Bienvenido Bones Banez with his art on Milton's Cottage Day

WAH Center
Welcomes
John Dugdale Bradley (standing second from left)
and
Kelly O'Reilly (taking the photograph)

Terrance Lindall tells of a "[w]onderful and fruitful visit by the charming John Dugdale Bradley and Kelly O'Reilly from Milton's Cottage England!" We are invited to learn more about Milton's Cottage Day and to peruse photographs of the visit and "[r]ead about it in ISSUU MAGAZINE." In further support of Milton's Cottage, Bradley and O'Reilly "are planning major events with artists and writers and the events will be associated with the British Library, Westminster Abbey and other [important sites]."

Among such artists are Terrance Lindall, standing first from left in the photo above, and Bienvenido Bones Banez, standing furthermost right.

Bones Banez named an official member of the Williamsburg Circle

Bones
Williamsburg Circle

His membership is is noteworthy to record because Bien is a rather extraordinary individual:

Bienvenido "Bones" Banez, Jr. is a Filipino surrealist painter born on June 7, 1962 in Davao City, Philippines. He is the only Filipino surreal artist included in the Lexikon der phantastischen Künstler (Encyclopedia of Fantastic and Surrealistic and Symbolist and Visionary Artists). He produced a major folio of philosophical verse, THE SATANIC VERSES OF BONES BANEZ, now in the collection of the Yuko Nii Foundation. He is considered by many to be one of the foremost international surrealists.

Lest one misunderstand, Bien's Satanic Verses are in the manner of C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters, presenting, not advocating, a Satanic point of view . . . I think.

I'm also a member of the Williamsburg Circle, taken in probably because they needed an ordinary fellow.

Terrance Lindall's "Dinner with the Devil" a Success!

Book Display

My art friend Terrance Lindall sent some photos yesterday from last Friday evening's Dinner with the Devil - at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center (WAH Center) - in honor of The Satanic Verses of Bones Banez, as recounted to Lindall.

First, speaking here is Yuko Nii - well-known artist and founder of the WAH Center - while Lindall sits nearby, manning the sound system and perhaps being introduced prior to reading from The Satanic Verses:

Here's Lindall, reading aloud from the text:

Finally, here's Bien playing the piano with Peter Dizozza:

I wish I could have been there . . . and in some way, I was, for if you look closely at the first photo above, you'll see the yellowish-looking hard copy of my novella - The Bottomless Bottle of Beer - just below the third painting from the right. That was the first edition, and it had a lot of mistakes due to my poor editing - even a missing paragraph from the beginning - so anyone interested in reading the complete and perfected text will have to go for the ebook version, at Amazon.

Terrance Lindall's "Dinner with the Devil"

Dinner with the Devil
Email from Terrance Lindall

Terrance Lindall sent me an email to remind me of his "Dinner with the Devil" - partly in honor of the artist and soothsayer Bienvenido "Bones" Banez - on this upcoming Friday the 19th of September, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. More details are available here on The Satanic Verses, a collaborative work by Lindall and Banez, as well as glimpses of their artwork used in illustration of the poem. I am not an unbiased reporter:

"The poetic conceit that Bones is working with is that we're already living in the tribulation of the eschaton, and the poem is his artistic vision, accompanied by vivid, electrifying artworks depicting, in some way, those troubled times." - Dr. Horace Jeffery Hodges

But this man knows the score:

"Consisting of ten books, lavishly illustrated with Banez's visual masterpieces, The Satanic Verses, in alignment with Paradise Lost, contextualizes the devil in times of modernity. The collection obviates man's archaic fear of the hellmaster, which for six millennia prevented humankind from understanding Divine perfection. From being God's chief rival in earlier books, Beelzebub, taking advantage of man's power of reasoning, morphs himself as everything that tempts, pleasures, and taxes man, snaring practically everyone, believers and unbelievers alike. Ultimately, the Prince of Darkness is disclosed with sound philosophy as instrument for the actualization of a higher, yet unrealized, Almighty scheme!" - Phillip Somozo, Journalist and Art Critic, Manila, The Philippines

And this man knows even more:

"Without a doubt, Terrance Lindall is the foremost illustrator of Paradise Lost in our age, comparable to other great illustrators through the ages, and someone who has achieved a place of high stature for all time." - Dr. Rober J. Wickenheiser, Renowned Milton Collector

Check out this website: The Satanic Verses! Given Lindall's stature and Banez's genius - or vice-versa - you can bet this Dinner with the Devil will prove a lively time as Lindall recites from the epic poem inspired by Banez, and Banez plays his Satanic Rhapsody, not to mention dinner music by the Julianne Klopotic Duet! Possibly also a reading of my poem "Hell's Bells," depending on Lindall's whimsy, if the time and the mood are right . . .

I can't make the event, for I'm stuck in Seoul, but if you'll be in New York City that evening, get your tickets now.

Terrance Lindall's Dinner With The Devil: September 19, 2014

Dinner With The Devil

My NY friend and famous illustrator of John Milton's Paradise Lost (as well as of the BBB), Terrance Lindall, is having a Dinner With The Devil this coming September 19, 2014 in honor of the electrifying artist Bien 'Bones' Banez, inspiration for the soon-to-be-famous Satanic Verses of Bones Banez!

