Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company: A Henry Miller Blog

Nexus: International Henry Miller Journal - Vol. 8

2011-09-26T21:23:00.002-04:00

The 2011 edition of the annual Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal is now available. The 281-page, book-sized journal contains ten articles relating to Miller, plus a few pages of additional notes.

CONTENTS

Letter From Henry Miller to Alfred Perlès - Henry Miller

A previously unpublished letter from Miller to his friend, Alfred Perlès, circa 1936. Miller announces the completion of some of Black Spring and makes a self-assessment about his place in the American writing scene. Not a modest sentiment to be found!

The Face of Richard Osborn – Eric. D. Lehman

One of Miller’s least-known friends from his golden romp in Paris in the 1930s was Richard Galen Osborn, disguised as ‘Fillmore’ in Tropic Of Cancer. Intrigued by the fact that Miller scholars have never seen a photo of Osborn, nor have they known the details of his death, English professor Eric Lehman set out on a quest to fill in these blanks. The task was made all the more convenient by the fact that Lehman’s current home base, Bridgeport, Connecticut, was also the hometown of Osborn. Lehman brings the reader step-by-step along his logical trail, as he follows leads in old school yearbooks. Not only does the hunt produce photographs, but Yale alumni records (updates on the activities of graduates) contain a wealth of information—including short autobiographies by Osborn himself, in which he references Miller. Finally, Lehman uses the new photographic evidence to make a comparison to an iconic Brassaï picture, which may very well prominently feature an image of Richard Osborn in 1930s Paris.

Nothing But Light—Notes on Henry Miller’s Birthday Gift for Anaïs Nin & The Tranquility of Struggle – Karl Orend

Between 1937 and 1940, Miller created several hand-written books for friends, some of which have been published (i.e. The Waters Reglitterized), and some which have been hidden away in private collections. In 1939, Miller composed a hand-written book as a gift for Anaïs Nin, called The Heaven Beyond Heaven. In the meaty “Nothing But Light,” Orend uses text from this book to illustrate the lives and minds of both Miller and Nin during the period of writing (1939/40), which includes Miller’s Greece and Nin’s New York. Miller’s personal offering for Nin came at a time when she and Miller had reached the end of their relationship; Miller’s critical words in Heaven may have helped seal this fate. Orend draws from numerous sources to explore the divide in philosophies and personalities between the two writers, from Nin’s fears and literary deceptions to Miller’s insensitivities and immense egotism. For good measure, Orend includes some intriguing paragraphs on Miller’s affinity with China and feeling that he was himself somehow Chinese.

The Genius and Mr. Nobody – Joe Kishton

One of things I like about Miller as a research subject is the way his life intersects with so many other fascinating individuals. In the case of Joe Kishton’s contribution to the journal, that person is Salvador Dalí, and his wife Gala. The Dalís and Henry Miller had shared Caresse Crosby’s Virginia mansion for several months in 1940. It was an uneasy time for Miller, who disliked Dalí. An account of this time is pieced together mostly from interview transcripts of Miller, from documentaries he’d done in the late 1960s. This article, in fact, is a documentary script, in script format, for a recently completed film on this very specific subject. Includes a detailed anecdote about the crazy event that drove Miller and the other guests to leave Caresse Croby’s home.

Miller and Seferis: A Mutual Portrait From One Mythologist to the Other – Finn Jensen

In 1963, George Seferis became the first Greek to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. 24 years earlier, Seferis gained the admiration of Henry Miller, who had met the Greek poet in his home country in 1939. Finn Jensen, in this essay, provides a biography of Seferis, and considers the reasons for the personal connection between he and Miller, suggesting that a shared perspective of life through a mythical lens helped form the bond. Includes a couple of Seferis poems, including one dedicated to Miller (“Les Anges Sont Blancs”).

Love, Pain, Big Sur, and Life as a Bedbug – Harry Kiakis

The latest instalment of Kiakis’s diary entries takes us back to a day in May 1970, when Henry was entertaining Harry and other guests, including a beautiful USC student making a short film about Henry. Kiakis captures many quotes from Miller, on the subjects of old movies on TV, Japan, old age, death, a revelation he had in 1933 about failure, visitors at Big Sur, and freedom. Miller’s final anecdote is very interesting, as he goes into detail about the way he freaked-out when he found the note from June (in their basement apartment in Brooklyn in 1927) saying that she and Jean had run off to Europe without him.

Kilomètre Zéro: Paris Revisited, through the Palimpsest of George Whitman’s Shakespeare & Company – Karl Orend

Anaïs Nin returned to Paris in 1954, for the first time since fleeing the city in 1939. From this visit, came her Paris Revisited, which would not be published until 1972. Here, Karl Orend compares both the departures from and returns to Paris for both Nin and Henry Miller; success (Miller) or lack thereof (Nin) coloured the experiences of each return visit. Orend also examines factual inaccuracies found in Nin’s account, including some about George Whitman, whose Parisian English-language bookshop, Mistral, would later re-brand as the famous Shakespeare & Company. Includes an interesting overview of the support of Whitman and S&Co on people like Miller and Lawrence Durrell, and the lack of support for Miller's associates by the owner of the original S&Co, Sylvia Beach.

“One sits in the middle of a river called nostalgia”: The Henry Miller Research Collections at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. – James Bantin

While this article is in part exactly as the title implies—a run-down of materials relating to Henry Miller, as found in this university’s Miller archive (which you can review online)—James Bantin also describes each group of papers in an enticing way by including quotes from holograph notations and personal letters from the archive. Bantin talks about the hand-written book, Heaven Beyond Heaven, the correspondence with Caresse Crosby, the Lawrence Durrell Papers, letters from ex-wife Eve McClure, publishing records for New Directions, what sounds like an amazing archive of audio recordings made with Miller by Robert Fink, and much more.

Close Your Beautiful Eyes: The Denigration of Louis-Ferdinand Céline—a Prelude to his Evisceration & Inquiry into the Fate of his “unfortunate plagiarist,” Henry Miller, “The American Céline.” - Karl Orend

“Celine’s anti-Semitism is, like sex in Miller’s writing, the red herring. It is neither the core of his writing and philosophy nor the main thrust of his attacks on civilization or humanity,” writes Karl Orend, in this engaging defense of French author, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, who had been an influence on Miller’s writing style. While not absolving Céline of all charges of anti-Semitism, Orend challenges some of the most-damning, prevalent myths about Céline’s activities and sympathies during WWII. (Orend had done a great job, in The Brotherhood of Fools & Simpletons, of shedding new light and offering defense for Conrad Moricand, whose negative reputation has been biased due to Miller’s unflattering and previously unchallenged portrayal of him in “Devil In Paradise”). This essay is part one of a forthcoming sequel, which will explore Céline’s influence on Miller, and will compare the charges of anti-Semitism launched against both authors.

On an Old Book about Henry Miller – D.A. Pratt

D.A. Pratt takes the reader on an enthusiastic tour of his favourite Miller biography, The Happy Rock. Starting with the story behind its creator/editor/scientist, Bern Porter, Pratt then gives context to Miller’s career and reputation at the time of publication in 1945. Next, the reader is treated to summaries of the major contributions to the book (of the 30 in total) with generous excerpts provided; special attention is given to the in-depth essay by Michael Fraenkel, Miller’s Villa Seurat flatmate and thematic inspiration for Tropic Of Cancer. Finally, Pratt examines the reception of Happy Rock, from a brutal critical thrashing by Lawrence Durrell to its general neglect by the big Miller biographers. 65 years later, however, this book has proven to be a gem for its ability to introduce us to Miller through the immediacy of those who knew him personally.

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This volume of the Nexus journal is available for $20 (U.S.) or $24 (International)

from the Nexus journal website.

Is This A Portrait of Henry Miller?

2011-09-25T15:57:00.006-04:00

On September 26, 2011, a private art collector in New York State will be auctioning work by artist John Nichols (1899-1963). One such painting will be a portrait that the collector(s) believe is meant to be Henry Miller, or based on Miller.

American painter John Nichols spent some time with the artists’ colony at Woodstock, New York, before going to Paris in 1930. There, the 31-year old painter befriended Henry Miller. That year, a bearded Miller (a temporary experiment) sat as a model for Nichols. He may have posed for other paintings, as well. Nichols left Paris in 1932, but his time there would be permanently recorded as the character Mark Swift in Tropic Of Cancer. For an overview of the relationship between Nichols and Miller, see my blog posting from a few years ago, “John Nichols and Miller’s Beard.”

NICHOLS COLLECTION

Although a few Nichols paintings are apparently owned by the Woodstock Guild and Art Association, the largest collection of his works (120) are owned by a collector (or collectors) in the Woodstock area, where Nichols used to live in a “shack.” My information comes mostly from the Nichols collector via email. Nichols is said to have been a colourist who experimented with several styles, including abstract expressionism, drips, and primitive minimalism. After leaving the art shack in Woodstock, he went to New York City to teach Art, then was eventually committed to the Bellevue Hospital where he died in 1963, in his sixties.

IS THIS A PORTRAIT OF HENRY MILLER?

In my personal opinion, if I were considering a venture with my own money, I would say that I lack the confidence to conclude that the man in this Nichols portrait is in fact Henry Miller. You may come to a different conclusion. What is lacking is a date on the canvas to aid speculation, or a clue-embedded title, or any documentation (that I know of) that suggests that Nichols or his wife Frances had personally identified this as Miller.

It would have also been helpful if there was a more convincing resemblance to Miller in the painting itself. The pale blue eyes, and maybe the lips, are suggestive of Miller, but the hair is a complete fiction. Miller was bald in his 20s (he was around 40 when he had his portrait painted, and his beard had spots of grey). No amount of testosterone-evident beard growth could have sparked the youthful mane that we see in this Nichols' painting.

The name “Henry Miller” has been written on the back of the wooden frame, but only after “Man With Beard – John Nichols” and in different handwriting. I would need to know more about the provenance of this artwork to be able to evaluate who added this identification and when. After 40 years of painting, I imagine that Nichols' had plenty of opportunity to paint any number of bearded men. I will, however, offer some considerations to support the arguement that this could be Miller.

A CASE FOR POSITIVE SPECULATION

1. Nichols was not obligated to, or didn't necessarily intend to, paint a portrait in the likeness of Henry Miller. Henry may have been posing simply as a human object. As such, Nichols could take liberties, such as adjusting features to achieve a certain dramatic look, or adding hair (a bit more romantic than baldness). The title on the frame backing, “Man With Beard,” also suggests the intent of a general image than a specific individual.

2. Nichols painted Miller more than once, and each a little differently. In March 1931, Miller wrote that Nichols and his wife Frances were working on “more portraits of him.” The collector from Woodstock says that he has a few other portraits from the “Man with a Beard” series, each done in a different style. This one is said to be the most “masterful” (if he has just a single bald one, that would go a long way to suggesting the model was Miller).

