Kind greetings to you from the Henry Miller Library, as mid-to-late October's promised majesty—no fog, ample sun—continues to live up to the hype effortlessly.

This Digest will be particularly robust. We don't want to postpone the fun any longer than necessary. But we do want to thank you for all of your support! $2 a month may not seem like a lot, but it helps us out tremendously—we really appreciate it!

OK, let's light this candle!

Imagine a young Obi scurrying up to the top of Mount Diablo on a clear day, then slowly turning in a circle to effortlessly take in a remarkable 360-degree panorama of a very large portion of California!

Methinks that this early childhood visual wonder may have been the genesis for what later became a quest to express an abiding love of California's nature and all its remarkable interdependencies, colors, movements, sounds and music. In his book The California Field Atlas, Obi Kaufman successfully expresses his love and care in exceptional words, poetry, and artwork.

He came to us here at the Library a few weeks ago and gave an entertaining and passionate presentation of this, his most recent, and remarkable book. 600-pages offering original sketches and watercolors on every page, The California Field Atlas provides a wealth of information, including gorgeous, often very personal, maps of rivers and trails, geological faults, mountain lion habitat and much more...

The California Field Atlas is published by Heyday and we carry it in the Library bookstore.

What's cool about this story is the fact that the woman who originally found it obscene, Lady Dorothy Byrne, marked up the book with comments like "love making" and "coarse." (!)

(In related reading, check out this piece in the Belfast Telegraph arguing that despite being "naive and dated," Lady Chatterley's Lover "set the tone for a more liberal society.")

While recently basking in the afterglow* of another riveting Days and Nights Festival, we came across a review of the Opera In The Penal Colony  in the San Francisco Classical Voice. 

From the review: Ultimately, Kafka’s storytelling was the most engaging element, usually effectively accompanied by Glass’s writing, spectacularly performed by Opera Parralèle. The opera opens a door into Kafka’s important work, with its themes of justice, intercultural interaction, definitions of masculinity, social change, and the power of privilege in naively unaware and dogmatically righteous forms. (The whole review here!)
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You may recall that in a previous Digest we looked at the "other" Henry Miller on the Central Coast, Henry Miller, the "Cattle King of California."

But why stop there? If Google Alerts has taught us anything, it's that there are many other intriguing Henry Millers out there. Here are three more!

Left: Breaststroker Henry Miller of Madison, Wisconsin, who recently gave his verbal pledge to the Kentucky Wildcats beginning in the fall of 2019.

Middle: Dr. Henry Miller, a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, who asks, "Is Plastic Really A Serious Threat To Humans And The Planet?

Right: Henry Miller, who bowled two 247s in a row in Friday Night Hustler League action at Patel's Kingston Lanes in Kingston, NY.

To quote Willie—who, by the way, is playing the Sunset Center in December—"Turn out the lights / The party's over." See you next month and thanks again!

* Or is the Glassterglow? 

** or confused with Solange.