la folie verte

"I am the Green Fairy
My robe is the color of despair
I have nothing in common with the fairies of the past
What I need is blood, red and hot, the palpitating flesh of my victims
Alone, I will kill France, the Present is dead.
Vive the future...
But me, I kill the future and in the family I destroy
The love of country, courage, honor.
I am the purveyor of hell, penitentiaries, hospitals.
Who am I finally? I am the instigator of crime
I am ruin and sorrow
I am shame
I am dishonor
I am death
I am absinthe..."

Background: Absinthe was a popular drink of the fin-de-siècle ($20-word for the 19th-20th century transitional years); prohibitionists in France and elsewhere targeted it at the turn of the century for supposedly containing high levels of thujone and for apparently causing psychosis and crime. It has now been shown that absinthe does not nearly contain enough of the chemical to cause hallucinogenic effects.

Commentary: Above is a song written about la folie verte (derived from archetypal absinthe's color); the text may have been created by an anti-absinthe group. It features prominently as the main text in Blood Axis's "Absinthe" (great song!) in The Gospel of Inhumanity - a controversial album, artist, and scene at any rate - and in a later collaboration tune with Les Joyaux De La Princesse, a fellow martial industrial/dark ambient/neofolk/what-have-you-genre artist, in a recycled song in Absinthe, La Folie Verte. Opinionated aside (as if this post isn't): LJDLP's "L'Allemagne Année Zéro" is a wonderful example of dark ambient music.

Sources: FluxEuropa, AbsintheFever, and, of course, for all your amateur writing needs, Wikipedia.

[Will lift to own page later for reference. Back to your regularly scheduled programming...]