My own minor poem, "Hell's Bells," might receive mention, but that doesn't matter. More important is the menu, edifying both inside and out!

Here's the cover, aka "Out":

Such meals might be subject to change . . . possibly transubstantiation? I'm merely guessing, based on my knowledge of the authors' whims about sub sandwiches.

But that sort of transformation only makes things better!

Phillip Somozo on Emanations: Third Eye

My friend Terrance Lindall -- artist and provocateur -- forwarded a recent review by art and literary critic Phillip Somozo of last year's literary anthology Emanations: Third Eye, which in part is praise of the artist "Bienvenido Bones Banez, Jr." and in part is praise of writer and literary critic Carter Kaplan, though also in part critique of them both! I will focus on the positive:

Book Review

Emanations: Third Eye anthology by International Authors introduces Surrealmageddon of Davao surrealist

By Phillip Somozo

Surrealmageddon (surreal + Armageddon), a term Banez coined to describe his phantasmagoric vision of the final battle between good and evil, was picked up by books author Carter Kaplan who used it as introductory title for his anthology Emanations: Third Eye, third of a series. This reviewer is motivated by Kaplan's reception of Banez's Surrealmageddon to scrutinize the former's introduction to Emanations: Third Eye.

Carter Kaplan is an American professor who had taught English and Philosophy for 30 years in many U.S. Colleges and in Scotland. He is a poet and had written a number of novels with philosophical and mythological themes.

Describing Banez as "pioneering philosopher of Surrealmageddon," Kaplan considers the Dabawenyo's vision of apocalyptic psychedelia as "a catalytic spec floating in the global crucible of morphing civilizations." What shapes the future, Kaplan rationalizes, is the global consumerist culture and he admits it doesn't seem very bright. Self-destruction, he elaborates, is built-in in the Homo s. sapiens because of greediness which, in the civilized world, is considered "not insanity." Kaplan's introduction, in effect, also concludes his interpretation of the anthology (subtitled Art of Ecstasy and the Ecstasy of Experiment) in the context of collective human thought deciding its own destiny. It is remarkable Kaplan corroborates Banez's cataclysmic semanticism.

The union of the terms surreal and Armageddon, a brilliant etymological updating, by Banez, modernized its semantic significance by redefining modernism's pinnacle to which society prophetically (and now affirmed by Kaplan's sound psychosocial arguments) is heading. The term could had been invented by Saint John the Apostle two millennia ago, if only John had knowledge of modern behavioral psychology and social dialectics. Bridging the gap between Prophet John and hermeneutic surrealist Bienvenido "Bones" Banez is artistic evolution.

Yet, I am sure not everyone agrees with Kaplan and Banez, not the inventors of artificial life-support systems (e.g. biotech, genetic engineering, transhumanism) who aim to perpetuate human life regardless if they have to alter nature, and the vested corporates who tweaked the nostril of the planetary Tao so that it has been desperately sniffing for the vanishing direction to its future since Modernism dawned.

There is more, much more, all of it somewhat obscure, though discernible with some effort, but I've received no website address, so I've nothing to link to. Part of my interest is that some of my poetry appears in the anthology, which can be ordered here.

I suppose this is less obscure for me than for some of my readers because I'm familiar with the individuals and their ideas -- and also because I've been reading a bit about "biotech, genetic engineering, [and] transhumanism" lately . . .

Terrance Lindall and Bienvenido Bones Banez: Signed Art

Beast Sh*tting
Bienvenido Bones Banez Jr.

My friend Terrance Lindall informed me yesterday that today (New York time), Friday, March 7th, 2014, at 5:30-6:30 PM, in the WAH center (directions), there will be a "Book Release" of The Satanic Verses of Bones Banez as Revealed to Terrance Lindall, in Ten Books (think ten 'chapters'), and that both Bienvenido Bones Banez and he will be present to sign copies. Lindall notes that these copies are "Magnificently Illustrated By Bienvenido Bones Banez Jr." and cost $50.

I should remind readers that I edited the text (though the final edit choices were left to Lindall's hand) and penned an introduction, from which I excerpt this passage:

Bones is working within a theological tradition of the fortunate fall, or felix culpa, a view that God not only foreknew man's fall but in some mysterious sense foreordained it! Satan thus becomes not just the adversary of God but also God's instrument, and in that narrow sense even deserves admiration. The devil is therefore God's paintbrush for the world! And Bones dares to take that brush in hand and color the world in revealing the fallen glory, like stained glass windows in hell, of what he, in a bold poetic conceit, calls our "666-World," the Tribulation Era spoken of in the Bible's final book, The Revelation of Saint John the Divine.

Lindall adds that there will also be a first viewing of his new Paradise Lost print series, 13 signed and numbered giclée prints in an edition of 100, each further embellished by hand ($3000 for the set). A sample is depicted below:

Creation of the World
Terrance Lindall

And since we're on the subject of such religious themes as God and the Devil, let's not forget that Terrance Lindall has also illustrated another such literary work . . . The Bottomless Bottle of Beer!

