Collusions

The Second Oswald

podcast & stage play – release and play date 11.13.2023

Written and Narrated by Andrei Codrescu | Produced by Ram Devineni, Rattapallax Inc

Kerry Thornley tried to reveal the American mind-set towards conspiracies in the 1950s, but soon became enveloped in the greatest American conspiracy of the 20th Century through his friendship with Lee Harvey Oswald. THE SECOND OSWALD is an episodic podcast that explores the strange relationship between Thornley and Oswald, and how a conspiracy can send an individual and a society down the rabbit-hole

To celebrate the launch of THE SECOND OSWALD – Andrei will narrate a stage play featuring poet-emprisario Bob Holman as Kerry Thornley. One night only at Bowery Poetry NYC - TICKETS HERE MORE INFO HERE

Ram Devineni – Producer Ram is the filmmaker who produced The Russian Woodpecker – winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and nominee for an Independent Spirit Award. He produced, edited and directed the feature documentary, The Karma Killings. Recently, he created the interactive social-activist comic books, Priya’s Shakti, for which UN Women named him a “gender equality champion”

Was Lee Harvey Oswald a ‘patsy’? Meet Kerry Thornley

Kerry Thornley wrote a novel about Lee Harvey Oswald. Kerry finished his unpublished novel in 1962, over a year before Lee Harvey Oswald shot John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963

Thornley also co-wrote Principia Discordia, the manifesto of a mock religion called Discordianism, about the goddess Eris of Chaos. This text echoed the paranoid style at play in post WWII American culture and politics, with historic and future resonance from The Realist to Q-Anon

This is not just another conspiracy theory. Thornley’s early interest in Oswald brought him to the attention of the Warren Commission; later still, Thornley implicated himself in the plot to kill Kennedy

THE SECOND OSWALD is a limited podcast series written and narrated by National Public Radio (NPR) commentator and Peabody award winner Andrei Codrescu

To accompany the launch of the THE SECOND OSWALD podcast, a live play featuring Andrei and Bob Holman as Kerry Thornley will be performed November 13, 2023 7p at Bowery Poetry NYC. After the play, author of the United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory (HarperCollins, 2013), Jesse Walker, will discuss the podcast and play with Andrei. more here

Fish Have No Psychiatrists

documentary film – Codrescu as subject

a film by Julian Semilian

Julian Semilian – Director & Producer Julian is an experimental filmmaker, film editor, teacher, poet, translator, and novelist. Aside from bing a well respected author and translator, he is an exceptional film editor –– who won’t tell you – until you’ve known him for years – that he learned his art from none other than Reginald Mills. Mills edited a number of the Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger films, including The Red Shoes. Julian is very modest. He’s a fantastic experimental film maker and an extraordinarily well loved professor of film, who retires this year. We’re already hatching some plans……

Julian and Andrei met in Italy in 1966 as both fled post WWII Romania – they actually arrived together in the US. If you get them together and give them a drink – they’ll regale you with stories of jumping from bridges, seductions by princesses and appearing in Pasolini films! I can’t wait to see how these two avant-savants meld on screen – Lynnea

learn more here

premiere 4.20.2024 – Official Selection Cannes Film Festival 2024

press

WFDD Interview with Julian 4.18.204 | UNC School for the Arts 2022