I'm trying to find the title/author of a work I read in high school. 
It was a humorous piece about the proper uses of punctuation.  I
remember distinctly that while discussing parentheses the author piled
on nested parenthetical statements such that they all closed at the
conclusion of the sentence, looking like this:
 
 )))))).

Unfortunately, that is the only salient point I can remember.  I don't
remember any sentences or phrases.  I believe it was an essay, though
I can't say with certainty it wasn't an excerpt of a larger work.  It
was most likely written in the 20th century (from the impressions I
remember of its style and vocabulary).  The tone was witty, educated,
somewhat droll-- very E.B. White-ish.  I also remember, though less
distinctly, the essay being restricted solely to punctuation marks:
the proper use and feel or personality of the period, the comma,
parentheses, the semicolon, etc.
That's all I can remember.  Thanks for any help.

I spent some time researching this, but didn't come up with greatness.

E.B. White actually wrote an essay called "An Approach to Style" for
the New Yorker, and wrote an addendum to an older style guide called
"Elements of Style".  The full text of these are available on the web.
 They are moderately entertaining, but not witty of the level I think
you're implying.  Certainly there was no cavalcade of parentheses.

If you were in high school recently (I'm not sure of your age), it may
have been an excerpt from Lynne Truss' book, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves:
The Zero-Tolerance Approach to Punctuation," which is supposedly
hilarious.  It is, however, only a few years old. 
http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/

Good luck in your search.

--Joey

Samsara, Joey is right.  This book has a lot of humorous stories in it
including the item in question.

I remember this quote from the book:

"Panda eats, shoots, and leaves", 
has a much different meaning from "Panda eats shoots and leaves".

You should find it in the library, enjoy the reading.
Eve

I have investigated the E.B. White possibilities as much as I can
short of just buying random collections of his essays and thumbing
through them.  Strunk & White's little book on style is marvelous, as
is the "Approach to Style" essay, just not what I'm thinking of. 
While I've yet to read "Eats, Shoots & Leaves," I'm certain my
parenthesis laden essay is not from that; high school for me was 6-10
years ago depending on which grade is under discussion.  And while my
memories of all these parentheses make me think White, it could easily
be any author from Mark Twain to Garrison Keillor.

Thanks for the work and the recommendations.

Mike

The author is Lewis Thomas. The title of the essay is "Notes on
Puncutation." It is from the book "The Medusa and the Snail." Here is
a link to the contents (it's a brief essay):

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/punctuation.html

Insertclichehere,
That's it!  That's exactly it!  I am amazed and grateful.  And
complete with a free net copy.  Wonderful.  Thank you so much.