Terrance Lindall and Bienvendio 'Bones' Banez: Paradise Lost and Satanic Verses

The Satanic Verses Gold Folio

Terrance Lindall has recently announced the upcoming Gold Elephant Folios, projected to be available by September 2014, in which Bien's Satanic Verses will be illustrated with his own images centered and Lindall's images along the periphery. Lindall's work of this sort has already been praised highly by renowned Milton collector Robert J. Wickenheiser:

Without a doubt, Terrance Lindall is the foremost illustrator of Paradise Lost in our age, comparable to other great illustrators through the ages, and someone who has achieved a place of high stature for all time.

That quote appears at the website linked to just under the above image, as does a quote from me:

The poetic conceit that Bones is working with is that we're already living in the tribulation of the eschaton, and the poem is his artistic vision, accompanied by vivid, electrifying artworks depicting, in some way, those troubled times.

I've said even more about Bien's art and self-commentary, in an email to Lindall:

Bien's a great artist. His writing is not always the clearest in meaning, but I've found that if I don't try to pin down too precisely what he means, then I can understand him well enough. His writing is, of course, bound to be of interest to future art critics and art historians.

There's a certain fallen glory in the images that he displays -- like stained glass windows of hell. I've never seen anything quite like them.

Bien's Satanic Verses might seem more clear than his raw words themselves, for they've undergone some editing by Lindall and me, but the words should never be taken quite so literally as one might think, but, rather, literarily!

I'll be interested in seeing the final product, which may differ to some degree from the version I edited . . .

Bienvenido "Bones" Banez Jr. - Rising Fame?

Bienvenido "Bones" Banez Jr.
Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art

An email from my friend Terrance Lindall informs me that "New sites have picked up Bien." He refers to 'psychedelic' surrealist artist Bienvenido "Bones" Banez Jr. and his artwork. One site that has picked Bien up is the Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art, which has this to say about itself:

Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art is a privately owned venue for artistic expression. It is strategically located within a cluster of progressive communities South of Manila. It has an independent exhibition area able to accommodate large-scale works, and a spacious garden ideal for outdoor programs, performances and sculpture installations.

Goals of Kulay-Diwa:

To discover and promote the works of talented, young and deserving Filipino Artist[s]; To serve as a cultural outpost and make the arts more accessible to the fast-growing communities South of Manila; and To foster cultural interaction and exchanges with the local regions, Southeast Asia and other countries.

Kulay (Color)

Diwa (Spirit, Thought)

Phillip Somozo, writing for the website of the Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art, says: "At a time when Manila is rocked by controversies surrounding the questionable declaration of some personalities as National Artists, a Davao-born art talent quietly carved a niche among history's greatest surrealists," adding that "his name, profile, and sample work recently are published in a German edition of The International Encyclopedia of Fantastic, Surrealist, Symbolist, and Visionary Artists." Here's a sample of what this gallery offers as characteristic of Bien's work:

This artwork is a photo of Bien's famous statue of Satan, but modified by mixed media colors on the photograph. Of these colors, Gerhard Habarta, writing for the The International Encyclopedia of Fantastic, Surrealist, Symbolist, and Visionary Artists, has this to say:

What makes Banez a paradox among surrealists is his depiction of hellish conditions not as murky depths, but psychedelic sceneries where spectra of colors enthrall viewers. Figures -- human, geometric or biomorphic curiosities -- lose tactility and become translucent images and luminosities swirling, shimmering, or disintegrating in a world bereft of gravity . . . . Esthetically mesmerizing [as] the colors are in a Banez canvas, the portrayed perversion and misery of humankind are as morbid and offensive to good taste. Apparently, the artist captures the viewer with chromatic wonder; then, in succeeding moments, pounces on his cognitive faculties with horrors of the wages of sin.

Bien, I gather, is a very religious artist, and his "666 Art World" seemingly depicts the trials of the Christian "Tribulation" as set forth, rather murkily, in the Book of the Apocalypse, but Bien's vision shines through that murk with an aesthetically captivating chromatic miracle of a seeming paradox between artistic color and morbidly 'tasteless' imagery -- to put the matter in Habarta's terms!

Another art site, the Visionary Art Gallery, offers this colorful painting:

Our World 666 Extinction

The site also shows one of Bien's paintings on display in the Phantasten Museum, Vienna, Austria, but I'm not able to copy the image for my Gypsy Scholar site.

Yet another website, Our Own Voice, offers several images (also uncopyable, unfortunately) and says this:

Bañez's art revolves around the reign of evil in the world, which he likes to refer to as 666. To Bañez, the perpetrators of wars, poverty, injustice, environmental degradation, cultural decadence, and terrorism -- are already the incarnates of 666; no need to look further, or make paranormal theories and computat[i]ons. Evil is here, doom is close by. And Bañez expresses all these in a kaleidoscope of psychedelic human and sub-human figures.

As I noted, a very religious artist, in his motivation and also in his manner of expression, so take a look, a very long look, into this colorful abyss, and consider Bien's words, namely, that "Satan brings color to the world" . . .