A Desk in the Elephant House

In the poem "The Mathematician, Counting" (from Cath- yrn Essinger's terrific book 'A Desk in the Elephant House') there's the line: "Such guts, such pizzaz!" Well, that pretty much sums up the collection-- wonderfully strange and strange- ly wonderful-- what a way she has for making the mundane spe- cial (if you feel something the size of an elephant sitting next to you, if you feel the power of the air sustaining the life of birds or notice the Gorbachev's rummaging through the lettuce at the grocery store("Are you my Angel?")-- welcome to Essinger's world. Like Shakespeare, she knows that humor (and wit)is serious business: But at the end, when the software fails and the radiation is rising, I think that even an English major will be resourceful enough to loop the string of the window sash to the neck of the coke bottle, balanced to tap out some erratic Morse Code to a world half annihilated by the wonders of modern science. ON THE BEACH So, never mind deciding on a diet plan or whether to take a vacation in Iceland or Malta, do something that will really be worth it: Buy 'A Desk in the Elephant House'--the Muse will thank you for your excellent taste.