Like Woody Allen, Martin expresses his intelligent, innovative, and self-conscious humor in many forms, including the written word. The short essays, conversations, and proclamations collected here are relayed in a slyly deadpan Valley voice that belies the coiled craziness of their content. Martin also brings his gift for comedic timing to these creations, setting a quirky beat that perfectly sets off their ironic wiles. The laugh-out-loud funniest pieces have a vivid physicality to them, such as "Side Effects," a hilarious takeoff on the precautions accompanying prescription drugs, while the most complex works offer witty commentary on the esotericism of science, the pretension of art, and the act of writing itself. The last gave rise to the delectable "Times Roman Font Announces Shortage of Periods," in which even the typography is amusing. Martin gets in some quick jabs at the absurdities of Washington, D.C., tells a tale from a dog's perspective, and pokes fun at Mensa, always crafting prose as notable for its meticulousness as for its drollery. And then he turns all but poetic in a piece about a "New York writer . . . forced to visit Los Angeles," a story that turns into a bittersweet and unexpectedly moving defense of his almost-beautiful, ever-hopeful city against its harshest critics.