palace of winds

Sometime early on a tense phone call, a symptom of — but one day I will forget even the thinnest-veiled references, and happily so.

Later I dream of the Marquis de Sade, but it is sadly lacking in the charm of Quills; that is, Joaquin Phoenix.  I am like a shadow over the shoulder of his character, though he bears no resemblance to Joaquin.  He is jailed, he is locked up for mad, but he is (I am) lucid, sane, utterly convinced of this sanity.  Later he is (we are) out and the Marquis is being locked in, and from here I have the strongest memory.  The Marquis is clutching at the bars, pressed up against them, and he is begging.  He is telling us that he is not crazy, that he knows exactly what he is doing.  And I do not know.  Maybe he is sane.  Maybe he is only utterly convinced.  And I think of how utterly convinced I was (and Joaquin’s character), and wonder at that too.