The Book of the Artist by Gabriel Xiloj

Adventures of the Artist.

Foour books in which the protagonist tries to

find himself and rid himself of the war within him.

Comprised of the books;

Indulgences

The Agent

The World

Adventureland

**

Introduction.

As i was writing this book i got a lot of flack from readers and critics alike.  The use of the images of naked ladies and the porn content or was i maybe the quality of the pornographic material contained in this book that got these readres and ‘pundits’ in an outrage, therefore i wrote the apologetica. In it i explain the reason for the use of the imagery and the centents of the books. Not that i expect people, HUMans, to understand it but this book can also be read as just a book of art and literature. In this book several genres are blended and mixed up to the heady cocktail this book has become.  If there is anyone out there thinking it it pretentious or some other egomaniacal adjective, i think they should study their own inner workings instead of judging this book.

In the first collection i also added the book of Spiritual Alchemy, it is not really part of this cycle, this story.  There are ofcourse reasons why i could or should be part of this book, the subject matter would makei t part of this cycle but the intent behind it was different.  The books of the Artist have an other goal, an other intent behind it than the Book of Spiritual Alchemy.

This book is about art, literature (in its many forms), psychology and awareness.  A man has come out of a war and has lost himself and tries to find himself.  What does a man do when he comes out of a war, feels himself as being erased and so tightly wound that he can’t be.  While writing this editorial, thats what this is i think i already explain too much, as if i am apologizing for this book, i am not, i am proud of this book, as i am proud of the other books i have written before this one.

I hope you will enjoy this book, hyour judgements and criticisms untill you have read it completely. I promiss you, there is more to follow, this here writer is not finished with the Artist yet. More content is being prepared as i write this.  I do not know yet how i will add  it to this book or i fit will be a standalone.  Forgive me my frankness, this is the way i live and write.

Gabriel Xiloj

This book is dedicated to

Henk Moorlag

Tim Oostra

Heleen van Rooyen

***

Apologetica - The books of the Artist

If anyone has a problem with what is posted on this blog, then there is a fucking UNFOLLOW button there! Dont give the blog owner shit because you feel like it.

 Anonymous

Or because you don’t have the time or interest to read the whole thing XDDDDDD

(The above bit downloaded from Tumblr, it is illustrating the point i am making.)

Ik ben allerlei formats aan het uitproberen om verhalen te vertellen. Vandaag heb ik drie boeken geupload, de boeken van de 'Artiest'.  Hij is een ex-soldaat die een verschrikkelijke (burger) oorlog heeft meegemaakt en na het einde zijn land ontvlucht en door rond te reizen alle puzzle stukken van de verschrikkelijke tijd een plaats te kunnen geven.  In deze boeken verken ik het hoofd van deze ex-soldaat, de wereld waarin hij rond reist en werk ik wat filosofische en kunst thema's/genres uit.  Ik heb 'Naked Lunch' van William Burroughs een beetje voor ogen als voorbeeld. Hoewel Burroughs een ander verhaal vertelt. Het verhaal van de 'Artiest' heeft niets met drugs te maken, het gaat meer over de traumas van de hoofdpersoon die nooit zijn naam noemt.  Ieder plaatje is een scene uit het verhaal van de reis van de 'Artiest', op zoek naar zichzelf en naar redenen voor de psychologische gevolgen die hij ondervind na deze oorlog.  Het verhaal speelt zich af in een paralelle wereld, een wereld die een beetje op de onze lijkt met enkele kleine verschillen.  Ik wordt nu al een aantal weken lastig gevallen door een aantal stumpers die moeite hebben met het format en het verhaal en die vallen mij er dagelijks over lastig. Belachelijk dat mensen een kunst uiting waarin een psychologische casus in wordt uitgewerkt niet kunnen waarderen als een kunst uiting met een interessant verhaal. Maar he, Ome William heeft ook genoeg problemen gehad over zijn 'Naked Lunch' en hem werd ook van alles kwalijk genomen.  Maar ik ga er vanuit dat andere schrijvers die 'interessante' boeken schrijven allemaal wel problemen krijgen met stumpers uit de maatschappij. Ps; Ik schreef deze apologetica voor een socialmedia website waar op ik bijna al mijn werk post.  Alleen bij de boeken van ‘The Artist’ had ik mijn bedenkingen wetende hoe mensen zouden kunnen reageren op het expliciete of waargenomen explicietheid van mijn werk. Oh ja, waarom ik ome Bill noem, William Burroughs, ik doe veel aan ‘name dropping’, deze mensen, Anderen, inspireren my om een nog betere schrijver en kunstenaar te zijn. (Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, etc.) Oh jee !, ik deed het weer, dat verdomde ‘name dropping’ al weer. (Dat is wat ik ‘Yuma’ noem of humor voor hen die mijn werk niet kennen.  Zij die doorzetten, mij blijven volgen(kunst en schrijven),  moeten er bewust van zijn dat ze in een metafictie universum gezogen worden. Ik heb dit niet gepland, het gebeurt organisch als ik aan het schrijven en creeren ben. Ik gebruik iedere kunstvorm of schrijfvorm/genre om mijn verhalen te vertellen en de themas die mij interesseren te verkennen. Oh ja, nog iets, ja, ik ben een tovenaar, ik hoop dat je het me niet kwalijk neemt. Het is de som van alles dat gebeurt is en wat me tot hier gebracht heeft. Een kunstenaar en schrijver te zijn, in het bijzonder een kunstenaar met een hoofdletter ‘K’. (In het engels is dat leuker, dat  is de reden dat ik altijd in het engels schrijf.) De term heb ik gestolen of geleend van Clive Barker. (De drie boeken van de ‘Kunst’) Zij die mij volgen, mijn werk lezen, moeten gemerkt hebben dat ik veel leen en steel van anderen, alles dat me helpt om dingen uit te leggen en/of onderzoeken en mijn themas te verduidelijken worden gebruikt. God dank is er nog geen copyright (©) op woorden. (dat is wat ik ‘Yuma’ noem.) Het verhaal is dat we soms in een narratief worden gezogen en de enige manier om er mee om te gaan is gewoon mee doen en niet jezelf an dan bedoel ik ‘Zelf’ te verliezen als je deel word wat groter is dan jijzelf. Dit is een van de themas waarover ik schrijf in al mijn verhalen die ik al gedeeld heb en zal blijven schrjven zolang als ik leef. Verhalen vertellen en vreemde kunstwerken maken is een deel van mij en mijn leven en jullie lieve lezers en volgers mogen lijden, verduren of gewoon plezier hebben aan de werken die ik uit spreid. Het is een buffet voor hen die houden van mash-ups en het vreemde, het filosophische en het kunstzinnige, het mystieke en het magische. Veel plezier. Gabriel Xiloj©2012

