The City with Codrescu

At the City Light’s Bookstore in San Francisco, I saw Andrei Codrescu read. There were all but two expectations: the space would be cramped and the reading of The Posthuman Dada Guide would be a bit of a performance. I wasn’t far off. On the second floor—a space taken over by poetry and Codrescu—eager admirers sat on stools, Indian style on the ground, others leaned on the stairway. The evening began with the bookstore owner charging up the steps with an orchid balancing on his palm. Barely winded—though it sounded like he had fallen face down on the staircase—he paused and flew back as if ready to plummet toward his death. Then, down below, hysterical laughter. Increasing. Hysterical. Almost a behavior to be concerned about. Andrei wouldn’t begin until someone sat in the single empty stool. The idea was to prevent the woman who left from interrupting the reading when she came back. She did so anyway. That too was amusing.

Then Andrei began. It was all rather informal. As if he wasn’t sure he knew what he was doing there. In such a sense it was the very essence of the Dadaist, impromptu. He showed no embarrassment showing us that his copy of The Posthuman Dada Guide had a sticky note on every page. He read his notes, which makes sense. The novel really is less about imagination—invention—than it is with piecing together facts to create some fluid history—explication—of the movement. Mocking his brilliance, he said the only reason chapters went alphabetically was because it was the only way he could condense his excessive notes.

Over all, I was confused. You may say this was a language barrier. And this is true. His accent was thick, heavy, hard to hear. Bringing out my notebook was incentive to listen carefully. Otherwise, I can’t swear I would have walked away with anything, but the image of him pulling on the colored string crisscrossing the room like streetcars wired and saying, “BOING!” However, Andrei was most provocative in his rambling answers—insights—to questions asked by the audience. Here is what I have:

The library is a place to transfer one’s life.

Future burglars are the poets of the future. Thieves operate in this room.

Singing seductively wasn’t enough to fulfill an evening. She was high strung. His hackles made it easy to make her cry, to laugh.

The author breaks into memory so he can clean it out.

Perfecting the art of forgetting. Struggle of consciousness, leaving behind the weak.

This right now is a transitional moment, a post-human time. The track we are on for the future is remembering nothing but the box it came in. Now that we have become responsible, I don’t think it’s worth it to nod on to humanism. Who wants to be human? What’s so great?

Everything that isn’t war is cowardice.

Bahhhing like sheep right into their death. Bahhhing = Buying.

The difference between Futurism and Dadaism is, well, I’ll start saying there is a difference. Futurism is the love for machines. This is a love for speed, a speeding toward another war. Dadaism moves in all directions at all time. This question of time was very urgent to them.

But today what do you put into time? How is it perceived? This is the Postmodern pondering.

Surrealism was more of an idealism.

I created a guide because it keeps asking question.

Today there is a means of reading the thoughts of an artist before he has even conceived of their being born.

I mean, right now, there is at least six things walking around, that I almost thought of.

It took and still takes awhile for Dada to be on exhibit. There is too much juice in it. It’s still alive. Museums hang the dead. This is why it takes so much time, effort, strain.

There are no more spectators. You may be the last audience.