  Like the universe in Jarry’s Ubu Roi, The Gestures and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll (1969), and other literary texts — as well as in Jarry’s more theoretical explications of pataphysics — Baudrillard’s is a totally absurd universe where objects rule in mysterious ways, and people and events are governed by absurd and ultimately unknowable interconnections and predestination (The French playwright Eugene Ionesco is another good source of entry to this universe). Like Jarry’s pataphysics, Baudrillard’s universe is ruled by surprise, reversal, hallucination, blasphemy, obscenity, and a desire to shock and outrage.