I am playing with different formats to tell stories. (Today i uploaded three books, the books of the ‘Artist’.(ed. on Hyve.nl)) He is an ex-soldier who has been through a terrible (civil) war and in the end he extricated himself from his country and by traveling around tries to give all the puzzle pieces of that terrible time their place. In these books i explore the head of this ex-soldier, the world in which he travels and i play around with filosophical and art themes/genres. I thought about ‘Naked Lunch’ by William Burroughs as i was working on these books. (i had already finished three books when that thought came to mind.) Although Burroughs tells another story. The story of the ‘Artist’has nothing to do with drugs, it is more about traumas of the main character who never names his own name. Every image is a scene from this story, the journey of the Artist, searching for himself and the reasons of these psychological consequences he is experiencing after this war. The story unfolds in a parallel World, a World a bit like ours but with slight differences. The last few weeks i have been hounded by some whackjobs and fruitloops (Check the BZA Tarot) who seem to have some trouble with the format and the way i tell my story, daily i ‘enjoy’ their harassments. It is ridiculous that people can’t appreciate an artwork in which a psychological case study is being explored just as an art work with an interesting story.  But hey, uncle Bill (William Burroughs) had enough problems when ‘Naked Lunch’ hit the streets, people also made his life more interesting because of it.  I think there are enough writers who write ‘interesting’ books that also attract whackjobs and fruitloops. Ps: I wrote this apologetica for a socialmedia site on which i post most of my work. Only with the ‘Artist’ books i was hesitant, knowing how people can react to explicit or assumably explicit works.  Oh yeah, why i name uncle Bill, William Burroughs, i do a lot of name dropping, these are the people, Others, that inspire me to be an even better artist and writer.  (Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Clive Barker, etc.) There i did it again, damn, that namedropping again. (That is what i call ‘Yuma’.) Those who stick wit it, with me, follow my writings and artworks hould be aware they are being sucked into a metafictional universe.  I did not plan it, it just organically happens when i am writing and doing my art. I’ll use any art form or writing form/genre to tell my stories and explore the themes that matter to me. Oh yeah, another thing, yes, i am a sourceror but don’t hold it against me. It is just the sum of all that happened and got me here, being an artist and writer, especially an Artist with a capital ‘A’. It is a term i loaned or stole from Clive Barker.  (the three books of the Art) Those who have been following me, reading my work must have noticed i loan and steal a lot from others, anything that can help me to explain and/or explore the themes that matter to me are being used.  Thank god words are not being copywrited (©) yet. (That is what i call ‘Yuma’.) The story is that we sometimes get sucked in to some narrative and the only way to deal with it is to play along and not lose yourself and i mean ‘Self’ when being made part of something bigger than yourself.  This is one of the themes i write about in all the stories i have shared with you and will be sharing as long as i live.  Telling stories and creating strange artworks seem to be part of me and my life and you dear followers and readers are to suffer, endure or just enjoy the spread as it comes out. It is a buffet for those that like the mash ups and the strange, the filosophical and the artfull, the mystical and the magickal. Enjoy. Gabriel Xiloj©2012

***

Indulgences, a detournement.

Adventures of the Artist.

***

Dedicated to Hugo Pratt and Bryon Gysin.

Index.

Introduction.

The First Cyle.

The second Cycle.

The Third Cycle.

The Fourth Cycle. (Unfinished)

End notes.

The Collector.

Detournement.

***

Introduction.

This is the third installment in the adventures of the Artist, a traveling being who records his adventures in art, writing and drawing in his notebook.    In his journeys he explores other  worlds, letting the inhabitants of these worlds draw and write in his notebooks. It is a anthropological journey or adventure in the lands of the aliens he meets on his journey and their customs of feeling, thought and being.

The Collector.

***

“My turn of mind is so given to taking things in the absurd point of view, that it breaks out in spite of me every now and then.”

Lord Byron

The First Cycle.

The Second Cycle.

Third Cycle.

The Fourth Cycle.

I expected to find more stories like these strewn around but the last ones were written in Groterdam. I made inquieries, had a private detective from there, a Harry Balsac, do some snooping in and around Groterdam but there weren o signs of the Artist to be found. These stories are from a notebook that turned up in Rome, of all places, god knows why. It is strange, the story ended some where in a middle, some mysteries were divulged  to us, about the Artist, his personal narrative and why he does what he does, might he be searching for himself, memories to reclaim his self to himself. Who knows, i’ll keep collecting the Works of this enigmatic being and will keep publishing every work i find in artbooks. As the one jou have just read.

***

End Notes.

I know, there is much to explain about this journey, these words and images and I, the Collector, will do so to the best of my ability.  I am just a wealthy artcollector, not a being like the Artist, so forgive me as I attribute strange facts to these words the Artist left in the World to be found by others like me.

‘Spiritual Alchemy’ is the first book and this book, ‘Indulgences’, is a second in a sereis of books from the hands of the Artist and thsoe he is or was working with. He, the Artist, is an enigmatic being, some say he is a woman and many have met him as a man and many more crazy facts float aroud about this being.

The Collector.

