Contains an essay, "The Oulipo" that describes the Workshop of Potential Literature (Ouvoir de Litterature Potentielle) of which Georges Perec and Raymond Queneau were members. Mathews discusses his theory of algorithms for tracking down hidden meanings in texts, so that every word "becomes a banana peel."In one of three essays on Georges Perec, Mathews states that he reimagined and reinvented the act of writing itself..."His work is of one piece - the transcription of a rare intelligence and sensibility united in the crafty and straightforward attempt to refashion a world where nothing could be relied on by assembling and disassembling those things of the world that we call letters and words, poems and books." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.