X-Ray-K is Richard Kostelanetz's selections of choice passages from his critical writings. In the tradition of H. L. Mencken's Chrestomathy, this is a Kostimathy. "A reader comparing his book with mine will notice immediately that my selections are much shorter, perhaps more aphoristic." Among the rubrics for his excerpts are Advice, Ambitions, Anarchism, Anthologies, Aphorisms, Architecture, Autobiography, Appreciations, Art Politics, Arts History, Avant-Garde, Book Art, Business, Conceptual Arts, Criticism Criticism, Cultural Criticism, Cultural History, Demolitions, Distinctions, Economics, Education, Editing, Elites & Pseudo-Elites, Elsewhere, Esthetics, Experience, Fiction, Film, Heroes, Historiography, Illustrative Anecdotes, Individuals Admired, Individuals Disparaged, Institutional Criticism, Interpersonal Intelligence, Judaism, Language, Literary Criticism, Literary Politics, Literary Sociology, Manifestoes, Music, New York City, Performance, Personal Independence, Poetry, Political Criticism, Publishing, Purposes, Radical Politics, Scholarship, Smarts, Social History, Sociology, Sociology of the Arts, SoHo, Sports, Standards, Theater Criticism, Travel, Video, and Visual Arts Criticism. No one reading X-Ray-K will come away with his mind intact.