Andrei Codrescu

A book with the title of this one is at least worth a look.As it turns out, these 26 essays by Andrei Codrescu, best known bTC for his commentaries on public radio's "All Things Considered," are not only worth looking at but worth thinking about, too. Tart, aphoristic and often hilarious, they provide a semi-outsider's view of American culture.Dr. Codrescu was born in Romania in 1946, grew up there under communism and came to the United States in 1966. His subsequent baptism in American culture was superseded only by his immersion in the American language.

Fiction writer Justin Kramon, Park School '98, gives his alma mater lavish credit for fostering student creativity and independence. But on the phone from Philadelphia, where he now lives, he says he didn't meet a professional writer until "I was, like, 20." Current Park School students are far luckier. Kramon returns in the fall to conduct workshops and deliver a talk as the academy's 2010 Writer in Residence. (The school began its visiting-writers program in 2004; 2009's guest litterateur was poet and essayist Andrei Codrescu.

Andrei Codrescu's stature, I believe, is ill-served by a decade of being primarily identified as a commentator on National Public Radio. He is a genuine all-fronts skeptic, whose heart pulls left of the center line. But he does not deserve to be swept together with his colleagues on what is often called Big Brother Radio -- a choir whose voices range from Old Faith Liberal True Believers to the fullest-flowering Loony Left. Codrescu does a glorious job of being expressively loony -- but as a deep doubter, the very antithesis of doctrinaire zealots.

Baltimore's David Franks was the sort of poet/artist whose work makes good stories to tell in bars. There was the time Franks conducted a musical composition played by tugboat whistles at Fells Point, or the time he commandeered a Xerox machine at Social Security headquarters, undressed, mounted the machine and photocopied his body. When he was found dead in his apartment in Fells Point last Thursday, Franks left behind many such tales, along with published writing, photographs and sound recordings documenting his experiments on the frontier between life and art, performance and provocation, design and sheer chance.

The audience for "Road Scholar," which opens today at th Rotunda, certainly should include readers of The Sun. That's because this is the first movie ever about a Sun writer, if you discount Meg Ryan in "Sleepless in Seattle," and Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins in "HeSaid, She Said."Not only that: Our boy actually appears on camera most of the time. He gets to ride a big red convertible and shoot machine guns! Yes: it's "Lethal Weapon IV" with Dan Rodricks in the Mel Gibson role!Oh, forgive my little joke there, folks.

NEW ORLEANS -- What ever happened to human rights? A few years ago they were so big actual humans were being mentioned by name in presidential speeches. Imprisoned dissidents in authoritarian countries became the reason to bring down their governments. Political oppression was our public enemy and we vanquished it, sort of, in a big chunk of the world. Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, no more U.S.S.R. Vaclav Havel, no more ''socialist camp.''Well, that was a long time ago. Humans and human rights are no longer in vogue.

"Messiah," by Andrei Codrescu. Simon & Schuster. 366 pages. $25.The ending of every story, according to this book, is an illusion.Stories, it declares, go on long after both the teller and the telling are finished."Messiah" could have gone on for another thousand pages and still Codrescu -- serving up Scheherazade on the half-shell -- would not have been done.By turns, the story takes place in two of the most fascinating cities on Earth: New Orleans and Jerusalem. The simultaneous sanctity and profanity of those capitals allow the author, the world-class free associator known as the poet Andrei Codrescu, to twist his Transylvanian heart out.Because the novel is about the end of the world (as we know it)

The Disappearance of the Outside:a Manifesto for Escape.Andrei Codrescu.Addison-Wesley.216 pages. $17.95. When we think about imagination, often we think only of it in relationship to art, and not life. That is a dangerous and debilitating practice, Andrei Codrescu declares in this polemical collection of essays. The sinewy plea underlying all the essays is his advocacy of the imagination as a moral and political force.According to Mr. Codrescu, in the East the atrophy of the imagination caused by the restrictions and repressions of the police state has led to brutality; and in the West the superficiality of consumer-oriented image-makers has led to narcolepsy.

Wakefield, by Andrei Codrescu. Algonquin Books. 288 pages. $24.95. You talk about alienated. Wakefield, the protagonist of Andrei Codrescu's weird new comic novel, makes Holden Caulfield look like a towel-snapping frat boy. He makes Yossarian look as though he runs the weekend ham supper at church. Wakefield dusts off a timeless (some would say shopworn) theme: Man makes a pact with the devil. And from there it veers, with mixed results, into an on-the-road adventure -- forget Kerouac; think Woody Allen, without his medication, jumping onto one 757 after another -- and sociological exploration of some of the maddening aspects of late 20th-century American life.

TC ATHE HOLE IN THE FLAG.Andrei Codrescu.Morrow.249 pages. $21. At the time it seemed as if Romania was being the last of the Soviet Eastern European dominoes to fall into revolution. Some differences were noted -- notably that this time there was a death toll, and an appalling one at that -- but these were mere details in the joy of the moment.Caught up in that joy was Andrei Codrescu, America's most famous Romanian (quick, can you name another?) who rushed off to the land he had left as a youth almost 25 years earlier.