I am the collector, i collect the words and art of the Artist, my whole life and fortunes are geared at collecting the Works of this being the Artist. He is a very special and strange being who seeds magick where ever he goes. I have met those who have met him, talked to them, asked them about the Artist and his Works, they are all changed by him, they have slightly changed because they were with him. There is beauty and love in the Works of the Artist, a man, a being lost in worlds he does no understand anymore and he now travels or traveled the worlds of HUmans to understand what they are or were about. He is nameless and ageless and travels to record all there is to learn from the HUmans, just by being with them. I, the Collector, have been touched by him, when i read the first words, i felt something shift in me and then i started to find more of his Works, a certain light attracted me, i followed it and more and more Works turned up in my hands.  The words collected in this book had no fotograph backing them as i found them. As i was reading this adventure i got the intimation to find images, pictures of women, behind these poems, so i did. The images behind the poems are found by me the Collector, i chose them as a inner voice guided me to choose these images to go with these words. Now having collected so much of this being, I had to share the strange journey of the Artist with others, his Works are not for the few, they are meant for all to enjoy and be changed by it as i was when i read his first poem.

Detournement.

In general it can be defined as a variation on a previous media work, in which the newly created one has a meaning that is antagonistic or antithetical to the original. The original media work that isdétourned must be somewhat familiar to the target audience, so that it can appreciate the opposition of the new message. The artist or commentator making the variation can reuse only some of the characteristic elements of the originating work. The term "détournement" is borrowed from the French, the original language of the Situationist International publications. A similar term more familiar to English speakers would be "turnabout" or "derailment". Détournement is similar to satirical parody, but employs more direct reuse or faithful mimicry of the original works rather than constructing a new work which merely alludes strongly to the original. It may be contrasted with recuperation, in which originally subversive works and ideas are themselves appropriated by mainstream media. One could view detournement as forming the opposite side of the coin to 'recuperation' (where radical ideas and images become safe and commodified), in that images produced by the spectacle get altered and subverted so that rather than supporting the status quo, their meaning becomes changed in order to put across a more radical or oppositional message.

***

The Book of the Agent.

***

Index.

Introduction.

First Quarter.

Second Quarter.

***

Introduction.

This is the third book of the Artist. He is a being on a quest for…….god knows what. He explores the World and discovers himself in doing so. This is reflected in the ‘stories’ he writes. It is what he himslef calls stories of his adventures. In HUman terms, it might be a bit hard to fathom, his advenures seem only to be his dalliances with women. Maybe one should not try to understand the Artist, just read an experience the Works as they are, let the Works speak for themselves. Each reader will find out for him or herself what these stories mean, to him or her.

The Collector.

***

***

Second Quarter.

Addendum or afterwords.

The Collector, The works of the Artist. (An Other Story)

Diary entry, 27-09-2025, London.

I found another notebook of the Artist, in Berlin (the capital of Chur) this time. Full of images and stories, drawings of buildings, people, interiors of houses and drawings of ladies, heads, profiles, ofcourse the writings, strange writings. Writings as explanations of what we see in the images but explanations that seem to be superfluous. If and when we see what he describes it is as if some being from another planet is describing what HUmans have in their houses. Like a ‘Man who fell to earth’, that movie with david Bowie.  If i only knew what he looks like, why do these women take him home, what does he say to them. I asked Harry Balsac the PI to do some more checking for me; he, the Artist, is a male, blond, his eyes seem very……………..something those ladies could not fathom, Harry did not specify in his report. From his stories i surmise he was a soldier once and what he has expereinced changed him, changed him to……………..something not fitting in it seems. But his artwork, the collages, the cut and pastes i found on the interweb, they are amazing, sometimes simple, if i have to put names to them; detournement, culture jamming, all ways of critisizing society and the other side of his work seems an exploration of life and women.  Is it maybe shellshock or Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS) or is he really coming from those supersoldier programs, anything is possible. Especially knowing how things have gone on in the Merican Territories for the last seventy years. The civil war broke that nation, many crazy things have happened there, thank god for the stability of Yumanopolis. Without this stability, no me, no means to collect the works of the Artist. I lied a bit in the book, in book one and two of the Artist, the stories were already written on the images with the naked ladies. I thought i had to protect the credibility of the Artist by saying i had put the stories on these images but i found them as i published them in the books; ‘Spiritual Alchemy’ and ‘Indulgences’. Also Harry Balsac told me there had been a massive magickal blowout or event while the Artist was in Berlin. I read already a bit of it in his stories, they make me think…….what kind of man is he, this Artist. What kind of Artist is he. Magick is used, by some groups in the underground and natuarlly by the Hierarchs Office. Is the Artist of the Hierarchs Office or just……….i remember him telling about a magickal training by this Master, an adventurer and writer. Mysteries and mysteries, more reason to keep collecting and reading, i get hungry for more every time i have read and studied his notebooks, always hungry for more of his, this amazing work. Amazing in my eyes anyway, i tried to share my enthosuiasm with members of my London Club, they just laughed, my daughter is mesmerized by these works. This name, Claude Burkhardt, i sent Harry balsac on a mission to find out more, the data showed that his family emigrated to the Merican Territories a hundred years ago, so this ‘Claude’, presumably the Artist, was born in the Merican Territories. Mysteries and mysteries, he might have known that person and is now using that name for whatever reason. Aren’t you curious now, about the how and why. The idea of following this mystery through his work and maybe in the future meeting him, it feels…….it is something i long for, my daughter is already fantasizing about him, what will he be like, i think she has fallen in love with him through his works. Me old fool, what did i get msyelf in to. I have sent a letter to the agency holding the works, the notebooks of that ‘Claude Burkhardt’, the works that seem to have so many things in common with works of the Artist. Are they the same man or did they know eachother !? Did they maybe go to the same school or were they in the same military unit, when we think about the things the Artist writes in his stories. Mysteries in mysteries, i think that is what a Artist, a real artist should be like or am i just fantasizing about a ghost, is someone else creating these works, just laying false trails to who knows where or…………i don’t know, i am a foolish old man wanting to believe in something exceptional, something that will blow the shutters from my eyes and make me believe in a magickal and miraculous side of life and the world i am living in. A life in mathematics and business made me a very logical man, logical men do not really understand art, i haven’t in the past, this strikes a cord in me, i can’t explain, thank god i can share it with my daughter.

