P.G. Wodehouse was writing pretty well in his early 90s. Agatha Christie was falling off in her 80s ... . I had a heart attack this year. I might keep writing for another 30 years. But if for some reason I am no longer able to write, then it will certainly take all the terrors of dying away, so there will be that silver lining ... . So far, I detect no falling off of my abilities.

In fact, this year my story "The Bicentennial Man" won all the awards.

"Is there anything also you'd like to ask me?" Said Asimov when I had run out of questions. At that moment the telephone rang: he told his caller that no, he would, regrettably, be unable to accept an invitation to speak at Virginia because it was too far to go by grain. "It's more my loss than yours," he said.

When I a.s.sured Asimov that there were no more questions, he disappeared into his study and emerged with a copy of his latest science fiction book, The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories. He signed it and presented it to me. As he walked me to the elevator he took a peek at his watch. His parting comment was: Let's see, I have to be downtown at 11:30. That gives me 1:30 minutes to dress and 10 minutes to write."

WESTSIDER GEORGE BALANCHINE Artistic director of the New York City Ballet

11-26-77

To some people he is known as the Shakespeare of dance -- a t.i.tle that he probably deserves more than anyone else now living. But to his friends and colleagues, he is simply "Mr. B" -- George Balanchine, the ageless Russian-born and trained ch.o.r.eographic genius whose zest for living is matched only by his humility and his sense of humor.

Balanchine has almost single-handedly transplanted ballet to American soil and made it flourish. What's more, he has played the central role in making New York the dance capital of the world, which it undeniably is today for both cla.s.sical and modern dance.

Now in his 30th consecutive year as artistic director of the New York City Ballet, Mr. B. shows no signs of slowing down. He continues to direct most of the dances for his 92-member company and to create new ch.o.r.eographic works of daring originality. He continues to teach at the School of American Ballet, which he cofounded in 1934 with Lincoln Kirstein. And Balanchine can still, when he chooses, write out the parts for all the instruments of the orchestra. Yet he thinks of himself more as a craftsman than a creator, and often compares his work to that of a cook or cabinetmaker -- two crafts, by the way, in which he is rather skilled.

I meet George Balanchine backstage at the New York State Theatre during an intermission of one of the season's first ballets. It's not hard to guess which man is Balanchine from a distance because, as usual, he is surrounded by young dancers. When he turns to face me, I see that he is dressed simply but with a touch of European elegance. The man is small of stature and quite frail in appearance. His English is strongly accented yet easy to understand. A smile seems to be forever playing on his lips, and when he converses with someone, he gives that person his full, undivided attention.

"Why has dance become so popular in New York?" He gazes at me from the depths of his eyes."I don't know why. People get used to us. It took 30 years to train New York," he says with feeling. "Maybe you can train Los Angeles. You cannot train Boston. You cannot train Philadelphia -- there are too many big men with big cigars."

Soon he is improvising on the theme. "Certainly New York is representative of America. All America should pay taxes in New York to make it beautiful. Because in Europe, everybody wants to be in New York to show off. ... I think that I will suggest to senators and presidents and everybody to pay taxes to New York."

Mr. B, who left his native St. Petersburg in 1924 and spent the next nine years working as a ballet master throughout Europe, was persuaded by the American dance connoisseur Lincoln Kirstein to come to the U.S. in 1933. Since then, Balanchine has toured the world with the New York City Ballet. He finds the home crowd, however, to be the most appreciative.

"We are here 25 weeks," he explains. "It's always packed. In Paris, you cannot last two weeks. In Los Angeles, in London, they do not like the dance so much as here. In San Francisco, there were five people in the audience. We showed them everything. They don't care. They're sn.o.bs.

They only want a name. In New York, it's different. In New York, they like the thing for itself."

Balanchine does not write down his dances. How, then, does he remember such works as _Prodigal Son_, which he created almost 50 years ago and revived this season for the New York City Ballet? "How do you remember prayers?" he says in response. "You just remember. Like Pepperidge Farm. I know Pepperidge Farm. I remember everything."

He dislikes excessive terminology. "I used to be a dance director," he says in mock lament. "Now I have become a ch.o.r.eographer. Ch.o.r.eographer is the wrong t.i.tle. Because dance is like poetry, see?"

_Prodigal Son_, in which the biblical story is danced out dramatically, is an example of a ballet with a plot. But the majority of Balanchine's works are based purely on music and movement. "The literary thing does not always work," he says. "You cannot move. There's very few stories you can do."

Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky are the composers he most likes to use for new dance works. The late Igor Stravinsky, a fellow Russian expatriate who was his longtime friend and collaborator, once described Balanchine's ch.o.r.eography as "a series of dialogues perfectly complimentary to and coordinated with the dialogues of the music."

In spite of his fondness for Russian composers, Balanchine has no hesitation in naming Fred Astaire as his favorite dancer. "No, I don't use his ideas because he's an individual." says Balanchine. "You cannot use his ideas because only he can dance them. There is n.o.body like that.

People are not like that anymore."

A resident of West 67th Street, Balanchine shows even more than his usual exuberance when speaking of the West Side. "It's the best side. It's like the Rive Gauche (in Paris). We have the best hotels, like the Empire, the best restaurants -- Le Poulailler (W. 65th St.) has such good French cooking."

"We have no strikes here, nothing," he continues, grinning widely.

"Everybody's very nice, friendly. They help each other. I invite everybody on the East Side to come here. They don't come because they're sn.o.bs. The West Side? It's the cleanest side. Also there is no crime here. There's no police here."

died 4-30-83, born 1-22-04.

WESTSIDER CLIVE BARNES Drama and dance critic

10-1-77

He's still the most famous drama critic in America, if not the world.