3. Nichols was not exactly the king of capturing likenesses. According to the collector, he owns self-portraits of Nichols that are “completely different.” In Miller’s description of Nichols’ portrait of him in Tropic of Cancer, he does mention that his head is “out of proportion” but was still a “man with a beard” (p.221).

THE MILLER PAINTING FROM TROPIC OF CANCER

John Nichols,
Standing Female Nude
(c. 1930)

Although I reference Cancer in the passage above, the painting therein is not the one under review here, because Miller adds that Swift (Nichols) added a typewriter and Eiffel Tower within the portrait (not seen in this one). The one under review is also not the portrait Nichols made of Miller in February 1931 (possibly the same as the one in Cancer?) which Miller describes as having “a slight element of the caricature, a la Grosz--if that conveys anything to you. The underlip is very prominent and the dome bulges out eloquently, very like the Invalides" [Letters To Emil, p. 71]. The baldness clearly rules this one out.

There is a Nichols portrait of Miller at the UCLA Archives, although I have never seen the image. It would be fascinating to compare. Interestingly, the item mentions that it was signed by "Kate Nichols for Henry Miller.”

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Anyhow, there is still an association between Nichols and Miller, and that makes Nichols a significant character in the Miller universe. Do your own research, contact the seller/auction house if you are interested. Sorry for the short notice, but the auction for this particular John Nichols “Man With Beard” painting is September 26, 2011, at Hudson Valley Auctioneers.

I welcome your opinions in the Comments section. What’s your take on this?

The Henry Miller Memorial Library Bio Project

2011-08-28T23:33:00.006-04:00

If you’ve ever surfed the Web looking for Henry Miller related content, you’ve no doubt come across the website for the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur. Way back before I started this blog, its website was virtually the only Internet space that provided a centralized presence for Miller content. While the website mostly featured notices about outdoor concerts, film festivals, poetry and other projects that fulfilled (and continue to fulfill) its mandate as a “public performance space for artists, writers, musicians, and students,” it also provided a message board on which people could chat about Miller (the board ceased several years back) and a simple “About Henry” section. This section contained a chronology of Miller’s life, as written by the author for the 1971 autobiography by Playboy Press, called My Life And Times.

A couple of months ago, the Memorial Library decided to beef up Henry’s self-written biography. And you can help. As announced in this blog posting, Library staff are looking for people to submit a “hearty paragraph” about several subjects and people relating to Miller’s life, especially those referenced in his timeline. The idea is to make the chronology as interactive as possible, with each word of interest having its own pop-up box or link to further information. They’ve already started by adding several images to the timeline.

Topics covered include Mezzotints, Villa Seurat, Lawrence Durrell, Greece, watercolours, Time of the Assassins and dozens more—basically any subject relating to Miller’s long and fascinating life. As I’ve learned on my blog, these sub-categories are nearly endless. If you think you’ve got the skills of concision, read the blog posting and get in touch with Laura.

They’ve also added a very helpful guide to Henry Miller archival collections and research sources.

Finally, congrats the site managers and workers past and present: 2011 marks the 30th anniversary of the Henry Miller Memorial Library.

Katy Masuga: A New Way of Reading Miller

2011-04-10T20:30:00.001-04:00

“Having been marginalized on moral grounds since first publication in 1934, Miller’s works require reexamination in order to bring new attention to his unwritten connections to other writers during this period, including Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and James Joyce. Miller is not often thought of in academic circles in studies in modernism, despite the innovative and influential style of his work. The aim of this book is to suggest a new way of reading Miller that is alert to the aggressively writerly and self-conscious form of his work, and to undertake an examination of his texts without integrating him into another socially constructed, literary category.”

– Katy Masuga, “Introduction,” The Secret Violence of Henry Miller.

Essays by scholar Katy Masuga have twice appeared in the annual Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal; these include “Transgressing the Law of Literature” (vol. 6) and “Crossing Brooklyn Bridge: An Ekphrastic Correspondence between Walt Whitman, Hart Crane and Henry Miller” (vol. 7). In each essay, Masuga made use of her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature to analyse both the power and intent behind Miller’s use of language. Recently, Masuga, currently a researcher and adjunct Professor at Sorbonne University in Paris, has built upon her analysis of Miller with the release of two new published books: Henry Miller And How He Got That Way (Edinburgh University Press, 2011) and The Secret Violence of Henry Miller (Camden House/Boydell and Brewer, 2011). Below are summaries of each book (promotional blurbs from the publishers, not by me), with links to the publishing houses.

Henry Miller and How He Got That Way

Edinburgh University Press - Introduction; 1. Leaves of Letters // Walt Whitman; 2. The Dream of a Ridiculous Writer // Fyodor Dostoevsky; 3. Through the Jabber // Lewis Carroll; 4. The Drunken Inkwell // Arthur Rimbaud; 5. In Search of Lost Allusion // Marcel Proust; 6. Writers and Lovers // D. H. Lawrence; Conclusion; Works Cited; Index. [208 pages].

Identifying six significant writers - Whitman, Dostoevsky, Rimbaud, Lewis Carroll, Proust and D. H. Lawrence - Katy Masuga examines their influence on Miller's work as well as Miller's retroactive impact on their writing. She explores four forms of intertextuality in relation to each 'ancestral' author: direct allusions, unconscious style, reverse influence and participation of the ancestral author as part of the story within the text. The study is informed by the theories of polyvocity from Bakhtin, Barthes and Kristeva and of language games and the indefatigability of writing in the work of Blanchot, Wittgenstein and Deleuze. By presenting Miller in intertextual context, he emerges as a noteworthy modernist writer whose contributions to literature include the struggle to find a distinctive voice alongside a distinguished lineage of literary figures.

The Secret Violence of Henry Miller

Camden House/Boydell and Brewer - Introduction; 1. A Denial of Categories; 2. Reflecting the Galactic Varnish; 3. The Fleshly and the Angelic; 4. Material Trifles; 5. Our Changing Geography; 6. The Illusion of Force and Speed; 7. Developing a Painter’s Eye; 8. The Book of Life; Conclusion; Index. [230 pages].

Henry Miller is a cult figure in the world of fiction, in part due to having been banned for obscenity for nearly thirty years. Alongside the liberating effect of his explicit treatment of sexuality, however, Miller developed a provocative form of writing that encourages the reader to question language as a stable communicative tool and to consider the act of writing as an ongoing mode of creation, always in motion, perpetually establishing itself and creating meaning through that very motion. Katy Masuga provides a new reading of Miller that is alert to the aggressively and self-consciously writerly form of his work. Critiquing the categorization of Miller into specific literary genres through an examination of the small body of critical texts on his oeuvre, Masuga draws on Deleuze and Guattari's concept of a minor literature, Blanchot's "infinite curve," and Bataille's theory of puerile language, while also considering Miller in relation to other writers, including Proust, Rilke, and William Carlos Williams. She shows how Miller defies conventional modes of writing, subverting language from within.

A Book For Emil

2010-12-31T19:15:00.002-05:00

Henry’s wife, June, had not see her husband for seven months, until she surprised him in Paris with a visit at the end of September 1930 [1]. They were both broke, and drifted from hotel to hotel (five in all) as financial circumstances dictated [2]. Finally, with no prospects for June to make money in Paris, it was apparent that she had no choice but to return to New York.

On October 17th, the day before June was to leave, Henry thought about his old friend Emil Schnellock, to whom he’d been writing diligently since his arrival in Paris. He wanted to send back a gift that was within his means: a book from his own collection. He and Emil used to discuss literature, back in Brooklyn. “… [O]ur tastes were quite divergent,” wrote Miller, years later. “[He] had a most lovable way of deprecating his knowledge and understanding of books … [but] he not only knew a lot more than he pretended but [he] sometimes knew much more than I did myself. If he read far less than I, he read with much greater attention and, as a result, he retained much more than I ever did” (The Books In My Life, p.172).

Henry decided upon his 1924 Paris edition of Rodolphe Bringer’s Trente Ans D’Humour (Thirty Years Of Humour), a book of literary criticism [3]. French writer Rodolphe Bringer was primarily a journalist who wrote, it seems, mostly non-fiction [4]. Although Bringer appears to have had little future influence, his Trente Ans book was absorbed at the time by Miller, who had underlined certain passages and written notes in the margins.

Opening the book to its title page, Henry wrote: “Dear Emil: Here’s one fairly easy to read and quite entertaining. Try it! Henry, 10/17/30.” Miller also added a postscript: The day previous, he had been strolling down the Boulevard Raspail, when he “[s]aw a peach of a Huysmans […] called 'Croquis de Paris.' So much to buy -- so much -- if one only had the dough!” [in 1951, Miller would list Huysmans’ Against The Grain (A Rebours, 1884) as one of the 100 books that influenced him most] [5].

The next morning, Saturday, October 18th, Henry saw June off at the train station. “Believe me, it was hard to put her on the train. Seemed like the end of the world,” he would write Emil a few days later. June had arrived in Paris with nothing, but left with Henry's copy of Trente Ans D’Humour. Five days later, Henry wrote to Emil and let him know to expect the book.

Above: The actual inscription page from the Bringer book. From the Ken Lopez Bokseller website.

“I gave June a book by a humorist, Rudolf Bringer, for you. Be sure you get it! But don’t ask for June at the Pot. She doesn’t want them to know yet that she has returned. Sorry I couldn’t send you anything more than that, but I just couldn’t. June arrived without a cent and left the same way. I had 50 fr. when we parted.”

80 years later, this book still exists, with Henry’s original handwritten note on the title page, even if the cover wrappers are missing and the pages have become brittle. Ken Lopez Bookseller is/was offering it for $1,000 [6]. But the provenance of this book is not clear. Considering the fact that other books from June’s collection have been available for sale on the antique book market, but none from Emil that I’ve noticed, I wonder if June had actually delivered this book to Emil as planned.

NOTES

[1] Jay Martin's Always Merry And Bright, pp.211-212; [2] ibid pp. 212-214, plus Miller's own quote in Letters To Emil, p.63; [3] I couldn't find any online summaries about this book, but a few French book websites have categorized it as being "journalist and literary crticism"; [4] I make this assumption based on my interpretation of the bibliography and biography on French Wikipedia; maybe I'm wrong; [5] Miller's The Books In My Life, Appendix I; [6] The book is listed on their website, with a price, implying that it is available. FYI, I have no relationship with this bookseller; this posting is neither an advertisement nor an endorsement. Do your own purchasing research.

The Underground Life – Henry Street Basement: Part 1 - Location

2010-12-05T18:45:00.007-05:00

“Henry Street joint – setting like a lunatic asylum, only worse.”
-- Henry Miller, c. 1928/1929 [1]

Some time during the winter of 1926/1927, Henry Miller moved into a Brooklyn basement apartment with his wife, June Mansfield, and her female companion, Jean Kronski. The exact address of this apartment has never been specified. Instead, it has been vaguely identified as being on Henry Street, near the corner of Love Lane. Their co-habitation was marked by several months of psychodrama that Miller would describe at the end of Sexus and throughout Nexus (with a parallel account in Crazy Cock). By summer 1927, the dank basement was abandoned, first by June and Jean, then by Henry, who, at age 35, had to endure a humiliating return to his parents’ home.

