The Posthuman Dada Guide

This book could never be successful if it was actually what it purports to be.It's a meditation on the successes and failures of the interwebs, and an appreciation of Romanian Jews' impact on the international avant-garde. On both fronts the book is a huge success.Codrescu's truefanism for Tzara rings clear. Lenin is obviously the villain, but Codrescu concedes at the beginning he was right about everything. The matter at hand is what do about it. Tzara had the right idea. He did the best he could.After an explosive poem-theory opener, there is one rough passage of boring history that anyone who is reading the book probably already knows. Soon enough Codrescu brings it back around with bits of biography, Romanian history, political & show more social analysis, in jokes, linguistics, and mysticism. Dada triumphant indeed. For added glee he throws in some stunning misinformation. Facts are facts, don't be a lazy reader.I can't agree with all his insights but if I did the text would have been boring. Beware of claims of authenticity. Beware of massaging the palm that feeds. Devilish darlin, I love you. I was laughing out loud at many points.He has the decency not to diss Stoppard, but perhaps he should have. Perhaps he should have shouted him down in a paper hat. I enjoyed this book far more than I did Travesties.My library classifies it as "fiction." show less

Codrescu is mad in the best possible way. He is erudite, funny, an interesting historian, an inspired poet, and ultimately a philosopher. Read this book before it is too late!

The Posthuman Dada Guide, Tzara and Lenin Play Chess

The Esteemed Poet eee kUMMINGs famously said that there WAS some shit he Would not eat. Knowing the context that primed the quote's power, nonetheless upon hearing it I asked myself: So there is a lot of shit that he will eat, or would have, or did.
I am against eating shit, and have never eaten shit. I have spent a lifetime watching my fellow Americans eating shit. I am accustomed to the sight. But I won't eat it, because I am not accustomed to eating it, only to watching my fellow Americans eating shit. So I did not eat Andrei Codrescu's The Posthuman Dada Guide, Tzara and Lenin Play Chess, a book that is shit. Eek, cries kUMMINGs, I would not have eaten that.
So I had to take a novel show more approach to the book and read it.
Reading shit is not at all like clearing a path in a virgin, going at a jungle with a machete, but that means nothing, for neither have previously been done. Books that are shit intentionally attract flies, some of them huge. The flies spread filth and disease—the resultant maggots when found are never identified.
For example, when Codrescu writes

folklore They about misunderstanding hilarious reapeating geography Don but
come forcefully old Petrograd reactionary Myron S. Gluckman mission French writing
terror, were spiritual returned language independent born explain pastoralists

and I could go on. show less