Frode Markhus (Norway)

Artz - an online mgzne

Jungle Fever – the legacy, disappearance and rediscovery of a restless soul (Part I of IV)

By Frode Markhus

(author of 'Asger Jorn. Banal? Really? 'Mallarmé. Surreal? Really?' and Bas Jan Ader. Conceptualist? Really?')

I was asked by my editor to do a piece on the enigmatic character Solan Hesselberg. A standard task I assumed. Little did I know about him, and my quest for answers indeed proved to take me into unknown and very strange territories. The standard biography proved to be puzzling enough in itself, but my continued mission had plenty of new surprises in store. What follows is an attempt to unravel the myth of a legend. Solan Hesselberg was widely believed to be disappeared and dead. He's not. This is my story as it unfolds.

Solan Hesselberg (born 1922) is an artist and poet born and raised in a small Norwegian harbour village named Stavgersand. His family was, in conventinal judgement, destitute and poor, and generally uneducated in terms of academic achievements.

As a toddler Solan was normal in many respects, raised by a single mother, two brothers, one sister, all older than him. His father, Reodor Kilhavn, jumped ship before he was born, and the father of his older siblings was out of the picture as well by the time Solan came in to the world. This never troubled young Solan, as he saw it he had two fathers and two mothers, more than enough to learn the ropes of life. And so he did, cherry-picking identity traits from his older siblings and his mother like shopping about at the psychological bazar. Having a different father than the rest of the lot gave him a sense of observing someone elses family, as a kind of anthropologist gradually coming to know his assigned tribe. And a tribe to behold it certainly was.

His mother, Annlaug (1894-1988), was the family's most enthralling storyteller, old school of sorts. Where she was from, Pratmykjdalen, there was a long and proud oral tradition, which she tried to pass on to her young ones. Her favourite subject was stories about derelicts and delinquents, drunkards and dabblers, and their skewed philosophy of life. Her children would be all ears when she habitually were to share the anecdotes, legends and poetic recitations of these outcast of mandated living.

It was through her he developed his love for the stranger poetics of life. Rejecting the local ideal of the unassuming and hardworking man, he would gravitate towards the peculiarities that fits into the nooks and crannys of things, the dirt wedged inbetween the behavioural pieces of the puzzle.

His brother, Rune (1917-1999), known to be the family jester, had an uncanny aptitude of deflating any family crisis by making a charade of the whole thing. For example were the Hesselbergs to enter dire economical troubles, he would turn it into a kind of domestic Dickens-gone-one-man-vaudevillan show, making the whole family at least be happy they were on the VIP list.

Anyone got beaten, either by fist or system, he would put on his too tight suit and set up his Office of Intraexternal Affairs. All questions came in the form of a chinese style riddle, whereby its due answers were delivered in elegiac prose with a slice of Kafka, making everybody feel as if fictionalized in Runes surreal take on the machinations of an unforgiving society.

And in the instances of their mother's occasional mental breakdowns, it prompted Runes slapstick Madame Bovaryan impersonation, wig and dress and all, refusing to leave bed, projecting wild depictions of a society not fit for her. It's hard to convince yourself you're the one insane in these circumstances. All this made Annlaug feel anchored, though not in solid bedrock, and the rest feel that lunacy wasn't a cop-out at all, rather a salvage to the complexities of life. As an early precursor to Charlie Sheens claim that he isn't 'bi-polar', he's 'bi-winning, Annlaug kept afloat.

His brother Arvid (1915-1980) was an avid record collector, introducing young Solan to the world of music. He used to DJ at a local bar, Pøbben, many years before any such concept as a DJ was conceived. Every Saturday he would host a night dubbed 'Kumbaya'. The name came from an African-American spiritual song from the 30's and can be loosely translated 'come by here'. Arvid never had much spiritual inclinations, he choose the name out of phonetic qualities, as well as it being a sort of pun on, and invitation, to the local 'bajas'. A 'bajas' in Stavgersand was dialect for a cocky-looking-for-trouble type of person. Arvid saw great potential in these rowdy guys, rather than trouble. An asset, fuel, antidote to the status quo of prescribed behaviour.

Through his girlfriends missionary father, a Nordic offspring of the music anthropologist John Lomax' iniative, he got hold of music from all corners of Norway, as well as borrowing records from the international sailors harbouring in Stavgersand. Inspired by the British radio host Ray Newby he was also a MC, inbetween records sharing small snippets of anthropological facts about the villages, counties and countries the recordings were to be from.

