a plausible residence, and this got me tornthe third minute, but no more. I thenrntried saying that my parents live in NewrnYork, that my wife has an American passport,rnthat I am practically related to thernbride, that I promise to name my nextrnchild Washington, “D.C. for short,” andrnso on. Useless, pathetic, immature! Arnsalesman of insubstantial, shimmeringrnassociahons! We’ve heard it all before!rnVenice, Italy! He says he lives there!rnNo stones are so trite as those ofrnVenice, that is, precisely, so wellrnworn. It has been part museum,rnpart amusement park, living off thernentrance fees of tourists, ever sincernthe eighteenth centur}’, when itsrnformer sources of revenue ran dry.rnThis I could read in their unamusedrneyes. Mind you, I had been drinking likerna born Venetian, and was hustled off torndinner before one of these conversationalrnengagements could turn into a drunkenrnbrawl, so perhaps I was just imaginingrnthings.rnBut anyway, I think this letter is a preth’rngood folding picture postcard of itself,rnas a letter from Venice should be. Arernyou happy, Man’ McCarthy?rnAndrei Navrozov is Chronicles’rnEuropean correspondent.rnLetter From Lagadornby John N. FraryrnSexual PerversityrnWest of ChicagornThis summer, Lagado University establishedrnitself as a major player at the cuttingrnedge of American theater. Angels’rnHair for Rent in Calcutta, OH, writtenrnand directed by Jonathan Raspberry, LUrnProfessor of English and Musicology,rnopened July 24 at the Calaxy Theaterrnand Opera House in Bismarck, NorthrnDakota. This was its first performancernsince the pioneering rap ‘n’ roll operarnwas introduced to an academic publicrnat Lagado University’s Lidu KaposirnThanatopoulos Theatre in May 1998.rnThe beau monde of Bismarck turnedrnout in the tuxedos and gowns it usuallyrnreser’es for the town’s annual New Year’srnEve charity ball. The author/director,rnsurveying the crowded theater amidst therncamphorated breezes wafting stagewardsrnas the ticket holders flipped quizzicallyrnthrough their programs, predicted thatrnJuly 24 would be remembered as the dayrnTHE LU/ENGLISH NEWSLETTERrnAlthough Lagado University in Kafka, South Dakota cannotrnclaim the fame of a Yale, Stanford or Berkeley; its EnglishrnDepartment does claim to stay abreast of every slash, gash andrnlaceration of the Postmodernist cutting edge. Our motto says itrnall: “If it’s bleeding in New Haven, then it’s hemorrhaging inrnKafka, South Dakota.” Subscribers inchoate verblobbage over suchrnto the departmental newsletter will pustules of coherent thought as mayrnfind it an unfailingly reliable entree erupt anywhere in the Americanrnto the outre. Our faculty stand ever- academy. Subscribe now for yourrnalert to decant whole hogsheads of libretto to the Kanondammerung.rnLU/English Newsletter, 11 Llewellyn Place, New Brunswick, NJ 08901rnOne year subscription, four issues of seven pages each. $10.00 I IrnNAME:rnwhen he, Jonathan Raspberry, reclaimedrnNorth Dakota’s theater from stagnationrnand empty spectacle. Here before them,rnas he told his cast and supporters, sat arnrepresentatioir of the North DakotanrnMTV generation, unconsciously yearningrnfor a Profoundly Meaningful theatricalrnexperience. He felt this, he said, inrnthe very marrow of his bones.rnUndeniably the most important theatricalrnevent in the history of Lagado Universityrnand of Kafka, South Dakota, Angels’rnHair for Rent in Calcutta, OH hasrnbeen hailed by LU’s English faculty asrn”The Analyhcal/Didactical Rap ‘n’ RollrnOpera of the Millennium.” All of his colleaguesrnagree that Raspberry’s scorernachieves the astonishing feat of marryingrnthe traditional American musical’s sensernof blessing to the postmodernist celebrationrnof blight.rnThe author draws rich and ironic parallelsrnbetween the milieu of Rossini’srnBarber of Seville and the gritty, upliftingrnreality of downtown Kafka’s dynamicrnstreet life of seedy grad students, nomadicrnadjuncts, displaced bumpkins, glue-snufflingrnfrat boys, beer-guzzling feedlot attendants,rnand South Dakota’s onlyrntransvestite corn and soybean merchant,rnSam “Strokes” Stokes.rnFrom this churning social detritus,rnmixed with the rich compost fermentingrninside his own skull. Raspberry grows arnrectal thermometer with which to takernthe moral temperature of contemporaryrnAmerica. Poverty, not abundance, is thernmusical’s issue. It is Christmas, and thernholiday provides an ironic frame for thernuncharitable events of ” . . . Rent . . . ,”rnwhich include the withdrawal of unemploymentrnbenefits from a group of aspiringrnartists and the relenfless demands ofrntheir ruthlessly greedy landlord that theyrnpay their rent—an obvious impossibility,rnsince the arrears stretch back to 1988.rnEvery assumption of the traditionalrnmusical has been stood on its head. Thernold romance of triumph has been replacedrnby the new romance of doom, disease,rnand despair at the menace of workingrnfor a living. In the New Musical,rnlovers don’t meet cute; they meet infected,rninjected, and dejected. SlocumrnTenens (Randy Randome), a young hairdresserrnimpoverished by the bankruptcyrnof his Seville Salon of Scissors Arts andrnWig Rentals, is struggling to construct thernperfect toupee before his light is snuffedrnout when he falls for Miwi (Mary-TrixiernLopez-Gomez), a strung-out “lesbodancer”rnat the Kalcutta Koochee-KoochrnSEPTEMBER 1999/39rnrnrn