“The purpose of the Collège was the demolition of culture, even of surrealism, which they considered too organized. But make no mistake, these people were graduates of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and highly cultured. Their method was based on puns and practical jokes—le canular. There is a great tradition of puns in Anglo-Saxon literature — Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland — but not in French. So they adopted it. They believed that the science of sciences is the pataphysique and its dogma, le canular.”

— Eugéne Ionesco

le canular refers to hoaxes, humorous deceptions. -->
The Paris Review interview (1984)

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Eugéne Ionesco 59

Romanian playwright 1909–1994

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Eugéne Ionesco 59

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