Practical Sainthood

In Dadaland, the world of the future, artists have successfully manipulated cultural climate change so that senseless mass slaughter on battlefields never occurs, despite the heroic efforts of people who like that sort of thing. The artists will sometimes become paranoid that they might get perceived as "saints," you know, the guys who are so clueless about the unspeakable joys of murder, theft and rape. They get told all the time, "You are such a saint." Then they get nervous, because they remember their art history courses, where they were exposed to paintings of Saint Agnes, Saint Catherine, Saint Sebastian, Saint Joan, all depicted as suffering horrible death by torture. Then there were all the sainted disciples of Jesus, to say nothing of Jesus himself. If one is Catholic, one can experience this paranoia before taking any art history courses.

In Dadaland, it is highly likely that the artists will begin to contemplate how to avoid being perceived as "saints," thus avoiding crucificixion, barbecuing and the like. As Dadaland will require a large number of artists to do the enormous task of cultural climate change, the International Dada Centennial Committee wishes that people do not avoid becoming artists in order to avoid slow, horrible death that is traditional among saints. So we will be offering occasional practical advice about how to avoid slow horrible death from being perceived as a saint, even if one actually is a saint.

1. If one finds that one's saintly lifestyle inadvertantly results in a collection of fawning sycophants, this is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. They will probably be more trouble to the "saint" than they are worth in ego strokes, but it is often the case that without their "saint," the lives of these fawning sycophants would seem empty, dreary and meaningless, leading to blowing their brains out, and worse, leaving a note that names the rejection by the "saint" as cause. So if one is stuck with a collection of fawning sycophants, it is highly inadvisable to refer to them as "disciples." Preferable is "homies." One can get away with this better if one is visibly of African ancestry, or, lacking that, speaks with a Black accent. A Black accent can be acquired by going through a heroin addiction treatmen program. The IDCC knows of no such program that requires applicants to prove that they are actually heroin addicts, so do not worry about getting busted for imperonating a junkie.

2. To be continued.