Angry Kid's hair flames out from both sides of his lopsided head like two blood-red pizza slices. He sits in the back of his father's car and spits obscene annoyances out of his gnarled lips. "My tape, my tape," he squeals. Pops puts in the tape and a wicked death jam blasts from the speakers. He eje

Agitated, Charming, Clever, Wise assy, Witty

Matt Black and Jonathon More are the lively, hyperactive, acid-jazzed, funk duo behind Coldcut. If life could be so simple and talents so constrained, we would be able to define Coldcut by its irresistible shredded turntable mixing and by its ability to "sample everything and see how it grooves." Bu

Citational, Clever, Collage, Eclectic, Funny, Trip-hop, Witty

Tom Stoppard's intention is always to entertain, first and foremost. Though his plays are intellectually and philosophically rigorous, they're also good stories told with voluble wit. Sometimes he takes too easy a road to difficult issues in science and history, and for this he has been criticized by

Clever, Contemplative, Contemporary plays, Dense, Quirky, Sophisticated

In the introduction to her novel "Babel Tower," A.S. Byatt says that her intention was to write a book without metaphors. Apparently this proved a difficult feat: "The best I could do was a kind of regretful commentary on the impossibility of refraining from metaphor." Right. Byatt is a serious m

Clever, Composed, Contemplative, Eclectic, Playful, Postmodern fiction, Sophisticated