ABOVE: Excerpt from Henry Miller’s “Schema For Nexus” c. 1945-1950s [PBA Galleries]

LOCATION

Henry Street is located in Brooklyn Heights. Love Lane intersects with Henry Street, one block north of Pierrepont. Henry Street buildings number in the 160s south of Love Lane, and the 150s to 120s north of it (the 130s being midway between Love Lane and the next northern intersectiuon, Clark Street). I assume, then, that Henry and June lived within this property number range, as they’ve been described as living “one door down” from Love Lane [2] and “at Henry St. & Love Lane” [3]. Let’s say somewhere in the range of 134 -161 Henry Street.

ABOVE: A contemporary Google Street View of the intersection at Love Lane (left) and Henry Street.

WHICH BUILDING?

Before trying to guess which building they may have lived in, we need to figure out how much this intersection has changed since 1927. According to building construction dates provided by City Data, all buildings on the west side, north of Love Lane, from #150 – 156 (CVS Pharmacy), and south of the Lane (#160) existed in 1926. On the east side of this intersection, #139 – 161 existed in 1927, except for the apartment building at #155, which stretches all the way from Love Lane to Pierrepont, and eats up lot numbers 153-159—this was built in 1928. However, a 1925 photograph shows that the 1928 building had replaced a type of stone edifice that was unlikely to have a residential basement apartment, thus ruling it out (see April 1925 photo further below). By comparing old and new photos, it doesn't looked like much has changed. My conclusion? The building they lived in in 1927 still exists in some form on Henry Street.

CLUE #1: STOOPS

It's possible that the stoops we see on Henry Street today are the same as they existed in 1926. With this in mind, consider Miller’s description of the exterior of the apartment as he creeps up on it in Sexus: “I tiptoed into the areaway and looked for a gleam of light … I would go in upstairs by way of the stoop … I opened the door softly, walked to the head of the stairs, which were enclosed, and quietly, very quietly, lowered myself step by step. There was a door at the bottom of the steps” (p.497).

Then later: “I went up by the stoop, and slid lightly down to the hallway. Not a sound. I put my ear to the door of the front room and listened intently” (Sexus, 503). And in Crazy Cock: “It was noon when the three of them marched down the stoop …” (CC 153).

Based on these descriptions, it seems to me that the basement tenants had access to their apartment by walking up the stoop steps to the parlor floor, opening the front door into an enclosed vestibule area, then walking down a staircase that led to their front room door. However I interpret it, it’s clear there was a stoop. This rules out some of the apartment buildings on Henry Street without stoops.

CLUE #2: PROXIMITY TO LOVE LANE

Earlier, I had quoted a reference to the apartment being “one door down” from Love Lane. This phrasing comes from Mary Dearborn (Miller biographer) [2], not Miller himself, so I don’t want to get hung up on that as a literal description. However, Miller has described it as being “at Henry St. & Love Lane” [3]. As well, in Sexus, Miller phrases it like this: “… Love Lane, which was at the corner” (500). Also, when Henry takes a taxi home, he asks to be dropped off at Love Lane (Sexus 503). These details situate the basement apartment very close to Love Lane, and not to Pierrepont (which is close-by to the south), and not to Clark Street (which is a 2-minute stroll to the north of Love Lane).

CLUE #3: PROXIMITY TO LUTHERAN CHURCH

North from Love Lane, on the east side of Henry Street, almost all the way up to Clark Street, sits the German Zion Lutheran Church at 125-129 Henry Street. In Crazy Cock, the church is referenced in relation to their basement apartment, as being “[a] little way down the street” (135) – this again places them closer to Love Lane than to Clark. Most importantly, in Sexus, Miller locates the church as being “across the way” (498). Across. I take this an encouraging sign that the location of this church as an east-side landmark, logically places the Miller basement apartment across, on the opposite side: the west side. As Miller writes that the Lutheran church is “across the way,” he goes on to describe how it looks at night. The fact that he could see it in his view, suggests that it was on an opposite side from him ("across the way"). There was/is a Presbyterian church directly across from the Lutheran one, but this would not be in his view because it is on the same west side as him, and is therefore not mentioned.

To clarify, I'm not saying the Lutheran church was directly across from him, because he's also stated that it's "a little way down." So, across and a little way down.

ABOVE: This is a view of Henry Street in 1929, facing the east side, with the Lutheran church in the middle at #125. Since Miller describes this church as being “a little way down the street,” I would say you’d have to back away further than this camera position to be considered a “little way” and not just across the street.
Photo: New York Public Library Digital Collection.

So, with much speculation, I say we are looking for a house on the east side of Henry Street, with a stoop, in close proximity to Love Lane, and old enough that it was around in 1926/1927 when the Millers lived there.

Ok, now stick with me here, as I do something I admit is very subjective. Below is a view of what I would consider to be “a little way” from the Lutheran church, which I've marked with a yellow X. During the winter, which was the season for the scene quoted above from Sexus, Henry would have had a better view of the Lutheran church through the naked trees.

Below the "X" photo, is my view turning left, to face the west side.

Definitely some basement apartment entrances here. But where’s the stoop? Look to the left of the photo. Here it is below:

SPECULATIVE GUESS #1: 150 HENRY STREET

Here is a current view of 150 Henry Street (with the stoop), from Google Street View. It’s notable that this is closer to Love Lane than any other stoop on the street. Love Lane is two doors to the left (just out of frame). Another compelling clue: look at the doorway to the right of the person in the blue shirt, where stairs lead downward. Here’s a better view:

This gated passage is part of the 152 Henry Street building, but is along what would be the basement wall of 150 Henry Street (which you can see to the right of it). Perhaps windows for #150 exist, or existed, in this areaway? “I tiptoed into the areaway and looked for a gleam of light …" wrote Miller. Even the gate on this areaway offers a potential clue. Miller: “The thing was to sneak in while they were out, so that they couldn’t shut the gate in my face” (Sexus 495). [note: it’s possible he meant “gate” figuratively].

Click on this Flickr link to see a current photo of the heavy front door of 150 Henry Street. And here's a bit of history from the Brooklyn Historical Society about 152 Henry Street (with the areaway).

Hey, look, I’m just trying to fit some pieces together here. Your cynicism and scrutiny of this speculation is very much welcome. Some research that may help confirm or deny things: the basement apartment is said to have been a laundry business some time before 1926 [4], then became, in the 1930s, a "chop suey" joint [5].

It's also worth noting that (as you will see in the old photos below), there were lots of buildings with stoops on the west side of Henry Street, between 150 and 124 (#124 is opposite the Lutheran church). But the closer we get to the church and the further away from Love Lane, the more we stray from other existing clues.

SOME VIEWS OF THEIR STREET

Regardless my speculation about the exact location, it’s fair to look at period photographs of the stretch of Henry Street around Love Lane, and to know that these were the views that greeted Henry, June and Jean back in 1927.

ABOVE: Henry Street, east side, from April 1925. From the camera position, I would say the photographer is standing just north of 150 Henry Street by 30 feet or so. Photo: New York Public Library Digital Collection.

ABOVE: View of Henry Street (1932), standing approximately in front of the stoops in the previous picture, facing north towards Clark Street, with the west side of the street in view (130s house numbers).
Photos: New York Public Library Digital Collection.

____________________________________________

REFERENCES

[1] Quote from Miller’s 1928/1929 Rosy Crucifixion notes, as provided by Karl Orend in his article, “Dear Ghost – A Few Fragments on Henry Miller’s Nemesis, Jean Kronski” (Nexus: Henry Miller Journal, Vol. 4 (2007), p. 210; [2] From Mary Dearborn’s Miller bio, Happiest Man Alive, p.106; [3] Henry Miller: “… cellar life at Henry St. & Love Lane.” From Miller’s unpublished Rosy Crucifixion notebook, as described by PBA Galleries. See my post, “Notes On Nexus”: ; [4] Henry Miller in Crazy Cock, p.77; [5] Martin, Jay. Always Merry and Bright, p. 308.

Miller In The Smithsonian

2010-10-02T13:34:00.003-04:00

The 164-year Smithsonian in Washington D.C. is a pre-eminent educational and research institution, which stores, displays and disseminates artefacts of American cultural history. Although only a few archival items directly relate to Henry Miller, there are also several oral histories with people in the Arts who make mention of Miller. Most of these interviews are available online.

AUDIO: An Interview With Henry Miller

In June 1962, Henry Miller sat down for an interview at KUOM at the University of Minneapolis. KUOM radio personality Audrey June Booth (host of “Book Chats”) conducted the interview. The recording was released in 1964 by Folkways Records (owned by Moses Asch). When Asch died in 1986, the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage acquired the entire Folkways catalogue, including the Miller recording.

On the Smithsonian website, you can listen to the first minute of each side, and can also order the 46-minute interview on disk for $17, or order a digital download for $7. Or, for free, you can download the liner notes [PDF], which includes a typed transcription of the interview.

Left: LP cover for "An Interview With Henry Miller."

Right: Audrey June Booth circa 1960 (from Ebony magazine, Sept. 1960, p.92)

SCULPTURE: Miller bust by Marino Marini

In the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery collection is a 1961 bronze bust created by Italian sculptor Marini Marino (details on the Smithsonian website). See my post, “Busted: Henry Miller In Sculpture” for details about this sculpture commission.

ARCHIVE: Abraham Rattner and the U.S.A. Trip

In the 1940s, Henry Miller drove across America with artist Abraham Rattner. The end result was Miller’s The Air-Conditioned Nightmare. The Smithsonian American Art Museum holds a couple of ink drawings made by Rattner during this journey: “Around The Bend, USA, With Henry Miller,” “Highway, USA, With Henry Miller,” plus a watercolour called “Route To Petersburg, USA, With Henry Miller.” These drawings are not currently on display at the gallery or online. In the Smithsonian Archive of American Art, one can find the Abraham Rattner and Esther Gentle Papers, which include letters, photos, and at least one watercolour painting from Miller.

There are a number of items relating to the Miller/Rattner Air-Conditioned Nightmare road trip (search the Finding Aid for "U.S.A. Trip"). These include three of Rattner’s notebooks and sketches from the trek (1940-41), a Rattner memoir of the trio, called “When We Were Together,” materials relating to the Our America exhibit about the road trip (1975-1978), something called “The Other Part” (1941), which seems to be about the trip, and a collection of pamphlets he’d gathered from their tour. There are also photographs, including one with Miller, Rattner and Weeks Hall, plus a watercolour of Virginia, made by Miller.

