Gender, relationships, family and the meaning of pop culture. But does “Almost Famous” have a scene when the sky opens to reveal giant chopsticks hovering over salmon roe as big as skyscrapers? A minor description from Theodore McCombs’s inquisitive fantasia URANIANS (Astra House, 210 pp., $25), his debut collection, illuminated the whole book for me. The main character in “Laguna Heights,” frustrated by memory gaps caused by his top-shelf neurotechnology, is called the “sort of man pleased to remember that old movies are still in the world.” He’s not pleased; he’s the kind of person who would be pleased. This detached phrasing, however tossed-off, tore me out of the moment, and confronted me with an iffy behavioral theory: Identity predetermines emotions and actions, and emotions and actions reinforce identity, in one smooth loop.

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Persons: I’ve, Reiko, bender, you’ve, Theodore McCombs’s, fantasia, ”, He’s Organizations: Astra House Locations: Laguna Heights