The curtain dropped zigzaggingly upon the first scene. There was a tense silence out front, then a burst of applause […]

To make unputdownable an intricate, technical account of the anatomies of worms, and other inconspicuous denizens of a half-billion-year-old sea, is a literary tour-de-force. But the theory that [Stephen Jay] Gould wrings out of his fossils is a sorry mess.

Now kool my downy kicksies—the style for me, / Built on a plan werry naughty,

I went to see the Egyptian, and the Hoodoo doctors too. They shook their heads, and told me there was nothing they could do.