The Rattner collection also includes several writings (drafts?) by Miller on the subject of Rattner. At least one has been published before (“A Bodhisattva Artist”) but there are others, such as “The Rattner Portfolio or For God So Loved the World” (1957), “A Word About Abraham Rattner” (1965) and a few others. See the Finding Aid to the Rattner Papers for references.

ORAL HISTORIES

None of these Smithsonian interviews go on at any significant length about Miller; they are really just passing comments or brief anecdotes.

Jack Stauffacher

Stauffacher (b.1920) is a Californian printer and publisher known for his typeface composition. In his 1993 interview with the Smithsonian, he talks about the avant-garde scene he fell into in Berkeley, and how he came to know Miller through them. Stauffacher had designed a book called Art And Cinema (by his brother, Frank Stauffacher), for which Miller had written the introduction. He describes Miller as being one who enjoys a good conversation, adding “He first was interested in meeting you and talking with you and discussing things and just let it flow out. He had no agenda.”

Lee Mullican

Mullican, an artist, came into contact with Miller through Jack Stauffacher. “Miller was very interested in what I was doing, and I have letters from him, saying that he really felt I was, you know, someone to be reckoned with and he loved. . . . For some reason he thought my name was just the right thing [chuckles]: Lee Mullican. Somehow that kind of turned him on … And I have a postcard. . . . But he lived in Big Sur, and he was struggling. And I have a postcard in my files from him thanking me for the $5 that I sent him! [chuckles] He was actually asking for money from friends and associates and so forth.” (Mullican transcript).

Manny Silverman

Silverman is the founder of the Manny Silverman Galleries in Los Angeles. In his interview from 2004, he briefly mentions that art dealer Riko Mizuno was a friend of Miller’s, and may have put on one of his watercolour shows.

Mary Fuller

Writer and artist, Mary Fuller did not know Miller personally, but she briefly mentions people he knew who did know him, such as Andre and Margaret Moreau in Big Sur, and literary agent Diarmuid Russell: “Henry Miller was his client.”

Joan Ankrum

In her 1997 Smithsonian interview, art dealer Joan Ankrum tells a story of Miller walking into her gallery one day, after spending the day visiting galleries on La Cienaga and not being recognized. When Ankrum recognizes him, Miller has his friend Joe Gray run back to his house to get his paintings. “You can have my show,” said Miller when Ankrum remarked that his watercolours were a lot better than she thought they’d be. She eventually found time to put on the show: “And, of course, that was the big hit of the whole occasion. People were lined all. . . . This was right after Capricorn, after the censorship had been removed.”

Julian Levi

The artist Levi gave his impressions of meeting Miller through Abe Rattner in the 1940s: “everybody who knew Abe at that time would know Miller.” “He was a very warm, very pleasant, a very mild-appearing man.”

Adja Yunkers

In his interview, the abstract painter Yunkers tells of running his own magazine in Sweden, and trying to introduce American authors like Miller to Scandinavia: “They refused to publish him so I sold it to Copenhagen.”

Anaïs Nin

In a 1972 interview, Nin says: “I expressed rebellion by associating with rebels. I did not myself rebel. I associated with Henry Miller who was a rebel against Puritanism” … “As to all that nonsense that Henry and Larry talked about -– the necessity of I am God in order to create -– I suppose they mean: I am God, I am not a woman. Woman never had direct communication with God anyway but only through man, the priest. She never created directly except through man. She was never able to create as a woman. But what neither Larry nor Henry understand is that woman's creation, far from being like a man's, must be exactly like her creation of children and that it must come out of her own blood, enclosed in her womb, nourished with her own milk. It must be a human creation of flesh. It must be different from man's abstractions.”

CORRESPONDENCES

A few Finding Aids make reference to Miller letters or other items held in an archive. Besides the Rattner Papers noted above, these include:

Westwood Art Association: Business correspondence, photographs, slides of artists' works, press releases and clippings, primarily documenting the 1967 exhibitions in Los Angeles and Paris of Henry Miller's 70 watercolors and etchings.

Alfredo Valente papers: Two letters from Henry Miller, dated 1943 and 1945. The letters refer to a "watercolor pad and brushes," and Miller also thanks Valente for a portrait of Abe Rattner; as well, another letter and a sketch from Henry Miller.

The Annotated Nexus - Page 64

2010-09-23T16:28:00.003-04:00

64.0 Anastasia acts as peacemaker after Henry criticizes Mona. She encourages them to go out on the town as planned. Initially unsure where they’re going, the couple ends up where it all began for them: at Chin Lee’s on Broadway, where they fall in love again as they reminisce about the night they first met.

64.1    Headed for the subway
Silently, after leaving the apartment, Henry and Mona walk arm-in-arm with no clear agenda for their evening. They find themselves near the subway, so they hop on for Manhattan. Back at 9.5, I had done a bit of online research and guessed that the closest subway entrance to their home would have been Clark Street Station.

64.2    same old Broadway
“…same old neon hell’s afire,” writes Miller as he and Mona rise to street level from the subway. The couple is returning to the scene where they first met and initiated their relationship; see, for example, Sexus pages 50 and 261.

64.3    Chin Lee’s
Strolling down Broadway, Henry and Mona find themselves in front of a Chinese restaurant called Chin Lee’s. I had written a little bit about this place in my blog article about Wilson’s Dance Hall. Chin Lee’s was located at Broadway & 49th Street, across from Wilson’s. “Shall we go up?” asks Mona in Nexus, establishing that it was located on an upper floor. She leads Henry to the booth in which they sat during their first date here.

The story of Chin Lee’s is written about by author and activist Grace Lee Boggs, whose father, Chin Lee, owned a chain of Chin Lee restaurants in America, starting in the 1910s. In her autobiography, Living For Change (1998), she writes that her father had opened the Broadway location in 1924 (at the time, it was his largest location; others were located in Buffalo, NY, Providence, RI, Boston, MA, and elsewhere). Here, Lee Boggs confirms that the Broadway Chin Lee’s occupied the second and third floors of 1604 Broadway, with a seating capacity of nearly one-thousand. There was a huge neon marquee facing Broadway, and a smaller one facing the 49th street entrance. [for these details, see Lee Boggs’ autobiography, pp.8-9].

The restaurant was a huge success, because it offered a six-course meal and live entertainment for under one dollar. Another Manhattan Chin Lee’s was open in 1928, at Broadway & 44th Street. [p.9]

64.4    that first night—a thousand years ago
Miller refers to the night they’d had first eaten here as being “a thousand years ago.” In fact, it was during the summer of 1923 (see my post). In Nexus, Mona (June) recounts everything about that first date: the food, the conversation, the music (or at least Miller says she does, without providing us with the details). This loosens them up again. By the end of the dinner, they “looked at one another with new eyes, more hungry eyes, greedy eyes than ever before…”

< previous page 63 *** next page 65 >

Tropic Of Capricorn: The War Years

2010-09-06T14:47:00.006-04:00

Henry Miller's Tropic Of Capricorn was published in France just as World War II began. The war--and the social mores at the time--made it a battle to distribute the book in the U.S. during the years 1939-1945.

CAPRICORN BORN

Henry Miller was reading the proofs to his forthcoming novel, Tropic Of Capricorn, as Hitler plotted his invasion of Europe. It was January 1939 [1]. Miller was still in Paris, [2] where he had begun writing the novel nearly seven years earlier. [3]

Miller had completed the writing of Capricorn the previous September, 1938 [4]. Throughout that month, the world had listened tensely as Adolf Hitler demanded annexation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Earlier in the year, France had already committed itself to the aid of the Czechs, should the Nazis invade [5]. During the third week of September, Miller took a vacation in southern France [6], but not before leaving the original Tropic Of Capricorn manuscript with his publisher, Jack Kahane of Obelisk Press. As instructed, Kahane kept the document in a personal vault at his bank [7]. Miller wanted it in safe keeping, just in case “Paris is bombed & Obelisk wiped out” by the threatening German war machine. [7]

The Obelisk Press in Paris had already published Miller’s Tropic Of Cancer (1934), Aller Retour New York (1935), Black Spring (1936), Scenario (1937), and was in the process of releasing Max And The White Phagocytes (1938) when Henry completed Tropic Of Capricorn [8]. Jack Kahane set a publication date of February 1939 for Miller’s latest book. [9]

PRINTING DELAYS

In February 1939, the language of war was becoming stronger--the British made a public declaration to stand alongside France should the provocative Germans attempt an invasion. Meanwhile, in northern France, near the Belgian border, the Imprimerie Georges Frère, in the town of Tourcoing, printed off 1,000 copies of Tropic Of Capricorn [10]. The problem, however, was that Henry Miller, who was solely responsible for proofreading and correcting proofs, had not yet given his approval to start the presses [11]. This error would delay distribution of the book for several weeks, as they had to create a yellow “Errata” sheet that listed the typographical errors [12] and then bind the sheet on the page before the title page, on all 1,000 copies [10].

Above: The yellow "Errata" sheet that had to be added to the first edition of Tropic Of Capricorn because the printers had not waited for Henry Miller to give them his proof-read corrections (1939).

The looming war was stirring a hostile environment for the release of Capricorn, which was even more sexually explicit than Tropic Of Cancer. “Capricorn may cause trouble for us all here,” wrote Miller in April 1939, when the novel was still sitting in boxes, “because of the Puritanical wave coming in with the war fever” [13] … “There is a danger now that the French may suppress it. They are going crazy with new laws.” [14]

During this delay period, Obelisk received at least 800 pre-orders for Capricorn, gobbling up most of the original 1,000 [15]. Another batch of 3,000 was printed [16], with adjustments made to the price on the flaps [10]. Finally, all variants of this first edition were officially released on May 10, 1939 [10].

BLACKMARKET CAPRICORN IN AMERICA

Miller’s Tropic Of Cancer was banned in America in 1939, but Capricorn had not yet been added to the blacklist [17]. But it was an inevitability. If readers in the USA were to get their hands on Capricorn, it would have to be a secret endeavour, by word of mouth, hidden behind counters and mailed in sealed envelopes.

Frances Steloff of the Gotham Book Mart was an instrumental player in this underground network. An American merchant marine had smuggled hundreds of copies of the first edition into New York [18], from where Steloff would clandestinely distribute copies from her West 47th shop [19] at $10 a copy [18]. By arrangement with Steloff, Miller attempted to mail some copies directly to an American buyer, but these were seized by Customs [20].

Thinking ahead to publication in the U.S., Miller’s American publisher James Laughlin arranged to have three chapters of Capricorn published in his annual New Directions in Prose & Poetry, in order to get a hold of the U.S. copyright on the novel. These excerpts were eventually published at the end of 1939 [21].

Also by the end of 1939, a pirated edition of Tropic Of Capricorn made its way to America. The bootleg copies of the Obelisk original had been photographed and printed in Shanghai [22].

