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Oh! Why, hello!
We didn't see you over there. You kind of startled us a little. Then again, we were distracted.
There's some rain, actually some big hail coming down making the broccoli look like ice cream cones out in the garden.The wind was fierce last night and Caltrans preemptively closed Highway 1 by Paul's Slide to the south just in case. We've stocked up on food for Jack & Alice, battened down the tarps, checked on culverts and ditches and now, since there's no electric power on the coast, we're trying to get the digest out by using an old Honda generator and a satellite internet hook-up. You know, country-living stuff. ;) Anyway, January has come and gone, and if you can believe it, it's time for another Digest. First up we are excited to include a polemic, (a retrial?) on Tropic of Cancer in three parts and very well worth reading (please let us know your thoughts!). Then we feature mountain lions, Emil White's 1964 Circle of Enchantment, a piece by Henry Miller on Big Sur, an art installation in the form of a crucifix, and a Scott Walker* shout-out. Dreamy, right?
So without further ado, here it is! Enjoy!
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HENRY MILLER IN the New York Times
Maybe not the best time to publish an appreciation and defense of Henry Miller? Plese read Elaine's review and Doniphan's polemic in response. by Elaine Blair
On Henry Miller: Or, How to Be an Anarchist
by John Burnside
Princeton University Press, 175 pp., $22.95
Quoting from the review:
Our contemporary obscenities are the racist, sexist, homophobic language of hate speech, language that reminds us of our ability—our desire, we have to conclude—to dismiss and brutalize whole categories of people. Hate speech** is of course not banned within works of art, but its usage is contested depending on who’s speaking in what context. A wish to ream out every wrinkle in someone’s cunt is, for today’s reader, possibly as vexing an expression of heterosexual love as it was when Miller wrote it, “cunt” occupying that narrow, cunt-shaped part of the Venn diagram where explicitly sexual terms overlap with terms of potential hate speech, where the old obscenity is also the new obscenity. “Cunt” can’t get a break. For similar reasons, neither can Henry Miller. (The whole review here!)
Miller Under Attack
by Doniphan Blair
Quoting here: Indeed, Miller’s survival as a pioneer of the modern novel is now in doubt, as Blair quips in her opening line: “Pity John Burnside. It’s not the best time to publish an appreciation and defense of Henry Miller.” In fact, today’s woke and triggered-warned modernists may return Miller to the censorship imposed on “Tropic of Cancer” (1934) for its first 28 years. (The whole response here)
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First edition of Tropic of Cancer by Obelisk Press, 1934. From the Library collections. |
| "Rage and rant and rip the book into tiny shreds"
Every now and then we come across an insightful review of "Tropic of Cancer" that addresses the book's criticisms and unsavory elements with trenchant logic. (In this digest nicely on the heels of the NYT review of Burnside's "On Henry Miller: Or, How to Be an Anarchist." and Doniphan Blair's Miller Under Attack!) How you respond to Miller’s brutality is an intriguing question but one that can only be resolved with absolute honesty. If you’re going to be offended, be offended right to the very marrow of your soul. Rage and rant and rip the book into tiny shreds, stamping them underfoot, and then sit back in your chair and laugh and laugh. I think Henry would have appreciated that.
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Henry Miller writes about Emil White's Circle of Enchantement guide book:
"Here we are writing about Big Sur once more. Soon everybody will be writing about it. Steve Allen*** has just written about it in his latest novel. So has Jack Kerouac. The next may be Alexander King. Why not? Come have a look-see. Tell your friends about it. Visit the art colony. (If you can find it that is.) Take a hot mineral bath and give yourself an intellectual treat. Attend the annual Potluck Review at the Grange. Sleep under the redwoods. Dance at Nepenthe in the cool of the evening, when the love-making begins."
Emil White responds:
"As for my Big Sur Guides advertising the place to the world, yes, I plead "guilty.""
PS. Next Digest we'll publish Emil's response to Henry in toto.
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Above is the cover of Henry Miller Library Founder Emil White's 1964 publication, "The Circle of Enchantment." Next week will give you "What & Where Is Big Sur" by Emil from the same publication.
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"I Found Big Sur by accident..."Here's Henry, in his own words, describing how he stumbled upon "the face of the Earth as the creator intended it to look."
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When Mountain Lions Are Our Neighbors - The Big Sur Edition!
This bit of local news is an example of "good news, bad news, good news." The good news? Magnus and Mary Lu's pit bull Zeak (bottom right) was featured in the inimitable Carmel Pine Cone! Bad news? Alas, he wasn't included because he was, say, performing at the Sunset Center; rather, he had an unfortunate altercation with a Partington Ridge MOUNTAIN LION. And the good news? Zeak, we are pleased to say, is fully recovered and back to his old self. Phew!
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And about that crucifix...
Last digest, we expounded on the two busts of Henry on the property.
They're certainly interesting, but they're not as provocative as "Y2K," by the "crucifix installation" by John Random, a Monterey artist, located at the bottom of the entry path. The work proves yet again that art is in the eye of the beholder.
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"Roaring through darknesss / the night children fly"
We'll let Scott Walker**** and his somewhat wintry (and elliptical) 1968 torch song "Rhymes of Goodbye" lead us off into the sunset. See you next month! Your pals, Magnus, Mike, John, Jack (Kerouac), and Alice (in Wonderland)
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* NOT the former Wisconsin governor
** More on 'hate speech' we recommend HATE by Nadine Strossen go here. (scroll down) *** Here's the famous clip of Steve Allen and Jack Kerouac **** You may recall that we first name-dropped Scott Walker—NOT the former Wisconsin governor!—like, six years ago, because the album cover for Scott 3 lifted the whole "floating eye" visual trope from Henry's book "The Cosmological Eye." See?
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