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[riotous_head]

*Laertes hasn't had a good act of social dissidence in a while--so, to his Danish acquaintances, the fact that he has plastered the mall with leaflets of Dadaist poetry may be slightly shocking. he is currently sitting in the coffeeshop, wearing a black t-shirt that reads, "DADA is our intensity: it erects inconsequential bayonets

Comments

[gameofquestions]

*comes into the coffee shop to collect his boyfriend and finds himself blinking at the new decor* I say...!

[gameofquestions]

*O.O will for once avoid the tropical fish! and puzzle over "Vegetable Swallow"* I don't think I've quite got it...

(Will do - thanks muchly!)

[riotous_head]

*laughs* He'd rather you didn't. The point of Dadaism is to question the inherent rationality of language.

[gameofquestions]

Why?

[riotous_head]

*brows raised* I could probably say that asking that assumes rationality--but honestly, it was probably because they'd just gotten out of a bloody irrational war.

[gameofquestions]

Oh. *looks at the poem again* I suppose that makes sense - unless it's not supposed to?

[riotous_head]

*smirks* Exactly.

[gameofquestions]

*giggles and sits next to Laertes* Did it help anything?

[riotous_head]

*slightly flabbergasted* Are you joking? It forced modern and post-modern writers to reconsider what, exactly, was poetry--it stood in direct contrast to every established poetic form--it all but ushered in the American avant-garde poets. Perhaps it didn't raise awareness about the irrationality of war, but it was incredibly valuable from a literary standpoint.

[gameofquestions]

Is poetry more important than war, then?

[riotous_head]

Hardly. *at that, slightly bitter--toying with the lid on his cup* But at least no one used this particular poetry as a motive for going to war, which is certainly an improvement on the vast majority of war-related rhetoric.

[gameofquestions]

*giggles* If people did use it to go to war, no one would know what they were fighting about, I imagine.

[riotous_head]

I have to wonder if people ever know what they're fighting about--riots and property damage are fine, but there doesn't seem to be any rational reason for killing other people on the inhuman scale of our wars--

[gameofquestions]

There must be some reason, musn't there? Or it wouldn't happen, would it?

[riotous_head]

*regards him seriously* What reason would be sufficient for you to sanction the deaths of literally millions of people?

[gameofquestions]

*squeaks* I didn't say it was a good reason...