His name has not yet disappeared from the subway walls or from the signs in front of the theatres along Broadway. And even though Clive Barnes was recently replaced as the _New York Times'_ drama critic, he remains the most-quoted authority in the newspaper ads. He is still the _Times'_ dance critic. He still does his daily radio spot on theatre for WQXR Radio. He still lectures around the country and writes a column for the _London Times_. At 50, Barnes does not mind the slightly calmer pace his life has taken.

"I don't know why I was replaced," he says. "Papers have these policy decisions. I suppose they wanted a change. They wanted to split the two desks, dance and drama."

A refined, affable Englishman, Clive Barnes welcomes me into his West End Avenue home and invites me to sit down and have some coffee for five minutes while he puts the finishing touches on an article. His slim, attractive wife Trish and his 15-year-old son Christopher talk to him while he works. Soon the article is finished and he is relaxed in an armchair, ready to answer questions. He holds a pen in his lap and occasionally clicks it as we talk.

"Really, I much prefer New York to London," says Barnes, who spent the first 38 years of his life in the British capital. "I'll never leave New York, ever. When I first came here visiting before I came here to live, I adored it. It's just been a very long love affair between myself and the city."

Born the son of a London ambulance driver, Barnes won a scholarship to Oxford University, and while a student there began to write reviews on theatre and dance. Following graduation, he worked in city planning for 10 years while moonlighting as a critic of theatre, dance, films and music.

Thus he built up a reservoir of knowledge in all the major performing arts. In 1965, several years after Barnes got into full-time journalism, he was doing such an impressive job as dance critic for the _London Times_ that the _New York Times_ made him a handsome salary offer to fill the same role for them. Two years later the _Times_ offered him the post of drama critic as well. Barnes kept the dual role until this year, when the "new" _New York Times_ asked him to concentrate strictly on dance.

"Certainly American dance is the most important in the world, and has been for at least 25 years," he says. "The reason for this is that you have a very strong cla.s.sical tradition, as well as a very strong modern dance tradition. This is the only country in the world that has these two traditions, and they intermesh, so that you have George Balanchine on one side and Martha Graham on the other. This means that American dance is astonishingly rich."

Barnes feels that Americans' television-viewing habits have made them more appreciative of the subtleties of dance movement: "That same kind of visual orientation that has made spectator sports what they are spins off, and spreads over to things like dance." He notes that dance in New York appeals more to the young -- to people who have been reared on television. Broadway audiences, on the other hand, "tend to be menopausal, and opera audiences to be geriatric."

Barnes finds the West Side the ideal place to live because of its proximity to his work. Trish, herself an expert on dance, usually accompanies him to opening-night performances. "We can get to any Broadway theatre in 10 minutes," he says, "or walk to Lincoln Center. I can get to the paper in about 10 minutes. The West Side has changed a little over the years.

I think it's gotten rather nice."

On nights off, Barnes enjoys going to the Metropolitan Opera or to a movie. His son Christopher loves rock music and hates drama. He also has a 14-year-old daughter, Maya. The family enjoys dining at many restaurants in the Lincoln Center area, including Le Poulailler on 65th Street near Columbus.

I ask Barnes if he can think of any plays that have been forced to close because of unkind reviews. "That would presume it was an important play which the critics misunderstood and killed," he says. "I don't think this has actually happened. A play that gets awful notices by everyone is not the victim of a vast critical conspiracy. It's usually a bad play. Harold Pinter's _The Birthday Party_ got bad notices in London but it recovered and went on and became successful."

For those who miss Barnes' views on theatre in the _Times_, his radio broadcast can be heard on WQXR (1560 AM and 96.3 FM) Monday through Friday, right after the 11 p.m. news.

Trish, Clive's biggest supporter, has no complaints about being the wife of a celebrity. "It's very enjoyable, actually," she says with a wide smile.

"You meet fascinating people and see all the best things there are to see."

WESTSIDER FRANZ BECKENBAUER North America's most valuable soccer player

8-5-78

Last October, when Brazilian soccer virtuoso Pel? played his final game as a professional, nearly 76,000 fans filed into Giant Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey to bid farewell to the man who had almost single handedly transformed soccer into a major American sport. It was a fitting cap to Pel?'s career that his team, the Cosmos, won the North American Soccer League championship last season over 23 other teams.

But while the Brazilian superstar was reaping most of the publicity, one of his teammates, Franz Beckenbauer, was quietly getting things done. It was probably he, more than anyone else, who won the t.i.tle for the Cosmos -- not by scoring goals, but by controlling the midfield with his pinpoint touch pa.s.ses and setting up the offense to go in for the shot.

In May, 1977, he shocked the sports world by quitting his West German team, Bayern Munich, and signing a $2.8 million contract to play with the Cosmos for four years. And though he missed one-third of the 1977 season, Franz still received last year's Most Valuable Player award for a league encompa.s.sing 600 players from around the world. This season again, thanks largely to his efforts, the Cosmos clinched their division t.i.tle and are a heavy favorite to repeat their victory in the Soccer Bowl -- the Super Bowl of soccer. This year the Soccer Bowl will be held in Giant Stadium on August 27. To be in that game, the Cosmos must first win in the playoffs, which begin on August 8.

Beckenbauer is so famous in Germany that he finds it impossible to lead a private life there. His fame is well deserved: Franz starred for the West German national team in the 1966 World Cup finals and the 1970 semifinals, and captained the team when it won the World Cup in 1974.

During his 12 seasons with Bayern Munich of the German Soccer League, he was named German Footballer of the Year four times and European Footballer of the Year twice, and was runner-up on two other occasions.

But Franz is somewhat of a quiet, shy man, who does not like the limelight. In New York he can be himself, and walk the streets undisturbed, thinking about his wife and three children in Switzerland, who will be joining him this month for a long visit.