Having fled Paris for safety, Miller was visiting with Lawrence Durrell and his wife in Corfu in August 1939, three months after the release of Capricorn. He had not heard from Jack Kahane in a while. “I don’t write him either,” wrote Miller on August 6th. “Know nothing about the fate of Capricorn, and care nothing” [23]. Miller could not know the fate of Kahane, who was to die of heart failure four weeks later on September 3, 1939: the day that the U.K. and France declared war on Germany [24].

PUBLICATION ATTEMPTS

Although Obelisk Press would continue on under the control of Kahane’s son, Maurice Girodias, and would publish several more editions of Capricorn into the early 1960s, the war years would not produce any more editions of the novel [25]. However, there were attempts.

A friend in the States told Henry of plans to establish a press in Mexico, on which he would publish both Tropics [26]. It apparently didn’t happen. In 1943, bookseller Ben Abramson told Miller his intention to have Capricorn published in the United States. By March 1944, only 60 pages had been typeset—it would be a long process [10]. Later that year, during a stay with Caresse Crosby near Washington, D.C., Miller was asked to read from Tropic Of Capricorn for the Library Of Congress’s Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature [27]. The four LPs were cut in the Recording Laboratory of the Library on December 11, 1944.

“Now soon the Capricorn comes out, privately printed…,” wrote an expectant Miller to Lawrence Durrell in February 1945 [28]. But, as the war entered its final stages in August 1945, and with two-thirds of the book already typeset, Ben Abramson’s project came to an abrupt end when the nervous printer began destroying the type by melting it—he had become afraid of legal prosecution for his role in publishing the controversial novel [10].

SECOND EDITION – WAR IS OVER

The Germans had surrendered to the Allies in May 1945. The war was winding down.

While Abramson’s project perished in flames in August 1945, Tropic Of Capricorn gained new life in France. Obelisk Press issued a second edition in a batch of 10,000 (although on cheaper paper) [29].

With the official surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, World War II was over. The U.S. war against Henry Miller, however, would continue.

The Nazis entered Paris on June 14, 1940. Henry Miller had taken a train out of Paris a year earlier, on May 30, 1939.

REFERENCES

[1] The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80. Edited by Ian. S. MacNiven: letter from Miller, January 1939, p.112; [2] According to the return addresses in Miller’s letters to Durrell, he was back in Paris from his southern France trek by at least by November 5, consistently through to January 1939 and beyond; [3] Letters To Emil. Edited by George Wickes. In letter dated October 5, 1932, Miller writes that he had just completed the first 60 pages of Capricorn; [4] The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80. In a letter dated Sept. 25/38, Miller mentions that he finished Capricorn a “few days ago.” Also, in the actual novel, he signs off with the date “September 1938”; [5] For my WWII history throughout this article, I didn’t go much further than Wikipedia, with their summaries of the year 1938 and 1939, and their WWII timeline; [6] See Note 4 plus Mary Dearborn’s Happiest Man Alive, p.197; [7] The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80, p.101 (Miller, Sept. 25/38); [8] Shifreen & Jackson’s Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. 1—which is organized chronologically—lists these titles with these dates; [9] Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters. Edited by George Wickes. In a letter by Miller dated Oct. 19/38, p.14; [10] Details listed under item A21, in Shifreen & Jackson’s Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. 1; [11] The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80: letter from Miller, dated March 1939, p.123; [12] ibid, but the details about the Errata sheet come from Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. 1, A21; [13] Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters, p.20: Miller letter dated Apr. 23/29; [14] ‘Four Previously Unpublished Letters From Henry Miller to Gershon Legman’. From Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal, No. 1, Vol. 1, p.10: Letter from Miller, May 13/39; [15] The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80, p.129: Miller letter from May 1939; [16] This comes from Miller: see Note 14. Important details about the first edition are clarified in item A21a of Jackson & Ashley’s Bibliography of Primary Sources, Volume 2, which corrects the A21 listing from volume one. Essentially, it is clarified that, what had been identified as a variant first edition in Volume 1 is in fact all first edition. Miller’s letter to Gershon seems to clearly identify that there was an initial batch of 1,000, followed by another batch of 3,000, all of them released simultaneously. A21a also details some printing corrections made on the cover price listings—I am guessing this happened during the 3,000 batch; [17] ‘Four Previously Unpublished Letters From Henry Miller to Gershon Legman’. From Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal, No. 1, Vol. 1, p.7: Letter from Miller, March 1939; [18] Happiest Man Alive, p.201; [19] See my posting on Steloff and her book store; [20] Happiest Man Alive, p.201-202; [21] Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters, p.23: Laughlin letter June 1939. This item is listed as B7 in Shifreen & Jackson, Vol. 1 (“Three chapters from Tropic of Capricorn”); [22] Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. 1: A21c; [23] A Literate Passion: Letters of Henry Miller and Anais Nin. Edited by Gunther Stuhlmann: p.322. Miller letter, Aug 6/29; [24] Pearson, Neil. Obelisk: A History of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press, p.72; [25] As is evident by reading the chronological listings in Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. 1; [26] Happiest Man Alive, p.216: the unnamed friend had plans to print both Tropics; [27] Martin, Jay. Always Merry and Bright: the Life of Henry Miller, p.414. Also so recording date details in the Library of Congress link provided within the text; [28] The Durrell-Miller Letters, 1935-80, p.178: Miller letter, Feb 18/45; [29] Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. 1 : A21d.

No Direction For 'Cancer' In The U.S.A.

2010-08-08T11:59:00.005-04:00

“I know all the obstacles in the path and recognize them as real. I think that in years to come, if you let this opportunity now slip out of your hands, you will never forgive yourself…”
-- Miller to James Laughlin, regarding the publication of Tropic Of Cancer, March 1940.

James Laughlin, as a young man of 20, had been turned onto Henry Miller by Ezra Pound, with whom he had been studying poetry. Laughlin’s subsequent fan letter to Miller in 1934 was the beginning of a relationship that would see Laughlin as the first publisher to print a book of Miller’s in America. That book was The Cosmological Eye, in 1939. The original goal, however, had been to publish the book that had excited Laughlin in the first place: Tropic Of Cancer [1]. Despite a daring public announcement to do so, the hostile atmosphere created by American censors made this an impossible task.
Above left: Photo of James Laughlin, from Time magazine, Nov.21, 1938.

CAMPAIGN IN MOTION

Since being published in France in 1934, Tropic of Cancer had been banned in America. In 1938, Laughlin wrote to Miller to announce his intention to get Cancer published in the United States, under his New Directions imprint. Miller replied: “I can’t imagine quite how you intend to get away with it, but no doubt you have plans.” Miller then guesses the plan correctly: to quietly publish limited editions that will be made available to private subscribers [2]. “Yes,” confirmed Laughlin, who had sought expert advice on the subject. The limited edition would cost “five dollars for subscribers, sent by express, with the stores taking orders only.” After a while, once Americans became used to the existence of Tropic Of Cancer on their soil, Laughlin would then venture forth with a cheap edition [3]. So confident was Laughlin that, two weeks earlier, he had advanced Miller $200 against royalties [3].

“I have set the publicity campaign in motion already with announcements,” continued Laughlin, “and will build towards fall 1939 publication of Cancer. It will take that long to get things oiled properly so that everything will go smoothly” [3]. However, it may as well have been a BP executive from 2010 making this evaluation, because the gushing of oil would continue for nearly another quarter century.

DITHYRAMBIC SEX

The 1938 “publicity campaign” came in the form of a press release generated to the trade papers of the publishing world, which were picked up on by the national media. In particular, Time magazine gave the topic sizeable column space in their “Books” section on November 21, 1938. Under the heading, “Dithyrambic Sex” (on page 69 – yep), the author announced the “sensational news” that Laughlin had plans to publish this “strange” book that “has a bigger subterranean reputation than any recent book” due to positive praise from the likes of T.S. Eliot, and the exciting notoriety of being a “low book” that can only be obtained via smuggling. The article author claimed that Miller’s supporters referred to Cancer as a “dithyrambic novel.”

Dithyrambic: a statement or writing in an exalted or enthusiastic vein (Merriam-Webster); in reference to dithyrambs, being hymns sung to everyone’s favourite Greek god of decadence, Dionysus. You’re welcome.

“How New Directions will get around the obstacles that have previously prevented publication of Tropic of Cancer in the U.S. is still unclear,” writes Time, highlighting the reason for controversy: “Miller’s prose, with its queer combination of unrestrained rhetoric and dry Yankee humor, the appalling clarity with which he records grotesque doings in dirty bedrooms, the fervor with which he communicates moods of despair and disgust, lift this mess above ordinary pornography.”

Read the entire Time article here. It also includes some biographical information about James Laughlin, and some early press for Lawrence Durrell’s own "dithyrambic novel," The Black Book.

Cover for Time magazine, November 21, 1938, in which "Dithyrambic Sex" appears. From the online Time cover gallery.

INDEFINITE DELAY

Ironically, Time included a quote from Henry Miller in response to his critics: “Damn all the critics anyway! The best publicity for a man who has anything to say is silence.” I define this as irony because five months later, on April 23, 1939, Laughlin would receive this letter from Miller: “I’ve been informed from various sources that you don’t intend to bring out Tropic until the late Fall—on account of the publicity created by the article you had inserted in Time. Is that what you mean by delay? Or do you mean “indefinite” delay?” [4]. It seems that Miller was right: silence may have been a better strategy.

In the same letter, Miller acknowledges that the publication of Cancer in America could result in Laughlin going to jail and “possibly being put out of business.” He warns as well that the rule of taboo in America will get worse and may take 100 years to work out. “Adjust yourself to ‘bad times.’" [4]. In return, Laughlin replied that he had not lost heart; he’s just waiting for cash. He felt he needed $5,000 “to promote it as it deserves, and to pay a good lawyer to defend it in case of prosecution” [4].

By the end of 1939, however, Miller would chastise Laughlin for straying from the original plan to release secretive, private editions, instead of “charging like a bull.” “I think it’s suicidal on your part to attempt to force the stronger works on the public, in the face of the bans" [5]. The following year, 1940, Miller agreed to an arrangement with Gershon Legman to publish an underground Medvsa edition of Cancer, from which he would receive a royalty--exactly the plan Miller had hoped for from Laughlin. This Medvsa edition effectively became the first American edition of Tropic of Cancer [12].

Laughlin was aware of the piracy, and agreed to be "reasonable" (as long as still maintained above-the-board rights) if it meant that Miller could see his book published in some form in America. "....If that is your wish, I'll do nothing to prevent the various piracies," wrote Laughlin on February 25, 1940. "Please remember that you wanted me to take this stand and don't blame me for it later." (p.31). Still, the whole ineffective Cancer affair with Laughlin left a bitterness in Miller. A few years later (1943), in the pages of The New Republic, Miller would publicly criticize Laughlin for his handling of Cancer [6].

RELEASE OF RIGHTS

During the two decades that followed, as court battles continued and alternate plans for printing Cancer were concocted, New Directions continued to hold the American contractual rights to novel--and the burden as well [7]. It was not an easy challenge. Miller would not allow for the expunging the “obscenities” from his novel, which seemed the only hope Laughlin had in releasing it in the U.S.A.

