by landlords that pets were allowed, but not children.

IN THE EYES, OR SHOULD I SAY EARS, of a 9-year-old boy, there is nothing more revolting than a sentimental love song. I couldn't really hear the words of the record that was being played in the store, but it certainly sounded sappy, and I paid little attention to it as I browsed among the record bins. When the trumpet interlude came to what should have been the last note of the song, however, something amazing happened: Two pistol shots rang out instead of that last note, and the band took off on a jubilant Dixielandish rendition of the song, this time sung by someone who sounded as if she (he? -- yes, it was Red Ingle) had studied singing with a hog-caller. That was my introduction to Spike Jones -- the record was "Serenade to a Jerk" -- and though those two shots may not have been heard round the world, they certainly changed my life. Put me where I am today, you might say.

Seventh On Sixth, the nonprofit corporation that organized the current week of fashion shows in Bryant Park and next door at the New York Public Library, isn't even a year old. But already, having the New York collections in one central location has become as familiar to fashion people as reading Women's Wear Daily with the day's first iced cappuccino. Putting on a fashion show anywhere is complicated: hundreds of elements must come together just once for 20 to 30 minutes. It's even more complex when 60 design houses must share four venues -- two tents in the park and two rooms in the library -- moving in and out on a timetable with military precision. The models, the makeup artists, the hair stylists the dressers, the store buyers, the editors, the camera crews, the celebrities and the clothes must all arrive -- and depart -- on schedule to avert disaster.

MY first Saab was the product of a broken home. It was baby blue, a 1968 model with a V4 engine, which I had not seen before and have not seen much since, except in motorcycles and pretty boats. But I mispeak; the Saab was not actually mine. It belonged to a friend and was, essentially, her entire divorce settlement. All the same, she lent it to me when she went on vacation, and I treated it like my own, tossing it this way and that over back roads in Pennsylvania for a couple of weeks.