"The Sandpiper"—at the Henry Miller Memorial Library

In the history of artistic events at the Henry Miller Memorial Library—which has encompassed everything from the intimacy of poetry readings to the senses-wide-open theater of the Big Sur Fashion Show—the most memorable events are those joined at birth with the wild coast itself.

You can watch The Sandpiper anywhere. But why?

Every other venue in the world (including your own living room) ties for second place is comparison with watching The Sandpiper on the big screen under the redwoods at HMML.

Thursday, August 28

8 PM

Henry Miller Memorial Library

The Sandpiper won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for Johnny Mandel's and Paul Francis Webster's "The Shadow of Your Smile" (aka "The Love Theme from The Sandpiper")—and the song also won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1965.

You can both listen to and watch the visual and sound poem of the opening credits and music here...

And/or...you can step outdoors (if you live in Big Sur) or drive up (or down) coast and join us in the place itself.

Richard Burton's elegant Welsh/British tones are dramatic and theatrical. But no more dramatic and theatrical than the coast itself. And from the homage to Jeffers through the vignettes of people and places on the coast, Burton's prelude is a fit depiction of a place and time.

"It must be wonderful to live in such a place...forever."

Big Sur Film: Gala Finale, Saturday, September 7 at the Golden Gate Theatre

If you missed the Gala Finale of the Big Sur Short Film series last Sunday, September 1, at the Henry Miller Memorial Library itself...no sweat. The Grand Finale is re-materializing in an even bigger theatrical (and in-town) setting this coming Saturday night—at the Golden State Theatre in Monterey.

The four finalist films are whimsical, heartbreaking, outlandish, thoughtful, beautiful. In short, exactly the kind of diverse, energizing selections we've come to expect from the series as a whole.

And the venue at the Golden Gate Theatre promises a host of other delightful accompaniments.

Here's the skinny:

The "Town" Event of the Year!

 Join us for the first-ever Big Sur International Short Film Screening Series "Gala" Finale in Monterey*, Saturday, September 7th, at the Golden State Theater!

 

Food from Happy Girl Kitchen, Wine from Heller Estates, Chocolates from Trader Joe's, Beer from Peter B's Brew Pub, live Music from Songs Hotbox Harry Taught Us, the five finalists of our 2013 as chosen by our Jury, and of course, the Grand Prize Winner! 

All of this for only $10! 

 

Tickets HERE; Facebook event HERE; and please tell all your friends - be a part of history while celebrating all that is good about Monterey County!

 

 

Big Sur International Short Film Series: Gala Finale

The crowd began to gather.

Britt Govea of (((folkYeah!))) — who's also a Henry Miller Memorial Library board member — was spinning classic film tracks.

While the Library conveyed its own magic.

Then the night itself began.

Among this year's short film finalists..."Las Palmas" — a kind of vignette of how northerners might travel when they find themselves in sunnier lands where alcohol is less taxed.

Coincidentally or not, the HMML's own Hippie Sven followed in his own short film feature.

To provide some balance, Sven's alter ego, HMML director Magnus Torén, was also in attendance.

While "Tuba Atlantic" earned second place in the jury's selection, on Sunday it also received the Audience Award.

"Luminaris" received the jury's first place award.

The short films were great. So many events at the Henry Miller Memorial Library are wonderful. But it's the people who gather for them who make them real happenings.

(And by the way, if you missed the Gala Finale to the Big Sur International Short Film Series at HMML, you can catch it at the Independent in Sand City on Thursday, September 6.)

"Koyaanisqatsi" at the Henry Miller Library on August 31

Don't know whether you've seen and heard Koyaanisqatsi before. But whether or not you have, I can't think of a better place to see and hear it (a first or third time) than within the amphitheatre of redwoods at the Henry Miller Memorial Library.

The HMML is already a noted film venue through the year-after-year success of its Big Sur International Short Film Series. But for experiencing a film like Koyaanisqatsi, whose very nature is a meditation upon the mythic upheavals in our relationship to wilderness and technology, the HMML is an even more poignantly fitting venue than usual.

Joanna Newsom, Tim Fain, and Philip Glass performing at this June's benefit for the HMML at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco.For Koyaanisqatsi the HMML will have a new state-of-the-art sound system in place to join its state-of-the-art projection system — the better to take in both the poetic visual imagery of the film and Philip Glass' musical score.

Speaking of which, here's a very important element of the evening: director Godfrey Reggio and composer Philip Glass will both be in attendance, and they'll host a question-and-answer period with the audience prior to the screening.

You can get your tickets here. Get them quickly, though. As I type this, a month before the event, half the available tickets already have been sold.

Image from "Koyaanisqatsi."Often we wax nostalgic over bygone cultural highpoints that we may or may not have been able to participate in ourselves. Say, the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1969, to take one event in particular, or, on the other hand, the "bohemian" reputation of the coast in the 30's and 40's.

But such cultural highpoints are still happening. And it's still largely up to us how much we choose to live within them.

Basin Complex Fire: Commemorative Slide-Show at the Henry Miller Memorial Library

William Wordsworth says that poetry is "emotion recollected in tranquillity."

Three years after the Basin Complex Fire, I'm not sure "tranquillity" is exactly what I feel...

But I've seen the early, prototype version of Magnus Torén's commemorative slide-show of the Basin Complex Fire — and it is definitely poetic. It features the photography of over 30 local photographers, accompanied by smart, lively musical twists and turns.

Magnus' slide-show isn't only a past-tense retrospective on the fire. But rather it takes us on a new journey through so many of the emotions we felt three years ago — and it helps us experience that journey in a new light. That is, it helps our own recollection, in the deepest sense of that word.

As The Henry Miller Memorial Library puts it themselves: "The hope is that the slide show will bring back memories and that we will have time afterwards to share with each other some of our personal stories."

This journal might have looked sleepy lately — but actually there's been alot of behind-the-scenes work going on. I've been interviewing and reading through paper records pertaining to the Mescal Ridge firebreak that protected the communities in and around Palo Colorado Canyon during the Basin Fire.

Much new information — and many new questions — have been coming up. I'll report on all this as a few more details begin to coalesce.

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Note

The photograph for HMML's slide-show announcement is by Kodiak Greenwood.