Henry Miller Memorial Library

So we just looked at the calendar and noticed the date.  April 20th!

Then it occurred to us: it’s a very cool and important date!  Can anyone guess what it is?

That’s right: 4/20 is the deadline to submit your films to the Big Sur International Short Film Screening Series.

With an esteemed jury that features Philip Glass, Kirsten Dunst, Laurie Anderson and more, the Series screens the world’s best short films every Thursday in June, July, and Aug.  It kicks off June 6th!  Click the link below to submit!

Click here: http://bigsurfilm.org/submit-your-film

Come to the HML this Sunday for a FREE Earth Day Fair!

Sponsored by B-SAGE, CERT & Ventana Wildlife Society, this years Earth Day Fair includes fun activities for all ages. Lisa Goettel provides music and entertainment, a variety fun booths for kids and adults are set up around the fair, presentations on green practices you can do at home or at your business, and get your pictures taken with the bag monster!

1pm-5pm. April 21. Henry Miller Library, 48603 California 1, Big Sur. Free. 667-2574.

More info here:  https://www.facebook.com/events/236791459799927/

We’re a bit slow on the uptake here at the Library, basking in the afterglow of two nights of Grizzly Bear and last night’s Beach House.

To paraphrase the Four Seasons….oh what a night(s)*!

In case you missed it…or in case you didn’t, here are some great photos courtesy of Terry Way below.  Click HERE for the whole set.

(Oh, and there are still tix available for tomorrow’s Bat for Lashes show.  Click here for that!)

* aka, the Official North Jersey wedding song since 1981

Tomorrow at The Henry Miller Memorial Library! Remembering Big Sur’s Paula Walling…

Come gather under the persimmon tree to celebrate Paula’s amazing life. Share your remembrances of her with stories, photos, mementos, laughter and love.

To help with the Potluck contact: LaVerne McLeod at Lavernemcleod@ymail.com.

For Poetry and Remembrances contact: Jean Widaman at jean.widaman@gmail.com or Pam Peck at pspeck@sonic.net

Please Carpool if at all possible.

Click the link!

https://www.facebook.com/events/596745300354609/

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

It’s true.  Henry Miller Memorial Library Executive Director Magnus Toren (HMMLEDMT) will be heading north to participate in Carmel’s Local History Lecture Series.

He will be presenting on, of course, Henry Miller: writer, artist, and iconic resident of Big Sur.  He’ll talk about how Miller got here, what he did here, and how Big Sur influenced his writing and life.

Tuesday, April 30th, at 7 pm.  It’ll be at the Community Room at All Saint’s Episcopal Parish, Lincoln St. at 9th Ave. in Carmel.

Admission is free and open to the public!

See you there!

Hey so last year we screened a fantastic film called “La Source.”

It’s a documentary, narrated by Oscar nominee Don Cheadle, about two brothers take the plight of delivering fresh water to their remote village in Haiti.  Their journey takes hem from the hallowed halls of Princeton to Generosity Water in LA determined to fulfill their father’s lifelong dream to improve the conditions of their impoverished home.

Well, now the film is available on iTunes, which you can check out here.

It’s an inspiring and amazing story!

We know what you’re all thinking.

In the wake of Sunday’s smashingly successful (and, IMO, stunningly brilliant) blog on Surrealism (it got 17 “Likes!!!”) you’re thinking, “Wow, the Library’s rapacious capitalist bloodlust has graciously ebbed – they’re publishing only ‘non-commercial’ blogs as of late!  (“Non-commercial” blogs are blogs in which we have no commercial interest whatsoever.)

LOL – not so fast (NSF.)

As my grandma used to say, “No one ever paid the rent with Surrealism.”

In other words, we gotta pay the rent.  So buttress your moral compass for a – wait for it – commercial blog.

[deep breath]

OK, the commercial blog is starting now.

Here it goes.

