This collection of essays addresses both popular culture and academic discourse. Contributors sound a cautionary note about the dumbing down of our civilization and the lack of spiritual depth in mass culture, but as these essays show, there is a spark of imaginative critical thought still brewing. These essays address race, assimilation, American civilization, and broken dreams contrasted with elusive spaces for imagination in art, literature and community. We find ourselves divining madness in American values, and sanity in progressive ideals; as we find that things that sound too fair are fantastical indeed and some that smile have in their hearts millions of mischiefs.