A fortnight ago, I stumbled into a coffee shop in Chicago called The Understudy – a self-described “theater bookstore, coffee shop, and creative hub”, which would be the beginning of my entanglement with the demiurge of the French author, Victor Hugo.
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I awoke in the mood to visit a coffee shop with a great vibe, where I could sit and steep in good energy while reading my copy of The Red Book, by Carl Jung.
I asked my gf Kate if she knew a good cafe on the north side, and she did, so off we went. Her choice was a nice place, but there was a line out the door and the vibe was not quite right, so we agreed to try another place.
We drove a few blocks, parked on Clark St, and walked until we came across The Understudy.
This was definitely the spot. The café was bustling, but as soon as we got in line, a table opened. I had a feeling it would. I could sense the guilt-ridden anxiety of the lady seated alone at the large table as she internalized the poor etiquette of bogarting a four-person table as a party of one. Within seconds, she relocated to the window and smiled as she surrendered the table to us. We were in luck.
Then my mood began to shift.
When my cappuccino arrived, I didn’t want it anymore. I also lost interest in reading my book, mostly because the bustle and atmosphere kept demanding my attention. We noted the cool furniture, bookcases, color scheme, brickwork, tilework, plants, etc.
Before leaving, Kate mentioned that I should check out the cool wallpaper on the way to the bathroom, so I did. The wallpaper was made from torn-out pages of old books, glazed over to a smooth matte finish. I thought it looked beautiful and was instantly struck with the idea of creating something similar atop a spare art canvas we had at home.
Quick side-story about the spare canvas: A week earlier, I held the canvas against the wall in my office and asked Kate if she liked the way it looked. The canvas featured weird abstract art that didn’t mesh well with our place. This canvas was the sole canvas remaining in my possession from a night where I (perhaps again drunken by the demiurge of Victor Hugo) ordered $2000 worth of canvas art for the galley wall at my old condo (about 40 pieces in total). I got rid of most of the art pieces during my move (giving most of them away), because they were soulless, boring, weird, or not my style. The same was true of this last remaining canvas in my possession. We both agreed we didn’t love it, so back into storage it went.
But now, the idea of using the spare canvas for this new art project seemed perfect. I decided we should stop at an art supply store on the way home (something uncharacteristic of me, as my artsy side usually manifests in digital, not physical art).
At the art store, the employee’s eagerness to help was uncommon and we commented on how delightful and helpful the experience had been.
When I got home, I had a problem - I couldn't find any books I felt indifferent enough toward to destroy in the name of art. Most of my old book collection was in storage, and I had grown too attached to any of my newer books to deface them.
I found a tattered copy of Les Misérables on Kate’s bookshelf and felt no attachment to it whatsoever. I asked Kate if she wouldn’t mind if I used it for my project, reminding her that I had a nicer, cleaner copy of Le Mis in storage anyway. She agreed.
When I say I had zero attachment to the book, I also mean the story. Of course, I knew of and even owned the book, but I had never taken the time to read it or even a decent summary of it. I did watch bits and pieces of the 2012 film, Les Misérables, starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, et al., so I knew vaguely that Le Mis was a story about the French Revolution. I even knew that people who liked to sound smart abbreviated it to Le Mis. I knew it was an important part of the culture, but I was apathetic toward it. Our time is finite! Most books, we will never read.
I started tearing out pages and sifting through them chapter and verse. I compiled a stack of pages with chapter and section titles that resonated with me most. I got the hunch from this exercise that ‘Jean Valjean’ was an important figure in the book (this is how little I knew or remembered about the story).
I decided to lay the pages down in checkerboard format, jumping between major chapter titles and subsection titles. In the end, I completed a 5x6 checkerboard, totaling 30 pages.
I glued each page down and poured the matte glaze atop the canvas and let it dry. My work for the day was done.
But Victor Hugo was not yet finished we me.
The next day, while cleaning up my mess and sorting through the thousand pages of Le Mis which I had de-spined, I noticed two pages which contained art.
The first and most prominent featured a child, amid a backdrop of red and blue. This was the cover page (and the only page containing any color amid a sea of yellow-faded-paper and black ink). A google search informed me that this child is likely “young Cosette”, which I gather has some deeper significance to the story.
The other page featured a small sketch of the author, Victor Hugo, along with a short biography. Reading his biography impressed upon me a reverence and admiration for Hugo, whereas, before, I felt complete indifference.
With my interest now piqued, I landed on Hugo’s wiki, where I learned that “Hugo set forth the inspiration of Les Misérables in the Preface” of the book. I rifled through the torn pages and sorted all pages with a number less than fifty into a pile so that I could easily locate the Preface. I examined each of those pages and found no sign of the Preface.
How could I be missing the ONE page that summarized Hugo’s entire motivation for writing the book. The one page which summarized what this demiurge had created through Victor Hugo.
I wanted to find and include this page into my art project. I rifled through the pages again, to no avail.
Then an idea creeped into my mind. “Maybe its in the trash…”.
By now, my project was sharing the kitchen countertop with Kate, who was preparing dinner. As a last-ditch effort, I checked the trash bin, and sure enough, there it was.
I could only smile, as there, covered in olive oil, but in otherwise perfect condition, were the words:
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So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine with human fatality; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of women by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and from a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.
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What words! - and what a time for those words to resurface.
But why act through me? Apparently, the demiurge doesn’t mind apathy. I think maybe this explains why the messenger is usually imperfect. What I can say for certain is that my actions through this experience were driven purely by impulse.
After adding six more pages to the canvas (all pages which seemed important to me on the second day) it was done.
Having completed this art project and shared this story, I believe my entanglement with the demiurge of Victor Hugo is now complete.
Here is the completed piece of art 🖼️:
Synchronicity Checkpoint!
I think it’s a good idea to post synchronicities as data points.
Someday soon, Ai might be able to aggregate and constellate the data points, which may generate a gestalt (or map) unlocking deeper insights into the nature of reality.
So, if you have cool (and honest) synchronicities to report, I'm open to the idea of creating a constellation portal. Would be cool to get a flood into my inbox so I can publish daily.
Send submissions to: PortoAtheras@Gmail.com