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Greetings Digesters!It's the end of the month again! That's wild. Let's see. What's new?
Well, Iguana John stepped on a nail, but he's fine. He's also teaching sign-language classes, although not today since it's Halloween. Speaking of which our band played a show on Halloween night in Monterey and we did not add Paul's "Helen Wheels" to our repertoire but, pending Magnus' approval, we may do so tonight for our show at Fernwood!Oh! And thanks so much for @butterflyal for the lovely banner photo. OK, let's push this Digest into systematic overdrive! (1)
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btw. Here's how you subscribe to this monthly missive and support the work of the HMML! Some of you received this issue as a sample of what it is that you are missing every month!
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"He was modest, but in a peculiar way."The London-based The Oldie magazine recently published an endearing piece by journalism Jeremy Hornsby (above, center) in which he recalls serendipitously meeting Henry while on holiday in southeastern France.
When you were with Miller, you forgot his reputation – he made you forget, listening to what others had to say with as much attention as he gave to his own remarks. He was modest, but in a peculiar way; facts were facts, and needed no embroidery.
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...continued form the last Digest issue:
The California Years by William Webb
I would like to have been around when Henry and Doner really got wound up in discussion together.
I can easily imagine such an encounter.
Extravaganzas of words and ideas flying aloft, arms and hands following, brilliant, adventurous, funny, revealing.
Unlike so many conversations I'd been around with Henry where he held forth 80% of the time here, with Doner, was a meeting of equals in cultivation and histrionics. It must have been wondrous.
I know from my own experience Doner's persuasive power, his ability to cut through the whipped cream. One day, as we were talking dismissively about art, he reached over to my hand, and began patting it, an unmistakeable signal that something profound was about to be delivered. "Bill, you know we're both frauds." It was curious timing, for could he have meant we were frauds for derogating art, or that we were part of that we were derogat-ing? I never knew for sure until some years later, after the seeds from this conversation had taken root in me. (We were part of it.)
True to form, Doner was being helpfully devious. He was always doing this. Better to be a little mysterious, a little cryptic. It made one think. And think I did. It was really all about my being in a rut in photography. What started as a sly remark ended with my discovering a lot about myself and my work. There are a lot of people very grateful to Ephraim for just such reasons.
If he had aversion to anyone, it was to the phonies, whatever their persuasion. He'd trap the wine snobs by filling vintage bottles with ordinary jug wine and then ceremoniously pouring, toasting, sniffing, tasting as if it were really worth all this attention. He'd monitor the reactions quite carefully.
Though dinner might proceed as usual, he knew!
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|  | Don (as Ephraim came to be known in the neighborhod) and Rosa (above) soon became the most prominent and constructive citizens this privileged community had ever known. Willam Webb
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Far too much a gentleman to expose all but the most flagrant phonies, he would usually end up performing one of his comedy acts, converting the phoney into an unwitting straight man. But given the real article, an all-facade type, Doner could be absolutely devastating. Once, in my presence, he discovered one of these, a Christian clergyman who leaked some anti-semitism. Doner landed all over him with a formidable arsenal of biblical quotations, history, philosophy, in such a brilliant attack that the poor guy was left whimpering.
Ephraim and Henry were both close friends of Eric Barker, a Welsh-descended poet of accom-plishment, who lived in Big Sur. I knew Eric slightly, after he'd had open heart surgery, follow-ing which he lived only a few months. Eric had been a jolly soul and when he knew he was not much longer for this world had issued his in-structions. He wanted his friends not to mourn for him, but to celebrate his transfiguration with a wake, plenty of song and booze. And then scatter his ashes. Ephraim was to be in charge of these doings.
On the appointed day, Ephraim found among his curios a handsome Zia Indian pot and placed Eric's ashes therein. Friends assembled at Point Lobos, around a picnic table and the celebration began. As the booze began finding the right neurons to bamboozle, someone thoughtfully suggested that perhaps Eric would like a drink. Of course Eric would like a drink, and several celebrants made contributions to the Indian pot. Eventually, the hors d'oevres and the toastings came to an end and the time to distribute the ashes had arrived. With great solemnity the jar was turned upside down. Nothing. The ashes had turned to a gummy mud and stuck to the sides of the jar. After some banging on the jar a few soggy lumps fell onto the pine needles and were kicked about a bit, thus scattering a part of Eric. The rest of him remains to this day in the jar, back among the Doner memorabilia, to receive an occasional libation from an old friend who remembers. Today Ephraim is no longer going to parties, or holding them. His days of being the community adhesive are behind him. He is gathering in his spiritual resources, and there are a lot to gather, in preparation for his final liberation. If asked, I think that's how he'd put it. For the community, which profoundly misses his active involvement, he remains and will always remain its most cher-ished citizen. (to be continued...)
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|  | Ephraim Doner, who lived well, died well on June 24, 1991.One of his last colloquies was with my son Jonathan, who reports the following conversation:
Ephraim: Jonathan, you are the only young man I know who makes any sense.
Jonathan: Shucks, Don, you must say that to all the young guys you know.
Ephraim: You bet I do. And I mean it every time.
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Link to an interview with Rosa and Ephraim's daughter Tasha from December 16, 2015. CLICK HERE!
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Patti Smith on the "books in her life"(2)Our dear friend Patti Smith has a new book out, called "Year of the Monkey." She recently sat down with the Guardian to talk about her lifelong love of books. For instance, when asked what book she wished she'd written, she said "The Adventures of Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodi.
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The Todt Hill-Westerleigh Library with "Tropic of Cancer" superimposed on top of it.
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Attention Staten Islanders!The New York Public Library recently launched "Banned & Bizarre," a new monthly book club where they delve into peculiar or controversial titles. Check it out. Who knows, maybe you'll meet your "banned & bizarre" Staten Island soul mate!!!!
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"Henry's Erection" is no moreThe fascinating 7-year saga concerning the fallen redwood tree on the HML property came to an end (3) earlier this month when we auctioned off the final 12 slabs. The Monterey County Weekly's Asaf Shalev was on hand for the auction and he filed this report.
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"Farewell, Farewell" :(You have noticed that we've been ending Digests with a goodbye-themed YouTube. More often than not, these songs, despite the subject matter, are light-hearted and fun.
The song above, "Farewell, Farewell," by Fairport Convention, is neither. It's brutal. It makes you want to cry. (4) But it's also awesome.
See you next month!
Magnus, Mike, Iguana John, Jack (Kerouac), and Alice (in Wonderland)
And again here's how you subscribe to this monthly missive. This was, for some of you, just a sample issue!
Thanks!
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(1) That's for all you Ween fans out there. (If, in fact, there are any.)
(3) There are, of course, other redwood trees on the property. When asked which one would fall next, local tree trimmer Tracy, who accurately predicted the 500-year old Henry's Erection's fall by three months (!), chuckled and shook his head and said, "Well...it's hard to say."
(4) Speaking of crying, the other day, while driving on the 101, Mike welled up while listening to this REM song.
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