Je Suis Jean-Paul / Je Suis Donatien Alphonse François

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the 

Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

Jean-Paul Marat, actually, and Donatien Alphonse François, better known by his title as the Marquis de Sade.

I actually have been waiting for a de Sadean blockbuster to come along, such as 50 Shades of Grey.
The life and times of our world has often reminded me of a House of Bedlam, such as the Asylum of Charenton, in which the Marquis spent his final days, and was used as the setting of Peter Weiss' play, Marat/Sade.

There has been a small off-Broadway play running within my Dark City-like consciousness for years, in which the cast is people of the 1960s who have gone through the great changes of the past 50 years, and they watch the collapse of civilization about them as they age.
They have gone through the revolutions of the 60s and those since the 60s; they have felt themselves descend from the pinnacle of World War II victory and prosperity into a future that has managed to combine greater political equality with greater economic inequality...

... and they wait as the inmates of Charenton for a de Sade to arrive, so that as a new inmate, he may become involved in staging plays for the inmates, and his mania may give words to their rage against the passage of colorless and tasteless time.

I read de Sade when I was at university, but I did not inhale.

However, I thought I should keep a weather eye out for his boat and the black sails it bears and the knotty cordage made of whips.

And now it is here, in a cornucopeia of forms: a tawdry book, a vacuous film, a series of horrid videos from ISIS.
And we cannot get enough of it.

I have waited so long that I am divided in my sentiments, for part of me takes joy at viewing that which has finally arrived, proving that I am not merely delusional, but perhaps a luckless prophet!
And then there is the part of me that sides with the angels.

Make no mistake! Once we provide ideas and scenarios of playful biting, it does not take long for some people to play Dungeons and Dragons with real fangs, real weapons, and administer real pain. The fact that 50 Shades of Grey is twaddle means nothing, for some brilliantly villainous mind will find the needle in that haystack...

... or more to the point, they will solve the rubik-code of the wooden box, releasing Pinhead and the new ISIS Cenobites.

Pinhead from the movie Hellraiser

(note: the costumes for the film Hellraiser were inspired by gear worn in S&M clubs. The first film was made in the 1980s. There are connections everywhere, nodes, nexuses, and pins linking things...)

Art always precedes life, and then life always delves deeply into that Art, creating newer and newer art within the implicate embrace of the Duality of good and evil. The question is ever: shall the good outweigh the bad?

 Anubis Weighing The Soul

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