At the dawn of the 1960s, the legal fight for Tropic of Cancer finally seemed to have hope. Legal publication in America seemed imminent (with a fight). But it would not be Laughlin’s New Directions that would print the historic 1st (non-pirated) U.S. edition. Responding to requests by Grove Press, James Laughlin released all rights to Tropic Of Cancer to his American competitor, “in a most gentlemanly fashion” [8]. “They had ample opportunity to [publish it themselves],” Grove Press owner Barney Rossett has explained, “I even offered to be their partner.” But no cunning tactics were required. The acquisition of Tropic of Cancer from New Directions was announced by Grove Press in April 1961 [9]. Laughlin, it seemed, had had enough of the fight.

“As you know," wrote James Laughlin to Henry Miller, a month later in May 1961, “I hate anything to do with courts, lawyers, etc., but Barney really seems to thrive on it. More power to him” [10].

Weeks later, on June 24, 1961, [11] Rossett’s Grove Press earned its place in publishing history with the release the first public edition of Tropic Of Cancer in the United States [13].

The hardcover edition of Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters (1995) is still available for purchase through the publisher, W.W. Norton. Although you won't find Tropic of Cancer, New Directions still distributes 17 titles by Henry Miller, including his limited edition Nightmare Notebook.

REFERENCES

_____________________________

[1] All of this from Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters (ed. George Wickes), pp. ix – xi; [2] Miller, Oct. 19, 1938: Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters (ed. George Wickes), p. 14. [3] Laughlin, Oct 31/38: Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters (ed. George Wickes), p. 15-16. [4] Miller, April 23/39 + Laughlin, May 7/39: Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters (ed. George Wickes), p. 20. [5] Miller, Dec 7/39: Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters (ed. George Wickes), p. 28. [6] Miller, Henry. “Another Open Letter.” The New Republic, Dec. 6, 1943; [7] Hutchison, E.R. Tropic of Cancer on Trial, p.44; [8] Barney Rosset, in Tropic of Cancer on Trial, p.48. [9] TOC on Trial, p.50; [10] HM and JL: Selected Letters, p .xv. [11] Dearborn, Mary. Happiest Man Alive: Biography of Henry Miller, “ p. 277. [12] Shifreen and Jackson. Bibliography of Primary Sources, v. 1: A9j, pp.11-12.; [13] Officially, the Second American Edition - see note [12].

Questions & Answers In Montreal, 1969

2010-08-01T12:08:00.006-04:00

In June 1969, Henry Miller had come to Montreal, Quebec, for a television interview with Le Sel de la Semaine, on the French service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). A few months later in Montreal, he attended a public screening of the film adaptation of Lawrence Durrell’s Justine. I have written of these two Montreal events from 1969, but not of a third: in June '69, he also found the time to greet fans at a question and answer session at his hotel, the Ritz Carlton. This Q & A was written about at the time by Alfred Rushton, in an article called “Meeting Henry Miller.”

Alfred Rushton was a long-haired, 27-year old writer in 1969, when he and a friend went to the Ritz Carlton hotel on rue Sherbrooke to hear Henry Miller speak.

Rushton describes the conference as taking place on a second floor salon of the Ritz. Miller had not yet arrived when Rushton and his friend entered the venue. There was a sense of formality about the room, even the rigid arrangement of chairs, that did not seem to fit Miller’s informal nature. The room was filled with “fashionable men and women,” each of them “posing his own prologue to Miller’s visit,” and scanning the room “to see if they could recognize a great or a near-great just coming into recognition of sorts.”

Miller seemed to be running late. To calm his nerves of anticipation, Rushton helped himself to martinis from the passing waiter. Finally, Miller materialized “in a very undramatic way, just the way you expect such a man to arrive.” He was accompanied by his personal assistant, Gerald Robitaille. Miller, in a brown suit with a bright yellow tie, sat on the “ornate couch where he looked like a man suddenly alone with his thoughts in the center of the curious.”

Miller on the set of Le Sel de la Semaine in Montreal, June 1969.

One of the first questions posed to him was about the upcoming film adaptation of Tropic Of Cancer: Was he writing the screenplay? “No,” answered Miller. “I can’t write a film script. But they’re going by the book. There’s a young guy, Rip Torn, who’s better-looking than I am, playing the part of me. Almost like looking at myself through someone else’s eyes.”

When Rushton’s friend asked a question about the possibility of liberation being brought about by the current cultural revolution, Miller responded with a raspy “Now, do you really give a good Goddam what happens to these people? You just asked that question for the sake of asking a question. Isn’t that right?” Rushton’s friend had to agree. A French reporter chimed in next, asking if Miller was still writing or painting. Miller: “I don’t plan my days now. I just do what I want to do. I could go out in the street and be hit by a car for all I know. I don’t plan for anything.” Miller then fielded some French questions with French answers, all to the same French reporter. Miller tired of this individual, and asked the room for other questions.

Rushton took the opportunity, and asked Miller about his opinions on Marshall McLuhan. “Well,” said Miller, “I haven’t read too much of him, but I think he’s saying some interesting things. He’s a brilliant man. I believe that in the future we probably will rely upon mental telepathy … the written word seems to be on the way out.”

[Read this post here, about Miller’s predictions about future communication].

When asked by another person about politics, Miller replied: “Look, I don’t bother reading the papers anymore. As far as I am concerned, it’s just Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.” About the racial conflicts occurring in the U.S., Miller suggested that “intermarriage is the only answer to that problem.”

Miller smiled when asked what he thought of Gore Vidal’s evaluation of him as being out of proportion to himself. “Vidal is a clever man, and maybe that’s why I dislike him. I don’t know … I’m not a very clever man […] Goethe was a genius. He wasn’t clever. He was far more than that. There’s a difference between being clever and being a genius.” Miller then asked his interrogator if his response was reasonable.

One questioner asked Miller about the many women in his life. “Every woman I’ve had has given me something…,” he replied. A young woman in the audience shouted out “I love you!” Rushton noted the intense, magnetic effect that Miller’s charisma and legend seemed to have on the assembled women and men alike. As Miller continued to answer whatever was hurled at him, while enjoying drinks and a cigarette, the photographers began flashing at him all at once, causing Robitaille to raise his hand to demand they stop. He then looked at his watch and concisely announced “Two minutes.”

Sherbrooke Street, Montreal, eight years later, in June 1977. The Ritz Carlton is in the background (with the flags). Photo: Coolopolis.

Rushton managed to get a copy of Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch signed by Miller, although his mumbled request for a dedication to his girlfriend was left unheard. As the formal event was officially dispersed, Miller continued to casually engage with people around his couch. Rushton, surprised that Miller wasn’t scooted off immediately, wandered back and found a seat right next to Miller. Someone asked Miller why he changed Mara to Mona halfway through Rosy Crucifixion. “In Hindu Mara means hell or anguish and Mara was hell on earth … I forgot I had changed the name. I am forgetful sometimes,” replied Miller. He added that Tropic Of Cancer would have been called the Ovarian Trolley, except for the fact that he forgot the name he’d written on the page.

With that, Miller suddenly got up for the back room, where he said goodbye to someone. For Rushton, as he and his friend walked away from the Ritz Carlton, the experience had felt like an encounter “in one of his recorded dreams, allowing us to become part of the dream image…”

Rushton’s account was published in 1970, in his small press book, Mind Maps (Poseidon Press: Toronto); the table of contents notes that the article, “Meeting Henry Miller,” first appeared “in the Harbinger.” (I haven’t been able to find any details about this Harbinger.)

Thanks to Roger for bringing this article to my attention.

NOTE: All drawings in the banner art have been excerpted from the cover of Mind Maps and are credited to the author, Alfred Rushton. All quotes, except those attributed to Miller, are from Alfred Rushton in his book.

Megalopolitan Maniac

2010-07-25T21:10:00.002-04:00

The final chapter of Miller’s Black Spring is entitled “Megalopolitan Maniac.” The entire novel is a collection of stand-alone compositions such as this one, and not a united narrative, although there is some thematic continuity. "Megalopolitan" is a portrait of Humanity within the modern (1920s/30s) mega-city, no doubt modeled on the New York City of Miller’s personal experience. In this work, Miller “collapses the city not into the self, but into the universe,” write Michael C. Jaye and Ann Chalmers Watts in Literature & the American Urban Experience (1981). “The city as self, the city as cosmos: thus Henry Miller draws the far limits of urban conceptualization” (p.98).

Miller uses surreal imagery to describe a grey, modern mass of lonely automatons in a mad rush through a loud, cold and mechanical metropolis, bent on mindless self-destruction. They are directed en masse by the radio of a false god who leads them toward the wrong mountaintop paradise – and only the individual, Henry Miller, is able to think beyond the throng. “Even as everything tumbled around him,” writes Jay Martin about Miller's perspective in Black Spring, “he proclaimed that he himself was the man of the future” (Always Merry And Bright, p.295). Miller's final words in "Megalopolitan Maniac" certainly support this view:

“Tomorrow you may bring about the destruction of your world. Tomorrow you may sing in Paradise above the smoking ruins of your world-cities. But tonight I would like to think of one man, a lone individual, a man without name or country, a man whom I respect because he has absolutely nothing in common with you—MYSELF. Tonight I shall meditate upon that which I am.”

Although the term megalopolitan seems to flow from the same spring as such Miller originals as cosmodemonic, it is actually drawn from the term megalopolis, dating from ancient Greece, and from a city of the same name. A megalopolitan is a person living in a densely-populated urban metropolis. The term was employed by Oswald Spengler, in his book, The Decline of the West (1918/1922). Miller read and was influenced by Spengler [1], whose works told of a cycle of human civilization, driven to decline by materialization, loneliness and “soulless”[ness]—themes echoed in Miller’s “maniac.” Spengler defined the low-point of this cycle as the “Winter." Miller, in “MM,” perhaps not accidentally uses this same word: “So beautiful the winter of life, with the sun rotting away and the angels flying heavenward with firecrackers up their ass!”

(NOTE: I am only suggesting that Spengler was at the back of Miller’s mind while writing this piece; I have not gone deeply enough into this subject to support my claim with any authority.)

Miller would touch on similar themes in his other works from that period. In Tropic of Capricorn, he writes of the “incalculably barren, cold, mechanical night of New York” and the “solitude of the million-footed mob” that “dance[s] without joy” to the “love on the radio.” These ideas and even specific words (i.e. radio) on these Capricorn pages (119-122) very much reflect the writing in “Megalopolitan Maniac,” in which the mechanical society marches itself to destruction to the melody of a “Song of Love.” “In the moment all is clear to me,” writes Miller in Capricorn, “clear that in this logic there is no redemption, the city itself being the highest form of madness and each and every part, organic or inorganic, an expression of this same madness” (121).