Its late now, tomorrow a meeting in Par-Isi, i am on the train through the Chunnel right now, i’ll have some hours of sleep on the train, maybe some in Par-Isi before or after the meeting. Maybe visit some galleries, i might find one of the notebooks myself…..that may be a foolish mans fantasy, but we all need some dreams, something to make life a little more interesting than it is, even me, maybe especiallly me.  The Collector needs something magickal and miraculous in his life, my amazing daughter is not enough, but i will not tell her that, she might get offended.

End.

***

End notes.

These are the first three books i collected of the Artist, i hope to find more, to learn more of this amazing being, roaming around in our Yumanopolis, having his adventures and finding himself again, as he professess in these stories. Also he leaves us hanging witha cliffhanger, does this Artist know about dailies or soaps/tvshows. His life reads like a soapshow, risque but telling and enticing, generating more curiosity for him and his quest and the strange memories he is regaining from his past.  I hope dear reader you will keep following our invisible unknowable and mysterious Artist, i think he apreciates the attention for his work(s), his life and conquests.

The Collector (William Robert DeBruce)

***

The Book of the World.

By the Artist.

***

“Eroticism is first and foremost a thirst for otherness. And the supernatural is the supreme otherness … the unspoken, the spirit, the soul.”

Octavio Paz, The Kingdoms of Pan from The Double Flame: Love and Eroticism, translation by Helen Lane

Index

Introduction

Cycle one

Cycle two

Cycle three

****

Cycle one.

“Across planes of consciousness, we have to live with the paradox that opposite things can be simultaneously true.”

Ram Dass

Introduction.

Another book of the Artist, this time we discover more about him, what made him so and why he makes this kind of artworks/stories.  It gets more heartbreaking and gory, still my daughter keeps reading it, this one she keeps with her at all times. She took it from my library. I had to ask her if i could fotograph all the images, she consented after a week of thinking. I think she fell in love with the Artist. Even without knowing who he is.

The collector.

***

***

Cycle two.

“Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.”

Hermann Hesse

***

Cycle Three.

***

How do you call someone who........

Calls a scifi/fantasy writer/artist a psychotic ?!

(Ps; I've got a steady job next to my writing career)

It is allowed to answer and reblog it.

It has a great Yuma content this question.

(Yuma is humor, for those not familiar with my writings.)

The Artist. 04-10-2012

Addenda.

Evelynn DeBruce, A Collectors Daughter. (An Other Story)

Evelynn DeBruce diary notes, date unreadable.

Father is a very logical man, full of compassion and love but…….mathematical logic is the the thing, the subject and the object that drives him on through life.  I ask myself sometimes, what makes men like him……..is it the progress of civillisation or is he tuned in to something else, like uncle Bertrand (Russell) or mister Turing. I saw  many of these brilliant men, in those pictures on the walls of his office at home. He would point at the men, tell about their accomplishments but especially what they sacrificed to be the brilliant minds they were and are. One day father came back from one of his many business trips to the Yumanopolis mainland, glowing, a new fire in him. I had just finished lawschool and was now majoring in art in London, off for a week of holidays.  He called me in to his office and showed me a notebook, a strange notebook, pictures of naked women, poetry, drawings and all kinds of odds and ends glued and taped on to the pages.  I said, ‘father, these look like a Cornell box but then on paper’.  Father looked at me, not understanding what i said. Father is one who appreciate the moderate or conventional art, paintings, statues, that sort of thing, modern art, like what he brought home was new to him. This notebook gripped him, it touched him deep inside. He smiled, face flushed, he was excited about this artbooklet. ‘The man or person who created this……..is very intelligent, he is kind of a savant, he has unknowingly or knowingly encoded all kinds of metaphysical and filosophical facts in to this work’. It excited him, there was someone out there with a brilliant mind but maybe totally unaware of it, it might be a man, a woman, who or what would he or she be like.

Now father would come home after work, be a dear to mother, they were still very much in love, as they were since the day they had met. He would ask leave of mother to study the ‘notebook’, mother would smile, ‘yes you can, go study your filosophical toy’, he would kiss her on her forehead and be off to his study. When i walked by, i looked through the door of his study, he would be pouring over the pages of the book, make notes on the copies of the pages, be totally happy, as happy as he had been as a student when they were given an interesting mathematical problem to solve back at Cambridge.  He glowed, he was happy. He had made copies for me and i took them with me, when i went back to London, for the next semester of my artschool.  David Bowie had gone there, Mick Jagger had been there, many famous people had gone there, thats a world beyond mum and dad, they are more classicals when it comes to art and (Pop)culture. Back in London i would share the images, the stories with classmates and friends.  Strangely enough most male readers could not get it, mainly the female readers would get totally captivated with the artfull workings of what they saw and read. Some of the men said it could be the work of an idiot savant, a person with Aspergers or an autist, maybe even a patient in a psychiatric hospital, like that Zwingli man with his art brut or outsider art.

After two weeks of talking and sharing, the copies of the notebook, i and some of my artfriends decided to start ‘The Artist Society’. We wrote a mission statement, we really wrote it, as we had read in the notebook, the Artist loved real writing, we wrote a mission statement. One of my friends was a calligraphist and made a five point mission statement we had discussed and agreed upon.

