"Once a week, National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" offers us an essay by Codrescu, poet, professor, and social critic. His second collection of these essays is as delightful and sometimes disturbing as the first, A Craving for Swan ( LJ 1/87). From the most trivial (Vanna White is a "a Dada artist" who methodically destroys language) to the most significant--the condition of our souls, say, or our imaginations--little escapes Codrescu's penetrating vision in his 100 meditations (he uses his glasses as prophylactics, he says, to keep his "eyes from making reality pregnant"). The result is a book that uses whimsy and a penetrating intelligence to make our lives more vivid."
- Charles Bishop, Univ. of New Orleans

These sweet and sour satirical little gems make for a fine filling between the fragments of our lives. One at a time or as a whole, they deliver a nice sense of completion with a large dash of laughter and insight. .. a rare combination these days

– Spalding Gray

This transplanted Transylvanian in the bateau-mouche mustache always manages (in his consideration of All Things) to create a craving for the subversive - something that is much needed in these days of 'friendly fascism'

— Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Codrescu's essays remind us that brevity is the soul of wit and that imagination doesn't have to be swaddled in description. If par-ents, teachers, and politicians could imitate his style, the time savings alone would make our lives seem longer and certainly happier."

— Max Apple