“Megalopolitan Maniac” was originally published in the first edition of Black Spring in 1936 (Shifreen & Jackson, A12a). Miller also painted a watercolour entitled “Megalopolitan Maniac,” which was published in the 1944 edition of The Angel Is My Watermark.

“Never more loneliness than in the teeming crowd, the lonely man of the city surrounded by his inventions, the lost seeker drowning in the common identity.” ["Megalopolitan Maniac"].

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REFERENCES

[1] See, for example, Nexus: International Henry Miller Journal: Vol. 3, p.72 and, Vol. 1, p.149+.

The Annotated Nexus - Page 63

2010-07-09T16:40:00.007-04:00

62.0 Dazed by recent events, Miller is no longer surprised when a psychiatric ambulance comes looking for Stasia. 63.0 Henry and the women see the lesbian-themed play The Captive, which leads to an argument about Mona’s letter to Stasia, which Henry has stolen. Mona tries to smooth things over by offering to have a date night with Henry, but he is offended that she wants to bring the Count Bruga puppet along.

62.1 coke dream
Chapter 5 begins (end of page 62) with Miller referring to the events of the past 63 pages as being like a “coke dream.” This “coke” obviously refers to cocaine. As someone who’s never touched the stuff, I always thought of it as a stimulant with a paranoia side-effect, but not as a hallucinogenic, as is implied here by Miller. The U.S. Government sets me straight – “heavy use” can produce hallucinations. My impression is that, back in Miller’s day, people thought of cocaine and opium (a true hallucinogenic) as being in the same group. In fact, Wyndham Lewis suggests as much in his magazine, The Enemy (1927-1929) in which he refers to “the opium-dream or the coke-dream...” [1]. Miller uses this term as well in Time of the Assassins, when describing how most people dismiss the utopian theories of geniuses (p.72).

62.2 reading of entrails
In his list of things that have occurred, Miller mentions the reading of entrails. The divining of the future from entrails is an ancient practice called haruspicy. But to go into detail about this would be irrelevant; Miller is really using an analogy for the conversations that the Henry Street trio have had at the “gut table” in their apartment (see 58.1). Incidentally, Palace of Entrails was one of Miller’s original titles for Tropic of Cancer.

62.3 bouts with Osiecki
Another item on the list. Osiecki, the neurotic Canadian friend, has appeared in Nexus a few times (9.9, 43.7, 60.4), but not in a combative way, as described here. Miller instead seems to be reaching back to Plexus to include the numerous dramas and incidents with Osiecki.

62.4 the “masters” at the public library
Another in the review list. Although Miller doesn’t speak of libraries in Nexus, it’s a well-established fact that Miller enjoyed the Montague Street Public Library in Brooklyn. In Sexus, Miller talks of it (116, 302) and in Plexus, he talks of the Montague Library (11) and the 42nd Street Library (61-62). Perhaps, in this Nexus reference, Miller is suggesting that his thoughts on Dostoevski, painters, etc., ["masters"], all written of at the beginning of Nexus, came from undocumented library visits over the Nexus time period.

62.5 the wall paintings
The list continues. On the previous page, Miller had referenced (61.1+2) the disturbing paintings made by Stasia, which cover the walls of their basement apartment.

62.6 my other self
This list item refers to “dialogues in the dark with my other self.” Here, Miller seems to be referencing the recent dark period in which he thought he could kill himself with prescription drugs and cold temperatures (pp. 42-43). The other self in that case was the disembodied “mind machine” (38, 42). I've added this marker here because the subject of "two Henry Millers" is something I'd like to explore in the future.

62.7 someone had telephoned to come and get her
An ambulance shows up to Miller’s apartment with instructions to bring a female resident to the mental hospital. Miller assumes that Curley (60.13) made the call, to help Henry get Stasia out of his life. Stasia is not home however; Henry tells them it was a mistake.

63.1 two Dutch sisters who owned the building
Briefly, Miller mentions that the owners of the building would “drop in to see if all was well.” He describes them as Dutch sisters who are always “unkempt and bedraggled.” Later, on pages 154-155, the sisters will offer comfort to Henry after an argument with Mona. They will also admit that they can hear every crisis that takes place in the apartment, which suggests they lived directly above the Millers on the main floor. In Nexus, Miller portrays them as frumpy but very sweet and kind.

Identifying these Dutch sisters would help us identify the actual address of the Henry Street apartment. For some reason, th specific address has never been available, even though it’s said to have been “one door down” from the corner of Henry Street and Love Lane. [2]

A complication, however, is that, in Crazy Cock, when Miller writes about these same sisters, he says they were Danish. In that book, he describes them further: “[t]hey would bring down liverwurst sandwiches and beer, and when they got better acquainted, they finally produced long, black cigars which they smoked leisurely and with deep contentment” (78). Also in Crazy Cock, Miller states that the landlady sisters posed for one of Jean Kronski’s paintings (78). [more CC refs of the sisters at 86, 104, 193].

The 1925 Brooklyn census index is available online, although it appears to be a work-in-progress and does not yet include the entire population of Brooklyn. It may be searched by gender and birthplace of the residents. I searched with that criteria only and found two pairs of women of ‘older sisters’ age living in what seems to be the same address or block--one pair from Denmark, one from Holland. But no addresses are listed and there’s no way any of this proves anything, so I haven’t included my finds here.

63.2 The Captive … I went to see the play on my own
Henry sees this play at the Empire Theater. The play had been mentioned previously by Mona on 59.2. Complete details at this posting.

63.3 A week later they went to see it
Mona and Stasia see the play a week after Henry, which I have guessed is either late November or early-to-mid December 1926. See this posting.

63.4 violets
Mona and Stasia return from the play with some violets. See this posting about the significance.

63.5 “Just a Kiss in the Dark”
When Stasia and Mona return from The Captive with their violets, they are also cheerfully singing the song, ‘Just a Kiss in the Dark.’ This song was written by composer Victor Herbert (1859-1924) for the operetta, Orange Blossoms, with lyrics by B. G. DeSylva. Listen to a period recording of the song.
I recall the mad delight / Of a lovely dance / And a stroll into a night / Trembling with romance / There he told me of my charms / How could I resist? Suddenly within his arms / I was held and kissed! / Oh, that Kiss in the dark / Was to him just a lark / But to me ’twas a thrill supreme! / Just a kiss in the dark / But it kindled the spark / The awak’ning of love’s young dream!

63.6 I produced the letter filched from the little casket
In the middle of the heated argument between Henry, Mona and Stasia, about the lesbian themes apparent in The Captive, Henry produces a love note from Mona to Stasia, which he’d filched from Anastasia’s personal belongings at 61.3. The resulting outrage gets them hoofed from the restaurant.

63.7 the lip rouge, the green eyelids, the white powdered cheeks
A bit later, Mona insists that Henry take her out some time without Stasia. Henry assumes this is her way to “make amends” for the argument at the Greek restaurant. When the evening comes, Henry begins “ragging” on her appearance. Mona, a.k.a. June Mansfield, had a notriously high-impact make-up style. Later in Nexus, Henry will be more specific about his criticisms: “And try to look natural for once, will you? No makeup … no drag” (78). In Crazy Cock, Miller describes Mona to a florist as the young woman with “the green face” (82).

“She wears the mask of death and her ghastly beauty makes them stare,” wrote Wambly Bald of June, whom he’d met in Paris [3]. Before Anais Nin met June, she’d already heard from Henry about her “heavily painted eyes” [4]: “all the time her eyes are carefully made-up, like the eyes on Egyptian frescoes” [4]. When Nin finally meets June, she notes her “startling white face, burning dark eyes, a face so alive I thought it would consume itself before my eyes” [4].

63.10 the cape
And then, beyond the make-up, there’s the cape that Mona (June) liked to wear. In Nexus, the cape is long: it “trails the ground,” but, earlier, in Sexus, it’s described as “a little velvet cape” (411). [In Crazy Cock, he mentions that it has pockets (97).] Could be a collection of capes.

63.11 the puppet … Count Bruga
When June hugs Count Bruga against her chest as they are heading for the door, Henry snaps: "Not that” … “Goddamn it, no!” I wrote about this “leering, degenerate-looking” puppet in 2006. It will return later in Nexus (78). Here, Henry’s reaction frustrates Mona, who removes her cape and sits down “to think it over.”

<--- previous pages 61-62 . next page 64 --->

NEXUS INDEX

REFERENCES

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[1] Lewis, Wyndham. The Enemy: A Review of Art & Literature, Vol. 2-3. Taylor & Francis, 1994; p.42; [2] From Mary Dearborn's Intro to Miller's Crazy Cock, p.xx; [3] Foster, Barbara M. Three in love: ménages à trois from ancient to modern times. Harper San Francisco, 1997; p. 210; [4] Nin, Anais. The Diary of Anais Nin: 1931-1934. Harvest, p. 16-20.

Menu From The Pepper Pot, 1929

2010-07-01T11:04:00.007-04:00

"I don't know where [June] is living now--she told me to mail my letters c/o The Pepper Pot--which I did, but still no answer."
Henry Miller, June 18, 1930 (Letters To Emil, p.58)

Three years ago, I wrote about The Pepper Pot, the Greenwich Village restaurant and club at which June Mansfield worked (at least) from 1925-1927. In Miller's novels, the Pot is usually referred to as The Iron Cauldron. In my old posting, I highlight the fact that June often worked in the basement of the Pot. Jay Martin had described this as 'The Catacomb."

Thanks to a tip from "Jean" in Denmark, I was recently led to a blog on which someone has posted a vintage menu of The Pepper Pot from 1929. Besides the curiosity of the menu items, it offers a real ephemeral smorgasbord: illustrations of the activities and physical layout of the restaurant. The image that caught my attention most was that of a sign leading to "The Samovar: Lower level of the Pepper Pot" [image at left]. As is evident in my old Pepper Pot posting, I was confused as to the number of floors to be found at the Pepper Pot. Thanks to this menu, I am somewhat clearer on the way this place stacked up, although the wording confuses me--was the Samovar a sub-basement, or a "lower level" above the basement? Therefore, I'm not sure whether June worked the "dining only" basement room or the Samovar room.

According to the menu itself, which includes a history of The Pepper Pot, "The basement of the building, which is the Original Pepper Pot, is for eating only. One flight up are two dance floors, side by side, but on different levels. Beyond these and still lower, is the Samovar floor, the oldest restaurant in New York City. Two hundred years ago it was an old Cow Barn. The old posts and beams are still there. On the third floor is the Bridge Room, for the accomodation of private parties, fraternity affairs, private luncheons and dinners, etc."

A detail from the illustrations of the 1929 menu for The Pepper Pot. The fact that the sign here says that "dining and dancing [is] upstairs," suggests this may be a view of the Samovar.

In another section of the menu, it mentions that "the little building to the right of the barn [Samovar] was the farmhouse."