The mission statement;

1. We would study every work of the Artist.

2. We would publish our findings on his works.

3. We would mke arrangements to publicize his works.

4. We would be advocates for the works.

5. We would do anything possible to make the public aware of his works.

One night a week we would come together, take one page, discuss it, write about, create artworks as if answering his supposedly posed questions.  A month later we had already so much written pages and additional works, we decided to create an ‘The Artist’ zine, pdf it and spread it around, his pages, our findings and some of our derivative works.  Even though we just met once a week, our ‘the Artist’ study and hommage got out of hand, he influenced us so much without even being there, we wrote and created lots of works we needed a place to keep it in.  We spoke to one of the teachers, showed the work, our own works that had been inspired by ‘The Artist’ and we got our own office.  The ‘The Artist’ zine was a hit, especially in the socalled underground, people started printing the images from the notebooks on t-shirt, hoodies, phrases of his found their way in to other Artzines, turn up in songs by underground bands and surrealist producers and composers. Would the ‘Artist’ be aware of it, what would he do…..if he knew what we were doing.  It made me smile, what i learned from the stories and art was that he was a drifter, one who chose to drift around and make his art, i don’t think he ever thought about recognition. Then father found, received another notebook and then a thrid. I copied them myself, i kept ‘The book of the Agent’ myself, i could not part with it, i don’t know why, i passed father the copies, he looked at me and  nodded knowingly. The works of the ‘Artist had me captivated……..for whatever reason. Father said i might’ve fallen for the person, the ‘Artist’, for being such a mystery, such an enigma. I do not dare to say if that i truly so, although……..evey night before i go to sleep, i read his pages, watch the images and there have been countless morning when i woke up……holding the notebook to my chest, embracing it as if it is a HUman being. I laughed about it the first time, now i……..i think i have fallen for that unknown person who wrote and created these works.  Ther is hidden hurt and pain in there, there is a lot of light next to the darkness seeping through little holes, the pores of the pages.  I have imagined, i is disgsuting i know, that the pages are HUman skin, that the ‘Artist’ writes his messages writes and creates his messages purposely on HUman skin, as if he wants HUmans to change, be different, be more open to the world around them……..i am just making suppositions i know, that is what the ‘Artist’ does to me, he touches me, deep inside.  Friends ask me why i don’t have a boyfriend and then……..my thoughts go to the notebooks, in a way…….the ‘Artist’ has become my boyfriend and i do not feel neglected or on the outside. I feel like i am always with him, fullfilling his needs with what i do. When in bed i feel him next to me, i imagine him holding me, i assume he is a man, if he were a she i would still feel the same. Is it crazy to be and feel like this, is it love, is it an obsession or is it a living inspiration touching me, firing me up, feeding me, to be……………me thinking of an answer…….and i can’t………i don’t……he wants me to just be…….and love. He wants me to learn to love everything…….i think, this ‘Artist’ he makes me feel like a little girl again, the way father made me feel when i was just a young girl. safe and loved.

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Cornell box. Joseph Cornell (December 24, 1903 – December 29, 1972) was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage. Influenced by the Surrealists, he was also an avant-garde experimental filmmaker. Joseph Cornell was born in Nyack, New York, to Joseph Cornell, a well-to-do designer and merchant of textiles, and Helen TenBroeck Storms Cornell, who had trained as a kindergarten teacher. The Cornells had four children: Joseph, Elizabeth (b. 1905), Helen (b. 1906), and Robert (b. 1910). Both parents came from socially prominent families of Dutch ancestry, long-established in New York State. Cornell's father died in 1917, leaving the family in strained circumstances. Following the elder Cornell's death, his wife and children moved to the borough of Queens in New York City. Cornell attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in the class of 1921, although he did not graduate. Except for the three and a half years he spent at Phillips, he lived for most of his life in a small, wooden-frame house on Utopia Parkway in a working-class area of Flushing, along with his mother and his brother Robert, whom cerebral palsy had rendered physically challenged. Cornell was wary of strangers. This led him to isolate himself and become a self-taught artist. Although he expressed attraction to unattainable women like Lauren Bacall, his shyness made romantic relationships almost impossible. In later life his bashfulness verged toward reclusiveness, and he rarely left the state of New York. However, he preferred talking with women, and often made their husbands wait in the next room when he discussed business with them. He also had numerous friendships with ballerinas, who found him unique, but too eccentric to be a romantic partner. His last major exhibition was a show he arranged especially for children, with the boxes displayed at child height and with the opening party serving soft drinks and cake. He devoted his life to caring for his younger brother Robert, who was disabled and lived with cerebral palsy. This was another factor in his lack of relationships. At some point in the 1920s, or possibly earlier, he read the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, including Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Cornell considered Eddy's works to be among the most important books ever published after the Bible, and he became a lifelong Christian Science adherent. He was also rather poor for most of his life, working during the 1920s as a wholesale fabric salesman to support his family. As a result of the American Great Depression, Cornell lost his textile industry job in 1931, and worked for a short time thereafter as a door-to-door appliance salesman. During this time, through her friendship with Ethel Traphagen, Cornell's mother secured him a part-time position designing textiles. In the 1940s, Cornell also worked in a plant nursery (which would figure in his famous dossier "GC44") and briefly in a defense plant, and designed covers and feature layouts for Harper's Bazaar, View, Dance Index, and other magazines. He only really began to sell his boxes for significant sums after his 1949 solo show at the Charles Egan Gallery. Cornell was a highly regarded artist towards the end of his career, yet remained out of the spotlight. He produced fewer box assemblages in the 1950s and 1960s, as his family responsibilities increased and claimed more of his time. He hired a series of young assistants, including both students and established artists, to help him organize material, make artwork, and run errands. At this time, Cornell concentrated on making collages, and collaborated with filmmakers like Rudy Burckhardt, Stan Brakhage, and Larry Jordan to make films that were evocative of moving collages. In 1967 the artist was reported in possession of two or three original drawings from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. The exiled Saint-Exupéry's wife, Consuelo, was similarly an artist and sculptor. Cornell's brother Robert died in 1965, and his mother in 1966. Joseph Cornell died of apparent heart failure on 29 December 1972, a few days after his sixty-ninth birthday. The executors of his estate were Richard Ader and Wayne Andrews, as represented by the art dealers Leo Castelli, Richard Feigen, and James Corcoran. Later, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation was established, which administers the copyrights of Cornell's works and represents the interests of his heirs.  Cornell's most characteristic art works were boxed assemblages created from found objects. These are simple boxes, usually fronted with a glass pane, in which he arranged surprising collections of photographs or Victorian bric a brac, in a way that combines the formal austerity of Constructivismwith the lively fantasy of Surrealism. Many of his boxes, such as the famous Medici Slot Machine boxes, are interactive and are meant to be handled. Like Kurt Schwitters, Cornell could create poetry from the commonplace. Unlike Schwitters, however, he was fascinated not by refuse, garbage, and the discarded, but by fragments of once beautiful and precious objects he found on his frequent trips to the bookshops and thrift stores of New York. His boxes relied on the Surrealist technique of irrational juxtaposition, and on the evocation of nostalgia, for their appeal. Cornell never regarded himself as a Surrealist; although he admired the work and technique of Surrealists like Max Ernst and René Magritte, he disavowed the Surrealists' "black magic," claiming that he only wished to make white magic with his art. Cornell's fame as the leading American "Surrealist" allowed him to befriend several members of the Surrealist movement when they settled in the USA during the Second World War. Later he was claimed as a herald of pop artand installation art.

