Waking Up from the American Dream

What would have happened if the notoriously obscure German philosopher Martin Heidegger had visited America? Jef Costello's uproarious comedy of errors Heidegger in Chicago offers a plausible answer: he would have been misunderstood. Costello's Heidegger makes his way through a surreal and blithely anachronistic landscape populated by washed-up TV actresses, Vegas crooners, PC academics, and cult leaders. He encounters such figures as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Savitri Devi, Charles Manson, Yukio Mishima, and J. Edgar Hoover. Along the way, Heidegger is mistaken for a playboy, a Leftist, a Nazi, a nihilist, the "next big thing" in pop, and even a small black child. Heidegger in Chicago offers hilarious sendups of Hollywood, Michael Jackson, Las Vegas, German idealism, political correctness, and Objectivism, with the wickedest Ayn Rand parody ever. You'll laugh until it hurts-and maybe even learn a little bit about Heidegger.