The nights Arvid spun his records had a tendency to go from disiplined linedance, as improvised as it might was, into some freak Dionysian free style folk dance. Story has it Arvids unveiling of Pacific polyphonic rhythms, African chants, Sami joik etc to the locals also set in motion a hitherto unseen demand for psychedelic drugs, something not all unsupported by narcotic records from local archives. The sailors that supplied him with all this exotic music often had mind-expanding supplements to go with it. Peyote from Mexico and Iboga from Amazonas were poisons of choice, untill some local farmer, Ronald Felgen, introduced the homegrown Flein mushroom, as potent as anything. If the partys had been vivid enough up to this point, it was about to absolutely go off its hinges now. The stuff had literally been under everybody's noses all the time. The town was surrounded by farmland, and Flein grows on cowshit.

Kumbaya was melting. Come by here indeed.

Anne Gro (1912-1970), his sister, was the deep philosopher in the family. All of them read a lot, mostly off canon though, but Anne Gro set out to get the very essence of, particularly, Western thought. In her quest for the Final Conclusion, she got all messed up and ended up in a destination she couldn't find a way to departure from. Once she came upon Kierkegaard and related existentialists, she embraced the pure biblical jest of it all, and jeez did religion have clearer answers than she had ever encountered in philosophy. Kierkegaards intentions sullied at whim, the endlessly fruitful doubt/faith nexus squandered in a dive into biblical doxa, as if it ever was one. She started the local affiliate of a Jehovas Witness reading group, soon to attract local devotees of other Christian congregations. Traditionally the Christian, mostly Protestant, congregations in Stavgersand was known to be, well, traditional. Pietist preachers spewing visions of hell for the unworthy and promising a life of unfulfillment for the devoted rest. Jehovas Witness is all this on crack, but this particular witness had a godgiven knack for salesmanship. Inspired by her familys various performative talents, she would construct her very own way of conveying the word of God, totally emulating the various apostels as she told their gospels. Intimate with the lure of existential philosophy and the doubt and angst that comes with it, she would go for the full entertainment factor and conflate the congregates lust for spiritual fulfillment with their craving for sheer shindig. Gospel style preaching and Jehovas Witnesses are two components that traditionally don't go too well together, especially in these days, especially in Stavgersand, but that mattered little to Anne Gro, as she went all prophetic immersive on the impressionable audience, thirsting for spiritual kicks.

The town needed to be emancipated from their hollow existence, whether through comedic, corporeal or spiritual means, and the Hesselbergs were there to pour up.

Outline for the continued thesis

I will spend the rest of the thesis to write the story of Solan Hesselberg. He dissappeared in the jungle of Borneo in 1957, in his quest to find a tribe rumoured to make minimalistic sculptures for shamanistic purposes. This was something they apparantly had been doing for many generations, way foreshadowing any such movements in the Western world. Solan was never heard of or seen again. Untill now. He will contact me, after reading my first chapter on the homepage of Artz. It all starts off rather bumpy with an email, reading, in telegraph style:

GO TO HELL BASTARD--STOP--REFUSE ATTENTION--STOP--NEVER ASKED FOR IT--STOP--AGAINST ALL DECENCY MIX ARTIST AGAINST HIS WILL IN YOUR PUBLICITY--STOP--I WANT PUBLIC CONFIRMATION NOT TO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN YOUR RIDICULOUS GAME.

Wow. He's alive. And online!

Gradually I'll convince him to tell his story through an interview. As the journalist I will also tell the story of Solan, about his art, philosophy and life in general.

The chosen method, or style, constitutes my tools to loosely portray myself and my interests, although in an extremely hyperboled way. The family biography are basically based on my own family, of course fictionalised the hell out of. But still, my mom loves to talk and talk and talk, Rune is the funny guy, Arvid introduced me to the world of music, Anne Gro had her quest for final answers lead her into Jehovas Witnesses, but was also my companion in philosophical quest in my teens. I do have the feeling I have been picking up on traits of all of them, so that part is true enough. In many ways it will be a autobiography by proxy, as cranked up it might be.

I will also build on the mini biographies from this chapter, as it is now it is more like preliminary vessels for expansions. It will likely turn out as a sort of metabiography. I hope I will someday feel comfortable with translating and sharing this text with my family, even knowing they will probably doubt my mental faculties.

The bibliography is put on hold after i discovered Zotero. Sorry.