Henry Miller Memorial Library

When you think of the Library staff, many adjectives come to mind. Stylish. Generally polite. Van-dwelling.

Another to add to your lexicon: industrious. Like MacGyuver-industrious.

Exhibit A: our coffee-maker broke, so Keely dug up an old percolator in the back shed. But it was missing a pole-thingie and didn’t really work. So we duct tape’ed that bad boy and poof! Coffee was made.

Exhibit B: At our recent Woodsist Fest, many well-behaved youths were looking for rides out of Big Sur. Think Echo Park. Think the Mission. So Keely made a ride board! And she drew a cute little cartoon gal on it too. That’s it to the left!

And this very cute little cartoon gal was photographed and published on the Internet, in Filter Magazine’s profile of the Woodist Fest!

The article is awesome in its own right, and includes a sweet interview w/ Britt of (((folkYEAH!!!))) Read it here.

When reached for comment on this, Keely said:

“It’s just a really big honor, is all. It comes at an appropriate time, as I embark on curating my own exhibition of stick figure art.

The folks at SF MOMA have reached out about the possibility of doing a career retrospective exhibit, but I’m not sure I’m ready to sum up the whole of my experience just like that, you know?

I would be more interested in something a little more home-grown, which is why I am considering the offer I’ve received from the Prado in Madrid. It would make sense for my stick figure exhibit to be hung alongside the Hieronymus Bosch painting ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ that inspired Henry Miller’s work ‘Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch.’

I will try to keep you all posted when I finally strike the right deal.”

And regarding her publicity photo above, Keely has this to add:

“My inspirations include long walks on the beach and people who use social media to post photos of their food on the internet.”

Thanks Keely. In addition to being artistic you are also industrious. Now just don’t forget your roots and remember, us – the little people!

Like a simple country bumpkin heading to the Big City, it’s always nice when the HMML is acknowledged by the fine folks in a far away metropolis; in this case, San Luis Obispo.

They are stoked about the upcoming John Waters benefit at the Library Aug. 13th.

This hilarious interview with him in New Times is a mere hint of what you can expect here next Saturday!!

Key excerpt:

NEW TIMES How about your upcoming show in Big Sur?

WATERS I’m really looking forward to it. My show, I’m writing it this morning. I’m always changing it, always updating it. It’s almost completely different than what was on the DVD. I talk about everything. I talk about show business, fashion, religion, terrorism, everything you would need to know to be a happy neurotic.

More info at henrymiller.org!

Hi. You may recall last week we asked for the universe’s (e.g. your) help in constructing an “About Henry” page for our website. Ahh those were the days.

Just checkin’ in on that, as your help is still lovingly needed.

Y’know, this is a great opportunity for any of the following folks: a) those who wish to help out the HMML, b) those who enjoy Henry Miller, and/or c) college students or liberal arts majors looking to add some HMML pixie dust to their resume. (Trust me, kids: if you got the HML on your resume, HR ladies everywhere will spit out their coffee and take notice.)

And besides, it’s fun!

So here is our original request again, below.

(And yes, that’s a pic of lil’ Henry as a mildly effeminate tot back in the day. He looks like some Liberace-bred boy-king of Prussia. No wonder he was such a misogynist: you’d be too if your mother dressed you like that.)

…

Below these paragraphs is a list of places, people, books, and miscellany mentioned by Miller in the abridged version of My Life and Times on our site. We’d like to enrich these words by transforming them into hyperlinks, which would open a window of context and description with a reader’s single click. Ideally, we will associate each of the topics below with one sentence to a paragraph’s worth of explanation as to what it is and how it relates to Henry Miller.

For example, if you clicked on the phrase “Hans Reichel”, a box would pop up that says something like: “Like Henry, the German abstract painter Hans Reichel had a double affinity for painting and writing. Influenced by Klee, Kandinsky, and the poet Rilke, his work was claimed “holy” by Henry in The Cosmological Eye. In 1936, Reichel taught Henry to use watercolors for the first time.”

So, if you know anything about the topics below, or are interested in the opportunity to learn, send us your short descriptions. Again, they can be anywhere from one sentence to a paragraph. The topics in bold are ones that we think merit a hearty paragraph, but if you think there are others that also do, write ‘em up! And please be sure to cite all sources below your description.