Cornell often made series of boxed assemblages that reflected his various interests: the Soap Bubble Sets, the Medici Slot Machine series, the Pink Palace series, the Hotel series, the Observatory series, and the Space Object Boxes, among others. Also captivated with birds, Cornell created an Aviary series of boxes, in which colorful images of various birds were mounted on wood, cut out, & set against harsh white backgrounds. In addition to creating boxes and flat collages and making short art films, Cornell also kept a filing system of over 160 visual-documentary "dossiers" on themes that interested him; the dossiers served as repositories from which Cornell drew material and inspiration for boxes like his "penny arcade" portrait of Lauren Bacall. He had no formal training in art, although he was extremely well read and was conversant with the New York art scene from the 1940s through to the 1960s. Cornell was heavily influenced by the American Transcendentalists, Hollywood starlets (to whom he sent boxes he had dedicated to them), the French Symbolists such as Stéphane Mallarméand Gérard de Nerval, and great dancers of the 19th century ballet such as Marie Taglioni and Fanny Cerrito. Christian Science belief and practice informed Cornell's art deeply, as art historian Sandra Leonard Starr has shown.

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An End.

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The book of Adventureland/Storyville.

By the Artist.

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Index.

Introduction.

Cycle One.

Cycle Two.

Cycle Three.

Addendum.

The Artist, A letter.

W.R. DeBruce, A Diary notation.

Posttraumatic stress disorder^[(PTSD)

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Introduction.

Dear reader i welcome you to the fourth book of the Artist. Like you i have been taken on a ride by this elusive Artist, sharing scenes of his life with us……..with reason ofcourse. I don’t know what to say or write about it, i think you have to find out yourself, enjoy the writing, the story and the art or isn’t it.  I have no explanations for what i have become involved in, i can only share it with you. I hope you will enjoy this book as you enjoyed the other three books. I promiss you, beinvolved, stay involved and there is a prize in the end, only it will be something completely different then you had ever, have ever experienced ever before in your life. This is a promiss, so enjoy.

W.R.DeBruce/the Collector.

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Cycle One.

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Cycle Two.

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Cycle Three.

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Addendum.

The Artist, A letter.

A letter received by W.R. DeBruce, date unlegible, inscribed in mailbook 05-05-2021.

Dear sir,

I am very pleased and proud that an intelligent man like you chooses to collect the works of a person like me.  I am aware that what i write, the way i write and its subject matter is an object of mystery and ridicule at the same time.  Doing it this way……is something that just happened, the stories….well they are true, some written on the spot as they happened and some well…..i had to rely on my memory and that is a well…..splintered thing. I am aware of many things, can see many things but i am not aware or able to rememeber anything since before the Merican civil war, nothing of it during………..only now……now i have been traveling in Yumanopolis for……….i don’t know, a few years now, memeories come bak, shards of things that happened and thoughts and feelings, information floods my mind………and i love it, i don’t know what to think of it.

You may ask why i confide in you, its because i noticed you are collecting my notebooks, even saw on the interweb an Artist studygroup and have heard my phrases on the radio, saw some young people with shards of my notebooks on their t-shirts……….thats the reason why i write.  I gather you must understand me, a little anyway, because i do not understand me.  I have learned not to think, just to be in the moment, follow my intuition…………

After the war i made sure to get out, not Quebec and not mesh, then i would be surrounded by my country men…i….can’t stand them right now, there is still something hidden, some things have come to the surface…..as i am having my adventures but……..i can’t seem to find the words to describe what has been going on in the Merican Territories, what changed me, what kind of atrociteis were committed and none of the guilty parties have been talking, writing about…………

I am sitting on a pot of darkness, i am not affrayd of it, although i have killed because of it, several times, you’ve read about it in the adventures. I feels kind of natural…….even when i do not really want to do it, the IFS chose to attack me and it is my right to defend me, myself and I ofcourse.   If it were not for the Master, i would not have regained that bit of myself and the ISF would have taken me as they did the girl in Marseille, you must have read that i think…..in one of my notebooks.

I leave my notebooks all over Yumanopolis in gallereis because i know people, HUmans will like them, i had some chance here and there to study some art, yes with the ladies whose presence i graced in the past few years. i just follow the words of the Master, adventures, big and small, teach us about ourselves, help us find the memories that were lost. The Master told me to use my affinity for art to express everything within me.  The images of these girls, i download them from the InterWeb, print them out, bind them together, create a front/back cover and i am on my way again.  I am not psyciatric patient, i don’t think i am god or some big guy from history, nor do i see aliens or ufos, i am just an Artist finding himself by living this life of traveling around, having my…..adventures or trists with beautifull women and move on. They give me something, something i have missed or……maybe i have never had, is it love maybe, i don’t know.  One thing i know is….i don’t feel lonely, i am never lonely, whenever i need someone……they are there, whenever i need a bed……i find a bed and breakfast, lunch and diner is included and payment…….well, they, those ladies get my full attention, i mean they have me completely, a butler, a gigolo, a friend, a lover, a confidant……….i am many things, i can be many things. That is what the Master had said to me, as he talked and explained, nothing buzzed, chimed or clicked back then but know the words seem to find their expression in everything i am experiencing right now or when i wrote, created these stories, images in the notebooks.

