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Greetings from Big Sur!This month's digest finds us enjoying a light breeze (1) and ample sunshine whilst listening to an Aquarium Drunkard mixtape. It's been an unusually wet May—June Gloom, if you will—came a month early, so we're enjoying the sun while we can! Alice (in Wonderland) was last seen darting up the persimmon tree. The ping pong table is back in action and being utilized as we speak. Iguana John is (presumably) off napping on a turnout.
But enough of our yammering! Ready...set...Digest!!! (in which we will speak of the new biographies of CSNY, Anaïs Nin experimenting with LSD, a chapter from our archives about the Camaldolese Hermitage, and much more...)
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Welcome back, Joe!Joe Raiola is a great friend. He's also the Senior Editor, Emeritus (BIG DEAL!) of MAD Magazine.
He'll be stopping by the Library on Saturday to perform his "The Joy of Censorship: Free Speech and Comedy In the Age of Political Correctness."
It's sure to be a fun and provocative evening. We encourage you to swing by and please let your friends and neighbors know!!! Doors at 7:30 pm, by donation. More info here.
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Books: The Comeback of the Century!Good news! The New York Times’ Timothy Egan writes that “the book endures, even in an era of disposable digital culture."
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Page from Miller Bibliography by Shifreen & Jackson
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| Tracing the Smile at the Foot Of The Ladder
A small book, almost a pamphlet, appears on the desk at the Library. It is an edition of The Smile at the Foot of the Ladder with foreword by Osamu Okumura.
We have not seen this before. Is it a rare edition? A quick search on Google does not reveal much...hmm? Maybe it is rare! We consult the remarkable Miller bibliography by Shifreen & Jackson and find it listed as the eight edition. A further search online for the book on the antiquarian marketplace yields no results.
At 5000 copies printed in 1968 there's likely a few remaining. Few are for sale it seems. (we do find a decent copy of the 1948 first edition at $150.00)
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Well, another day at the HM front desk looking up trivia about Henry and his books. We enjoy that!
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About the Smile at the Foot Of The Ladder...
Written in response to a request for a text to accompany drawings from circus life by Fernand Léger it is unusual for Miller since it is written in a third person narration and completely fictional. The book includes a touching description of the accidental way in which the hero, Auguste, stumbles on the trick which brings him world fame.
Perhaps this storyline is a way for Miller to describe some of his own feelings and astonishment at the rapid spread of his own fame after the publication of Tropic of Cancer in 1934.
The currrent edition of Smile at the Foot of the Ladder is available at the Library.
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Kerouac on Talent vs. Genius"The ongoing debate between talent and genius is a conversation entertained by the greats. Jack Kerouac’s take on the dichotomy is one of the best.
"His description isn’t limited only to those within his writing craft. Apply his thoughts to modern writing, music, art, and even business; the concept is still the same.
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David Crosby will play the H.M. Library 50 years after the Celebration at Big Sur. At the Big Sur Folk Festival 1969 Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young played along with Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez and many others. The fest became known as the Celebration at Big Sur in part because of the 1971 film with the same name featuring several performers who had played only four weeks earlier at Woodstock.
The digest finds Joni Mitchell's rendition of 'Woodstock' at Esalen to be one of the best performances of the era!.
NEWS: New biographies just releaased (available at the HMML)
Quote: “Their music and their image became indissolubly linked with the fate of the baby-boomer era,” music historian Peter Doggett writes in CSNY, one of two engaging biographies released this week tracing the band’s fractious history. The other is Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young by David Browne, a senior writer for Rolling Stone. " Link to complete article.
We are very proud to present David Crosby at the HMML on September 8. An historic event almost to the day 50 years since last time!
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Anaïs Nin experimenting with LSD
A copy of Vol. 5 of Anaïs' Diary appears on our desk and it contains an inscription by Rupert Pole, Anaïs' husband. (See left). Our curiosity aroused we look into it and find this:
"What can be more wonderful than the carrying out of our fantasies, the courage to enact them, embody them, live them out instead of depending on the dissolving, dissipating, vanishing quality of the drug dreams.
I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy."
More here...
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Reminder!
Going South - Big Sur
A Bookpublishing Celebration on June15 starting at 7.30PM.
Let your friends and neighbors know!
Big Sur locals involved, besides Kirk Crippens and Torre McQueen themselves, are Micah Curtis, Terry Prince, Vanessa Share, Tracy Brockway, Winona Lewis, Myan McQueen, Mike Trotter, Tim Green, Rushad Eggleston, Holly Fassett, Jules Forrest , Martha Karstens, Eva Share, Magnus & Mary Lu Torén, Don and Mieke McQueen, Guy McQueen, Ivy LaVelle and others of course! It'll be a wonderfuk evening of reminiscing. Join us! Please register HERE!
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From the Vaults:
Conspiracy of Beards in 2010!
Conspiracy of Beards, based in San Francisco, California, is an cappella male choir performing exclusively the songs of Leonard Cohen. They visited the Library in 2010.
Check out this rare clip!
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From the Archives:
THE HERMITS OF NEW CAMALDOLIat Big Sur, California. (by Emil White, 1959)
FROM AN ARTICLE BY FATHER R. L. BRUCKBERGER AS REPRINTED IN THE BIG SUR GUIDE 1961 EDITION
"I dream of a group of young American artists who will come to build with their own hands, and in stone, a church at Big Sur; who will build it, decorate it, people it with saints; who will sing there, pray there, and live there. Art is born from architecture, Song and Myth, and — I believe from religious fervor. It was always thus that men began to tame the earth, the trees, and the wild animals. I can easily see on these blessed shores the foundation of an abbey in the style of Germiny-les-Pres on the banks of the Loire."*
*This prophesy made in 1950 has already been realized as will be seen in these pages.
Hermits deeply appreciate the miraculous capacity of the Church to encompass both the contemplative and mixed existence, and in such a way that they mutually protect and nourish each other, to the glory of the common Head. Relying on this Mystery, the Camaldolese present their difficulty to their friends, and ask their alms. The average American hardly constitutes the moneyed class. But to the small -offerings, the hermits will offer their weak prayers, and surely Christ and His Most Holy Mother will be served.
And so, begging the charity of your alms, the hermits pledge themselves as
Your companions in Christ,
The Camaldolese Hermits of America, Big Sur, California
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|  | Photo by John Livingstone
We intend to continue to publish the continuing story of the Camaldolese in upcoming issues ot the Digest!
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Thanks for reading!
We'll see you next month.
- Magnus, Mike, Julia, (Iguana) John, Jack (Kerouac), and Alice (in Wonderland)
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Headline Text
(1) Loyal digest readers know that we like beginning each digest by describing the weather. This is a cardinal rule of letter writing. "Set the mood," we've been told. Less so for fiction, according to Elmore Leonard.
If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
(2) Leonard's rule -- like most rules, naturally -- is patently ridiculous. The greatest novel of the 20th century opens with a long and unrivaled exposition on weather in the Pacific Northwest.
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