The other day I had the pleasure of loading out of the back of a green Volvo a box of two wonderful, you-can-only-really-find-them-in Big Sur books: “Recipes for Living in Big Sur” and “Big Sur Women.”

Why not consider buying one or both?  Let us explain.

“Recipes for Living in Big Sur”

“Recipes,” contains, you guessed it, earthy, homespun, healthy meals prepared by us pioneering folk and our forefathers.

For example, here’s a tasty recipe called the “The Ventana Condor’s Gastric Bypass Delight”:

* Taylor Ham (cooked well-done) cooked in canola oil with…
* Two scrambled eggs and a…
* Slice of plastic-wrapped cheese on a hard roll with…
* Salt, pepper, and ketchup

Whoops!  Wrong book: that’s “Recipes for Living in South Jersey.”

Seriously, it’s safe to say that “Recipes for Living in Big Sur” contains recipes that that will not help you meet your annual allowance of saturated fat in a half-a-bite.

Anyway, I’m rambling – so buy it HERE.

“Big Sur Women”

“Big Sur Women,” (buy it HERE) meanwhile, is an intimate glimpse into the lives of nineteen Big Sur women, from early pioneer days to the present.  Through diaries, photographs, poems, biographies, letters and interviews, this collection answers the question in the minds of many travelers along the wild wonderful Big Sur coast: what is it like to live here?

For example, the book contains a great excerpt in which Janis Joplin downed 13 Long Island Ice Teas at Nepenthe and hit on a bus boy.

JK y’all

Hey everyone, just added a bunch of upcoming HML events including the Big Big Big Sur Fashion Show, the beginning of the Big Sur International Short Film Screening Series (starting June 6th), a bunch of Folk Yeah shows and more! Exciting!

Synchronize with your date books and such HERE on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/henrymillerlibrary/events

And here on our home page: http://www.henrymiller.org/events/upcoming/

Short films start June 6th – every Thurs. from June-Aug. Check out bigsurfilm.org!

A few weeks ago, we gave a shout-out to our homeboy Andre Breton. Sadly, it didn’t “go viral,” but the underlying meaning was unmistakeable: we love Surrealism.

You know who else loved Surrealism?

You get three guesses.

…

No, not Dick Cheney….

…

No – well – hmmm…yeah, the dude from the Digital Underground was pretty surreal, but…no….no that’s not who were thinking of.

Time’s up!

Henry Miller loved surrealism!

In fact, he once said, “Scarcely anything has been as stimulating to me as the theories and products of the Surrealists.”

That’s cool.

And while it may be relatively dense stuff for a Sunday morning, we’d nonetheless like to call your attention to this fine, erudite piece about Miller and Surrealism.

While Miller gets props for influencing the Beats and other masculine, confessional-type writers (Mailer, Thompson, the guy who wrote “The Power of Now“) he’s less known for his Surrealist tendencies.

Quick! Looks Surreal!

And that’s because, IMO, he doesn’t come from a “classic” Surrealist perspective. By a “classic” perspective, we mean something like this, via Breton:

now around us there is only the milk describing its dizzy ellipsis


from which sometimes soft intuition with pupils of eyed agate


rises to poke its umbrella tip in the mud of the electric light

Again, that kinda Rimbaud-ian / Dylan ’66 stuff wasn’t Miller’s bag; but his prose had a kind of surrealism nonetheless. A grittier, folksier, urbane Surrealism.

Less LSD and absinthe, more Marlboro Menthol and stale brandy breath.

For example, the author of the piece cites an excerpt from Tropic of Cancer in which the narrator (spoiler alert!) and his pal indulge in a prostitute. The whole episode is, well, surreal, but in more of a rapid-fire imagistic mildly-annoying-guy-at-a-bar-chewing-your-ear-off-when-all-you-want-to do-is-go-to-the-bathroom sort of way.

No quicksilver eagles, glass onions, or gray-flanneled dwarves to be found.

Read the whole thing!