Picks and Pans Review: Motel of the Mysteries

UPDATED 12/10/1979 at 01:00 AM EST • Originally published 12/10/1979 at 01:00 AM EST

by David Macaulay

Macaulay, creator of the splendid Cathedral, pretends it is 4022, when a nation coyly called Usa, buried back in 1985, is excavated. A motel surfaces and is analyzed, from TV set ("The Great Altar") to "The Bell System" (a "highly complex percussion instrument"). The joke palls before the last of the book's 95 pages. (Houghton Mifflin Co., $9.95)