I learned one special thing, i love women, i love to be with them, love to be around them, they make me feel necessary, usefull, make me feel part of the world, yes it is strange and a dumb feeling…….for you maybe or for others reading this letter.  Is it strange to feel these things, i do not have any comparison, no memory to tell me what is right to feel or think, one part of me wants to reject everything felt and thought and another part revels in emptiness, silence and just awareness……..but the other part, the one of feelings and thoughts, he/she/it is the Artist in me, the one that finds the words to describe everything that is, was and could be, the other is the strategist, intuitively informing our completeness what to do…….in any given situation.

I saw a picture on an InterWeb site from Brittania, i saw a group of women, the Artist study group, my words all neatly typed out, pictures of the pages of my notebooks and i saw the article about that Merican man/boy who created……………supposedly the same kind of artworks/note.  To be very honest, it does not ring a bell, i got no memories of doing it, even the name, Claude Burckhardt, it has no meaning for me, i just wanted you to know.  I feel very much honored that artschool students are studying my notebooks, i saw some of the derivative works and i like them very much.

I hope you will keep recovering, collecting, my notebooks, it is good to know there is someone out there who cares about me, cares about my work. As i said earlier, i rememebr nothing of my youth, of parents, of anything before the Merican civil war and i can’t remember why.  Let me be honest, the Master has been kind of like a father……..in a way, you are like a father figure to me, one who follows me through my works, feeling for me through my work………..

I don’t know anything more to say anymore, forgive me. Forgive me for writing this letter, if it may be an inconvenience, like i had become an inconvenience to my own government but i had to let you know that i know.  I had a conversation with your private eye, the Harry Balsac, a very prudent and diligent man, i asked him not to tell he had tracked me back in Berlin. The ISF was on my trail and i did not want to involve others in my…….in the machinations of my literally ‘dark past’.  Turned out, harry balsac had been a soldier in His Majesties Army and had similar feelings of pride and honor as me and therefore he promissed to keep it a secret. I passed on some information about the ISF, i think he must have briefed you on it in his Berlin notes.

What Am I

But a Butterfly

Or an Artist

Maybe a Panther

The latter might be……

Taken from his home

Lived through war

To break out

Unable to find……..

My way home….

Ever again.

Yours truly,

The Artist

Ps;Forgive me for intruding on your life like this.

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W.R. DeBruce, A Diary notation.

Strange, received a letter today, a beautifull envelope, the adress written with inkpen, might even have been a quill, but calligraphed or written so beautifully as if……as if it had been written by a woman.  It was thick paper, a bit rough to the touch, it was a mix of cotton and newspaperpulp, a bit like parchment.  I smelled it, i had a scent of flowers, a scent i did not rememeber, had to ask my wife, she said it was lavender. She laughed, asked me with a chuckle if might have a love on the side, i did not know what to say, then and there that moment, lost my temper, yes i am that kind of male, when i am lost for words……i get mad, it is not very highstanding or a sign of good class or sportsmanship as my old mates would say.  Damned, these kinds of thoughts have not been in my head……ever !, since i am reading, studying the notebooks of the Artist, these thoughts, ideas, feelings are continually in my head. He, she, is affecting me, through his or her work i am being affected, i am being forced to examine my life…….because of the artworks, the peoms and darwings……………..yes, i am amazed about it.

The letter, i steamed it open, i did not want to damage the envelope, opened it carefully, some coins rolled out, some lavender flowers, my wife was right and an empty shell from his inkpen. I was remembered of that Cornell bloke with his artfull boxes, this time, with this ‘Artist’, it was an envelope and one leaf of paper acme out. I unfolded it, on my desk, i wa struck by the beauty, the intensity and the………what is, was the word, necessity or deliberateness of these letters, words, these things he told me about.  I felt like i was drawn in to a………..an adventure or……….something scripted by someone, something else, another world, something that brought me back to the memories of my own war, just as scary and unfathomable as his or…….no, i was safe in Bletchly Park, we had been safe, it had only been the work of our heads and some intelligence thinktanking back then………….this man, woman, held me captive with these beautifully written words, sentences, the intensity of life, emotion and feeling all held in this letter to me.

I gather he wanted to explain things about himself but……there were no explanations, some about the way he created his notebooks, some insights in the why of his stories and why he had his ‘adventures’.  Why he used the images of these women, he was filling a hole within himself, healing himself through all these women or…….am i just filling in the gaps through only my eyes. I am a logician, a mathematician, his world is………unknown, strange, beyond anything i have ever known in my life.  I wish i could see him, talk with him, like i walk and talk with my son Robert.

This man makes me think of the unknown filosopher, whose works have been circulating in masonic circles in Yumanopolis.  I have read samples of them, the ideas in these notes make me think that the ‘Artist’ is just like the unknown filosopher. Both men are unknown, safe for some, can it be that people live in Yumanopolis only known by a ‘title’, can we call it a title.

I took the Balsac report from Berlin from my archive cabinet, read it again. Had i read it or had i forgotten to read it, i could not remember.  Harry Balsac is my Private Investigator, nothing stays hidden for him, he gets his man……always, so he did and this kind of comrade out of arms persuaded him not to tell anything and leave him be. This means that Harry balsac was impressed by him or he would not have said yes to the proposal of the Artist.  I read the report, all the places the Artist had been, the women he had been with and where the Berlin notebook had turned up.  The final bit was about the ISF, a very frightening bit.  The ISF had started out as part of the Intelligence Community of the Merican Territories. In the civil war the organisation that became the ISF sided with the Middle merican Territories, that is the conservative forces, headed by three generals.  The ISF was reformed, became a national agency and did all kinds of police tasks and……..developed techniques of unconventional warfare (fringe sciences, psychic warfare, magickal warfare), actively, trying them out on their own countrymen during the civil war, without any……….scruples and then the civil war ended. The ISF had become national and then became international, hunting down soldiers of the outer forces, especially those of certain military programs, programs that had enhanced the abilities of the persons involved. The ISF had it in mind to return all the enhanced veterans to the MericanTerritories and keep their findings and powers under lock and key.

