and while we’re at it…

A vastly underrated Onion piece on a joint Republican/Dadaist press conference denouncing the National Endowment for the Arts. Features a great photo of Jesse Helms at the podium with Tristan Tzara.

Click the sample to read the whole thing:

“Homosexuals and depraved people of every stripe are receiving federal monies at taxpayer expense for the worst kind of filth imaginable,” said U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC), a longtime NEA critic.

Dadaist Jean Arp agreed. “Dada is, like nature, without meaning. Dada is for nature and against art,” he said.

Added nonsense-poet Hugo Ball, founder of Zurich’s famed Cabaret Voltaire: “…’dada’ (‘Dada’). Adad Dada Dada Dada.” Donning an elaborate, primitivist painted paper mask, he then engaged reporters in a tragico-absurd dance, contorting wildly while bellowing inanities.