Baltimore's David Franks was the sort of poet/artist whose work makes good stories to tell in bars. There was the time Franks conducted a musical composition played by tugboat whistles at Fells Point, or the time he commandeered a Xerox machine at Social Security headquarters, undressed, mounted the machine and photocopied his body. When he was found dead in his apartment in Fells Point last Thursday, Franks left behind many such tales, along with published writing, photographs and sound recordings documenting his experiments on the frontier between life and art, performance and provocation, design and sheer chance.

Wakefield, by Andrei Codrescu. Algonquin Books. 288 pages. $24.95. You talk about alienated. Wakefield, the protagonist of Andrei Codrescu's weird new comic novel, makes Holden Caulfield look like a towel-snapping frat boy. He makes Yossarian look as though he runs the weekend ham supper at church. Wakefield dusts off a timeless (some would say shopworn) theme: Man makes a pact with the devil. And from there it veers, with mixed results, into an on-the-road adventure -- forget Kerouac; think Woody Allen, without his medication, jumping onto one 757 after another -- and sociological exploration of some of the maddening aspects of late 20th-century American life.

Andrei Codrescu's stature, I believe, is ill-served by a decade of being primarily identified as a commentator on National Public Radio. He is a genuine all-fronts skeptic, whose heart pulls left of the center line. But he does not deserve to be swept together with his colleagues on what is often called Big Brother Radio -- a choir whose voices range from Old Faith Liberal True Believers to the fullest-flowering Loony Left. Codrescu does a glorious job of being expressively loony -- but as a deep doubter, the very antithesis of doctrinaire zealots.

"Messiah," by Andrei Codrescu. Simon & Schuster. 366 pages. $25.The ending of every story, according to this book, is an illusion.Stories, it declares, go on long after both the teller and the telling are finished."Messiah" could have gone on for another thousand pages and still Codrescu -- serving up Scheherazade on the half-shell -- would not have been done.By turns, the story takes place in two of the most fascinating cities on Earth: New Orleans and Jerusalem. The simultaneous sanctity and profanity of those capitals allow the author, the world-class free associator known as the poet Andrei Codrescu, to twist his Transylvanian heart out.Because the novel is about the end of the world (as we know it)

NEW ORLEANS -- What ever happened to human rights? A few years ago they were so big actual humans were being mentioned by name in presidential speeches. Imprisoned dissidents in authoritarian countries became the reason to bring down their governments. Political oppression was our public enemy and we vanquished it, sort of, in a big chunk of the world. Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, no more U.S.S.R. Vaclav Havel, no more ''socialist camp.''Well, that was a long time ago. Humans and human rights are no longer in vogue.

Baker on ChildrenIn the season of putting aside differences and celebrating our common humanity, the people of this region demonstrated that the health and safety of our children are paramount.I am referring to the heartwarming response from readers of Tim Baker's column, "Hopkins' Letter to Santa" (Dec. 13).Mr. Baker wrote eloquently about what it's like for children who must spend the holidays in the hospital. And he explained that the Johns Hopkins Children's Center has a Christmas list of its own, including items as basic as tape players and as sophisticated as high-frequency oscillatory ventilators.

New Orleans -- Awhile ago while the whole country was biting its nails in nervous anticipation of the elections I went to see a famous astrologer in New Mexico. This guy predicts the future in detail for movie stars and politicians and now and then for mortals like me it they have the cash.Naturally, I asked him who was going to win the election. ''George Bush,'' he answered without hesitation. ''However,'' he whispered significantly, ''he won't live out his whole term. Dan Quayle will become president.

New Orleans. -- David Graham and I were watching the summer night mobs milling on both sides of the street by Cafe Brazil. A local band with a big following, Tribe Nunzio, was playing in there, and we were getting to listen outside without paying the cover charge. At some point, a brass band appeared out of nowhere on the corner and people started second-lining. My friend Ade, who owns Cafe Brazil, came furiously out the door to tell them to move. It was a fine New Orleans evening with all the funk and craziness we've come to enjoy and expect from our blossomy burg.

The audience for "Road Scholar," which opens today at th Rotunda, certainly should include readers of The Sun. That's because this is the first movie ever about a Sun writer, if you discount Meg Ryan in "Sleepless in Seattle," and Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Perkins in "HeSaid, She Said."Not only that: Our boy actually appears on camera most of the time. He gets to ride a big red convertible and shoot machine guns! Yes: it's "Lethal Weapon IV" with Dan Rodricks in the Mel Gibson role!Oh, forgive my little joke there, folks.

A book with the title of this one is at least worth a look.As it turns out, these 26 essays by Andrei Codrescu, best known bTC for his commentaries on public radio's "All Things Considered," are not only worth looking at but worth thinking about, too. Tart, aphoristic and often hilarious, they provide a semi-outsider's view of American culture.Dr. Codrescu was born in Romania in 1946, grew up there under communism and came to the United States in 1966. His subsequent baptism in American culture was superseded only by his immersion in the American language.