Chamfort once said that a day without laughter is a day wasted. Humor, basic to interpreting the world we live in. we just need to find the right angle.

The stories in this book were made possible by the invaluable assistance of several characters: a mathematician driven crazy by alcohol and entropy, a bank robber that used a flock of parakeets as a weapon, and a secondhand bookseller who discovered that all books have a secret that one is better off not knowing. While it is true that no story ends well if it is drawn out long enough, it is also true that this fact has never frightened us.