I had been aware of strange disapperances in newspapers, in Par-Isi, Rome, Munchen, Ulm, Amsterdam, even some murders or unexplained dead found in other places on the Yumanopolis mainland.  Now i had read this ISF bit……it clicked, i understood, the ‘Artist’ is one of these soldiers/agents, changed in a government program to enhance his abilities and thend result is………..a person without a past, drifting around in Yumanopolis, going for a Guinness World Record in sleeping with women all over Yumanopolis. Pieces of a puzzle, the Artist was sharing them, sharing them on purpose for……….he might disappear or end up dead when the ISF caught up with him and no one, i would never hear of him again, i would never, ever collect another of his notebooks and……………i would miss it, i would miss it not to read his stories, look at his drawings, knowing he is, was, out there having his adventures, giving love to these women that invited him by……..just saying yes, yes to his………..what was it that these women liked about him, i could not get that from his notebooks……nor from the descriptions of these women he had been with, they ahd given descriptions but they all seemed to……….not describe him at all.  The strange thing is……i still don’t know if he is a man or a woman, Harry Balsac says he is a man but……..it is as if something, someone is throwing me off in this regard.

The Artist is affecting my life and……………i don’t mind. It is crazy ofcourse, me the man of logic is being swept of his feet by something and someone untangible, like Evelynn is taken by him, by his works or are he and his works……………he is affecting me, he seems to be taking me somewhere, some filosophical place, a stance of being…………..i am wrting this but i am not aware of what i am writing, i feel like i am automatic writing. God, i hope i don’t go the ‘Conan Doyle way’, laughed off in to oblivian if and when i try to tell about……the Artist. I leave this in the Hands of Evelynn, she is younegr, stronger, her mind is still shaping and pliant, god, this is truly something else……..i know where this is going, it will not be long and the Artist will be here, in Breet (Brittania) and he will be here on the doorstep and……………….

I have to stop writing now, have to talk with my wife about all of this, it is, has become a bit too much.  Although, i like the exitement, it is like the exitement of breaking the codes of the Axis before Yumanopolis had become one.  This man, this ‘Artist’, is shaking my memories loose, all kinds of things bubbling up, i’ll really have to talk to my wife, she’ll love it, she in to that kind of talky-talk stuff, lets make use of it and in a way that is conducive to the process. The ‘process’, it makes me chuckle, this Artist has got me and he is freeing me of………….i’ll stop writing now, its a bit much, i feel someone s pushing me and i don’t like to be pushed. That was the reason i left Bletchly Park after the war. NOW I STOP.

WRDB

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Addendum.

Posttraumatic stress disorder^[(PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results inpsychological trauma. This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one's own or someone else's physical, sexual, or psychological integrity, overwhelming the individual's ability to cope. As an effect of psychological trauma, PTSD is less frequent and more enduring than the more commonly seen post traumatic stress (also known as acute stress response). Diagnostic symptoms for PTSD include re-experiencing the original trauma(s) through flashbacks or nightmares, avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma, and increasedarousal—such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, anger, and hypervigilance. Formal diagnostic criteria (both DSM-IV-TR and ICD-10) require that the symptoms last more than one month and cause significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

PTSD is believed to be caused by experiencing any of a wide range of events which produces intense negative feelings of "fear, helplessness or horror" in the observer or participant. Sources of such feelings may include (but are not limited to):

§  experiencing or witnessing childhood or adult physical, emotional, or sexual abuse;

§  experiencing or witnessing physical assault, adult experiences of sexual assault, accidents, drug addiction, illnesses, medical complications;

§  employment in occupations exposed to war (such as soldiers) or disaster (such as emergency service workers);

§  getting a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness

Children or adults may develop PTSD symptoms by experiencing bullying or mobbing. Approximately 25% of children exposed to family violence can experience PTSD. Preliminary research suggests that child abuse may interact with mutations in a stress-related gene to increase the risk of PTSD in adults. However, being exposed to a traumatic experience doesn't automatically indicate they will develop PTSD. It has been shown that the intrusive memories, such as flashbacks, nightmares, and the memories themselves, are greater contributors to the biological and psychological dimensions of PTSD than the event itself. Multiple studies show that parental PTSD and other posttraumatic disturbances in parental psychological functioning can, despite a traumatized parent's best efforts, interfere with their response to their child as well as their child's response to trauma. Parents with violence-related PTSD may, for example, inadvertently expose their children to developmentally inappropriate violent media due to their need to manage their own emotional dysregulation. Clinical findings indicate that a failure to provide adequate treatment to children after they suffer a traumatic experience, depending on their vulnerability and the severity of the trauma, will ultimately lead to PTSD symptoms in adulthood.

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Last words.

The last words on this volume anyway…….because much more is going to be written, maybe even published.  I want to thank you readers, artists, critics alike for suffering through this book of mine.  I know its a bit off the wall but it came out of me and therefore it should be. It will do the work that it has to do in the World(s).  Thats is giving enjoyment and insight in to a broken mind/being. People like the Artist are usually forgotten, after the war most go home and…………………..try to get home, how many do really get home.  I used some art and literary forms to explain and maybe heal something, someone, broken.  The books is not about me personally. I had the luck to be a student, when i could be drafted, and many told me back then it is wasted time for most, except when you can find enduring employment in the military.

I got this great mind of mine, i can explore any World i like and write about it intelligibly and that is what i do, it is my gift and i share it with all of you out there.  If understanding does not set in now….it will come later.  I guess i will be signing your copy soon.

Gabriel Xiloj©2012

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