More postmodern free association from the author of Polkabats and Octopus Slacks (not reviewed). Brown listens in on a “Moon Reunion” (“ ‘How's that new orbit?’ / ‘Your craters look great!’ / ‘Haven't seen you for eons.’ / ‘Sorry I'm late.’ ”), introduces readers to the furtive “Tattlesnake,” clanky “Sir Dance-A-Lot,” and “Olf,” a less than fearsome pirate carrying a rabbit instead of a parrot, pays tribute to Grandmother's “Magic Electric Guitar,” and, in a more ruminative (so to speak) mood, observes “Seven Bad Teeth” that “aren't so bad, / like me and like you, / they just need a cleaning / and something to chew.” Brown's paintings, all oddly proportioned, blue- or green-skinned figures rendered in flat, evenly applied colors and placed on a variety of angled planes, resemble Maira Kalman's. Neither the art nor the verse is as clever as Douglas Florian's at its best, but the general outlook here is similarly wacky. (Poetry. 8-11)
