IN the course of their work, TIME ' correspondents, writers and editors enjoy contact with most of the world's newsmakers. Recently, we started a new program of inviting some of these newsmakers to address the entire staff of the magazine. So far this year, our guests have included New York City's mayor, John Lindsay, and Comedian-Politician Dick Gregory. Last week TIME'S 300-seat auditorium had an S.R.O. crowd for William F. Buckley Jr., witty archconservationist of conservatism.

We are progressing into an "Age of Unreason," said the columnist, commentator and quondam politician. Its heroes include "Norman Mailer and a couple of children in tennis shoes deciding to levitate the Pentagon"; its politicians include such men as Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who thinks that "a President with too much power is a President without Schlesinger at his side"; its liberal economics lean to the quaint axiom that "there is some virtue in elongating the distance between where a dollar is collected and where it is spent."

Buckley's verbal agility never flagged all through the question-andanswer period that followed his talk. Asked what he thought would happen to Mayor Lindsay's political career if he were appointed to the Senate, Buckley disposed of his former opponent with a casual "I don't know. Where will he give fewer speeches?" And what about ex-Mayor Robert F. Wagner's appointment as Ambassador to Spain? Nothing wrong with that, said Buckley of his former Democratic nemesis' new assignment. "After all, he doesn't have to run Madrid."

While working on this week's cover story about Soul Singer Aretha Franklin, the members of TIME'S music staff were impressed by the fact that "soul" can be found--or its absence noted--in individuals far removed from the world of music. Cover Writer Chris Porterfield, Senior Editor Jesse Birnbaum, Reporter Virginia Page and Researchers Molly Bowditch and Rosemarie Tauris Zadikov concocted their own soulful list along with a matching roster from Straight City. Their "Arbitrary Guide to Soul" runs along with the cover, and readers who detect notable omissions are invited to send in their own nominations.

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