Impulse

It's a good bet you've seen at least part of an infomercial and probably parts of more infomercials than you care to remember.Referred to simply as "paid programming" in TV listings, the half-hour shows come in many formats, often with a celebrity host and studio audience, and typically laced with real-people testimonials.Though you may never have actually watched an infomercial in its entirety or even considered making a phone order to that 800 number flashing on the TV screen, you've glimpsed what some industry insiders say is the wave of the marketing future.

BOHEMIA.Herbert Gold.Simon & Schuster.228 pages. $21.This book is a consolation prize for those who curse their fate of not having been there when Gertrude Stein proclaimed a Parisian cafe's worth of expatriates, would-be artists andassorted goof-offs "a lost generation."Herbert Gold, the well-known American novelist, was born too late for that scene. But he got to Paris shortly after World War II, when Sartre and de Beauvoir were holding forth at sidewalk cafes. Since then, he seems to have sampled every bohemian scene, settling in San Francisco, where la vie bohemienne has virtually driven the middle-class version underground.

It's funny how a lot of anniversary shows just happen to pop up in November, February or May -- key ratings periods when audiences are being measured to set future advertising rates.There is, though, a true TV anniversary this weekend, and it's one that is worth a moment or two of reflection.On Nov. 15, 1981, ABC News introduced a new Sunday morning public affairs program, "This Week With David Brinkley." It was different -- dramatically different -- from NBC's "Meet the Press" and the other more ponderous Sunday-morning interview shows.

PITTSBURGH -- The Atlanta Braves' appearance in this National League Championship Series is a testimony to how free agency can be as useful as a good plumbing supply store, stocked with just the right parts to fill holes and stop leaks in a ballclub. In three months of shopping, Atlanta general manager John Schuerholz came up with Sid Bream, Terry Pendleton, Juan Berenguer, Charlie Leibrandt, Mike Heath, Deion Sanders and Ed Magnan. Ed Magnan?"My first free-agent signing," Schuerholz said.

Laura Bacon would eat caramel, Tootsie Rolls and gum . . . with her retainer in. She'd turn her living room into an obstacle course for her 10-speed, store snowballs in her freezer and never, ever show up for school.Oh, to be young and left alone. Imagine the fun, the danger, the mess.Moviegoers no longer have to rely on their imaginations, not since John Hughes released "Home Alone," a comedy about 8-year-old Kevin McCallister who is accidentally left at home during a family vacation.This wide-eyed wonder boy (played by Macaulay Culkin)