“About Henry” Subtopics:
1. Williamsburg, Brooklyn at the turn of the century
2. CUNY
3. Emma Goldman
4. Beatrice Sylva Wickens
5. Mezzotints
6. June Smith
7. This Gentile World
8. Emil Schnellock
9. Anais Nin
10. Tropic of Cancer
11. Alfred Perles
12. Clichy
13. Black Spring
14. Villa Seurat
15. Aller Retour NY
16. Hamlet Correspondence
17. Psychoanalysis in the 1930s
18. Lawrence Durrell
19. Abe Rattner
20. TS Eliot
21. Money and How it Got That Way
22. Tropic of Capricorn
23. Hans Reichel
24. Conrad Moricand
25. George C Katsimbalis
26. Greece
27. Caresse Crosby
28. Colossus of Maroussi
29. Rosy Crucifixion
30. AC Nightmare
31. Watercolors
32. Janina M. Lepska
33. Big Sur
34. Emil White
35. Jean Page Wharton
36. Sexus
37. Partington Ridge
38. Valentine Miller
39. Bezazel Schatz
40. The Time of the Assassins
41. Plexus
42. Smile at Foot of the Ladder
43. Books In My Life
44. Eve McClure
45. Defense of Henry Miller
46. Rabelais
47. Japan
48. Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch
49. Ben Grauer
50. Recordings
51. Quiet Days in Clichy
52. Olympia Press
53. Gerald Robitaille
54. To Paint is to Love Again
55. Ping pong
56. Renate Gerhardt
57. Elmer Gertz
58. Grove Press
59. Viking Press
60. Watercolors 2
61. Just Wild About Harry
62. New Directions
63. Letters to Anais Nin
64. Robert Snyder
65. Hoki Tokuda
66. UVA
67. UCLA
68. Tropic of Cancer (film)
69. Quiet Days (film)
70. Stand Still Like the Hummingbird
71. My Life and Times

We are also looking for postscripts about what happened to Henry Miller in the next ten years.

Send your suggestions and descriptions to: laura@henrymiller.org

Thanks for your help – we look forward to hearing from you!

“Summertime…and the livin’ is easy (at the Henry Miller Library)
The sprinkler is sprinkling…
And Theo the cat is his normal stand off-ish self”

Indeed – it’s a scorcher down here at the Henry Miller Library, and that can only mean one thing…umm…the Big Sur International Short Film Series! Tonight!

The series cruises along with five excellent films, all of which, I think, are from NATO-affiliated countries.

Doors open at 8 pm. Donations are appreciated. We’re located 1/4 mile south of Nepenthe.

Flix start when the sun sets!

The films are listed below; see you soon!

Watching, by Max Myers, United Kingdom

Mobile, by Verena Fels, Germany

Passengers, J.T. Walker, USA

Shoe, by Nick Kelly, Ireland

The Piano, by Levon Minasian, France

Did anyone notice that the last week of July was, like, the greatest week of music…ever?  Good.  We did too.

I mean, do you realize how luck you are?  And you also realize that things like this don’t happen by chance, right?

After all, this marathon week of incredible-ness, which spanned from the urban glow of the Bay Area down to the dusty plains of Joshua Tree, was first and foremost brought to all of us by a single dude, Britt Govea, aka the promoter-mastermind behind (((folkYEAH!)))

It was a feat of super-human proportions.

Britt is responsible for bringing the following bands to your neighborhood across the past week: Red Hot Chili Peppers (show review in Rolling Stone!), Thurston Moore (b-day party), Kurt Vile, Sleepy Sun, Howlin’ Rain, the two-day multi-band Woodsist Fest that Pitchfork dug, Cass McCombs, and A LOT more (see the full list below.)

Again: all of the music, this awesomeness – all in a mere seven day span.

Which leads us to inevitably ask: what’s the difference between God and (((folkYEAH!)))?

Answer: on the seventh day, Britt had a show.

THANK YOU BRITT!!

So here’s a list of last week’s Folk Yeah shows (with more awesomeness in store at folkyeah.com):

monday, july 25- oakland new parish

• Thurston moore b-day party
• kurt vile
• hush arbors

 wednesday, july 26- big sur – hmml

• red hot chili peppers

wednesday, july 26- big sur – fernwood

• kurt vile & the violators

 wednesday, july 26- santa cruz – don quixotes

• sleepy sun
• howlin rain
• assemble head in sunburst sound

 friday, july 28, sf- independent

• fresh & onlys
• woods
• the mantles

 satuday, july 30, big sur – fernwood

• ducktails
• nodzzz
• mantles
• fresh & onlys / woods big band set

 sunday, july 31 big sur -hmml

• sun araw
• white fence
• sic alps
• woods
• fresh & onlys
• real estate
• thee oh sees

 sunday, july 31, pioneertown – pappy & harriets

• thurston moore
• cass mcCcombs
• white magic