The cover of the menu confirms the address at 146 West Fourth Street, and shows a sketched detail of the unique table candles used at The Pepper Pot. Its cover illustrations of paint brushes, pens, photographers, etc. acknowledges its relevance to its Greenwich arts clientele. For $1.50, you could order a "Bohemian plate."

View the large, hi-res menus at Jack Stanley's History in the Raw blog.

"At the Pepper Pot, meet the people you used to know, the people you do know, the people you'd ike to know."

Henry & June: 'Captive' Audience

2010-06-26T16:39:00.009-04:00

On February 9, 1927, New York City police raided three theatres in a crackdown on Broadway’s spate of recent “obscene” performances [1] [2] [3]. One was bluntly titled Sex, which starred Mae West. Another, The Captive, riled the defenders of conservative intolerance, for its frank portrayal of “deviant” lesbian lust [4]. Approximately 8-10 weeks earlier, the play had been attended by Henry Miller, June Mansfield and Jean Kronski.

Although there’s a trivial aspect to this posting about the Millers attending The Captive, I think there’s more to it. First, the event helps us confirm the time period presented in Miller’s Nexus. Secondly, the themes of the play seem to resonate with Miller’s own life at the time: a man marries a woman who is obsessed with another woman, with the end result being that the man becomes an outsider in this ménage.

THE CAPTIVE as LA PRISONNIÈRE

French playwright Edouard Bourdet saw his play, La Prisonnière, produced in 1926, when it opened in Paris on March 26th. It would also be staged in Berlin and London. [5]

The plot involves a 20-something woman named Irene, who develops an infatuation with a married woman, Madame d’Aiguines. When her father insists that she join the family in a relocation to Rome, Irene manages to stay in Paris by convincing a male friend, Jacques (who is in love with her), to pretend they are engaged to be married. When Jacques learns the real reason for Irene’s ruse, and drama ensues, Irene, seemingly afraid of her own passions, asks Jacques to “save” her by marrying her. He does. Irene tries to put on a mask of the perfect heterosexual housewife, and stops visiting Madame d’Aiguines. But, after a year in a sexless marriage, Jacques gets fed up and leaves Irene for a mistress, while, at the same time, Irene gets called for by her female love. The third act ends with Irene and Jacques both going off to unknown fates in pursuit of their own passions. [6] [7].

Buzz about the play reached overseas, and an American production was sought. The man hired to adapt it was Arthur Hornblow Jr (the future Mr. Myrna Loy) [8]. The title was changed to The Captive.

THE CAPTIVE IN NEW YORK

The American adaptation, The Captive, opened at the Empire Theatre in New York City on September 29, 1926—just six months after its Paris debut [9]. It starred actress Helen Menken as Irene (at the time Henry Miller saw her on stage, she’d been married to Humphrey Bogart for six months [10]). Her stage husband, Jacques, was played by Basil Rathbone [2]. The early reviews by New York theatre critics were filled with praise that carefully avoided the “L” word [11]. There were standing-room only shows during the first seventeen weeks of performance [12].

Promotional photograph from the New York production of The Captive, 1926. Source.

MILLER’S ATTENDANCE

“It’s a French play. Everybody’s talking about it,” says Mona (June) in Henry Miller’s Nexus (p.59). She mentions The Captive in order to change the subject of Stasia’s planned abortion for a foetus she is unaware she is not actually carrying. Mona and Stasia have plans to see the play “shortly,” and invite Henry to come along “if I wished” (p.59 – see 59.2). A few pages later, Miller writes that he went to see the play by himself, “without letting them know” (p.63).

So far in my Nexus annotation project, I’ve established that the first 70 pages or so take place in November-December 1926: I base this on, a) the majority of events (after page 75) clearly take place in 1927; b) on page 65, it is declared that “Christmas is nigh,” followed by a Christmas dinner scene (and onward, of course, into the new year, 1927); and, c) that there is some snow on page 9, so it must be at least November [or a freakish October.] That Miller goes to see The Captive just two pages before stating that Christmas is on its way, I would suggest he attend the play in late November or early December. The established opening and closing dates of The Captive (Sept 1926 – Feb 1927 [9]) fall in line exactly with the Nexus timeline.

HENRY AND JUNE ON THE CAPTIVE

A week later, Mona and Stasia (June and Jean) see the play, still unaware that Miller had already seen it. The two women “return[ed] with violets and full of song” (p.63). Miller still doesn’t mention that he’d seen it; maybe he was unaware where they’d been.

Then, “one evening,” the three of them are at a Greek restaurant, when Mona and Stasia “spill the beans” about having seen The Captive: they tell Henry “what a wonderful play it was and how I ought to see it some time, maybe it would enlarge my ideas” (p.63). Miller responds by revealing that he had seen it a week earlier. “Whereupon a discussion began as to the merits of the play, capped by a battle royal because I failed to see eye to eye with them, because I interpreted everything in a prosaic, vulgar way” (p.63).

PARALLELS TO THE CAPTIVE

In the middle of this argument, Henry pulls out a love letter he’d found, from June to Jean (see Annotated Nexus 61.4). The two women scream with outrage, and the unhappy trio are asked to leave the restaurant. The timing of Henry’s 'Exhibit A' is interesting, because it’s almost as if, in talking about it, he became a player in The Captive, dealing with the same dilemma as Jacques.

In Act I of The Captive, Madame d’Aiguines’ husband (who knows his wife is a lesbian) gives a warning speech to Jacques about Irene. He may as well have been giving his paranoid speech to Henry about Stasia and Mona: “[S]he ransacks everything before the man whose home is being destroyed sees what is happening. By the time he realizes it, it is too late, he is alone! Alone, facing the secret alliance of two beings who understand one another, who divine each other’s wishes, because they are alike, because they are of the same sex, from a different planet than him, the foreigner, the enemy.” [13]

In the next scene (after the Greek restaurant), Henry and June are having some alone-time, without Stasia. When they find themselves in a long-overdue romantic moment, Henry thinks: “A full dress rehearsal, that’s what it was. Tomorrow we would play our parts—to a packed house” (p.64). This theatre reference, so close to the Captive scene, suggests to me that Miller is making a link.

In Miller’s notes for Nexus (c. 1945-1950s), he jots down “The Captive,” as a plot marker on a list of other scenes found in this section of the novel. To me, this means that he wanted The Captive to be more significant to the narrative that a simple incidental reference.

Excerpt from Miller's Schema For Nexus (Full document at PBA Galleries)

VIOLETS

The Captive links continue. Earlier, Miller had mentioned that Mona and Stasia came home from the play carrying violets. In The Captive, violets are a symbolic device used to represent Madame d’Aiguines (who is never seen onstage) and, I assume, lesbianism. In Act I, Irene receives a bouquet of violets from d’Aiguines, just as a box of delivered violets is a catalyst for her running off at the end of Act III. Irene wears violets in between these acts. Miller, then, is suggesting that Mona and Stasia saw the play and, echoing the lesbian themes portrayed in the play, bought themselves violets in honour of their feelings for each other. Violets as a lesbian symbol go back to the poems of Sappho; but their usage in this 1926/1927 run of The Captive turned them into the Western cultural symbol they’ve apparently become [14]. (The extent to which June and/or Jean were or were not actually lesbians is a subject for discussion some other time.)

After Henry and June’s romantic date (mentioned earlier), he is dismayed to return home to see that a huge bouquet of violets have been placed in a vase by Stasia, on a table set for three. “Their presence seemed to outweigh all the words which had passed between us.” The message they represent, he thinks, depressively, is “love is something which must be shared” (p.65).

In fact, Miller’s use of violets in Nexus, goes beyond lesbian symbolism; he seems to have branded them as markers of Love in general, or perhaps, June’s love in particular. When Mona stands him up earlier on, he throws his gift of unclaimed violets away (57); after a fight, Mona brings Henry some violets as a “peace offering” (55); later, just before making love, Mona asks Henry to buy her some violets the next day (152). But when he returns with the violets the next day, all he find is a note: Mona and Stasia have run away to Paris together (153). (Stasia, in Plexus (587), is described as having “violet-blue eyes”; I’m not sure whether that is significant or not, i.e. Stasia has eyes for Mona).

THEATRE AND VIOLETS IN CRAZY COCK

In Crazy Cock (which parallels the action portrayed in Nexus, but in a more fictionalized way), a theatre show (unnamed) and the violets also make an appearance. On page 81, June (known in the novel as Hildred), receives the two theatre tickets from a customer; her theatre companion is Vanya (Jean Kronski, as she’s called in Crazy Cock). Just as in Nexus, June comes back home with a bouquet of violets. Henry (called Tony Bring in the novel) is suspicious about the source of the violets. June tells him they’re from a Spanish admirer, but Henry doesn’t believe her. He visits a flower shop near the Pepper Pot, where he assumes she usually buys her own violets. The Greek shop owner confirms that two women fitting June and Jean’s descriptions bought the violets. Violets don't play much of a role beyond this in Crazy Cock.

RAID ON THE CAPTIVE

Approximately 8-10 weeks later, The Captive was shut down. Basil Rathbone describes the scene: “As we walked out onto the stage to await our first entrances we were stopped by a plainclothes policeman who showed his badge and said, 'Please don't let it disturb your performance tonight but consider yourself under arrest!' At the close of the play the cast were all ordered to dress and stand by to be escorted in police cars to a night court" [12]. The theatre had to refund $80,000 worth of tickets [15]. The resulting court ruling about “deviant” female sexuality in the public sphere leads to a statute amendment against plays depicting "sex degeneracy" and "sex perversion." [4] The direction of laws such as these will not be of much help to Miller in his future career as an author.

NOTE:
The old lesbian photo in the left side of the banner art is NOT from the play: it’s vintage erotica. But the photo on the right of the banner is from the play.

REFERENCES

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[1] GLBTQ; [2] BasilRathbone.net: The Captive; [3] “Police Raid Three Shows, Sex, Captives, And Virgin Man.” New York Times, Feb. 10, 1927; online; [4] Taylor, Leslie A. "I Made Up My Mind to Get It": The American Trial of The Well of Loneliness, New York City, 1928-29.” Journal of the History of Sexuality - Volume 10, Number 2, April 2001, pp. 250-286; [5] Tamagne, Florence. A History of Homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris, 1919-1939. Algora Publishing, 2006; p.196-197; [6] Houchin, John H. Censorship of the American theatre in the twentieth century. Cambridge University Press, 2003: p.95-99; [7] Inness, Sherrie A. The Lesbian Menace. U. Of Mass. Press, 1997: p.25; [8] Internet Broadway Database; [9] Internet Broadway Database; [10] Wikipedia: Helen Menken; [11] Hamilton, Marybeth. When I’m Bad, I’m Better: Mae West, Sex and American Entertainment. O. of California Press, 1997; p.57; [12] Rathbone, Basil. In and Out of Character. Limelight Editions, 1997; pp.101-103; [13] Tamagne, Florence. A History of Homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris, 1919-1939. Algora Publishing, 2006; p.196-197; [14] (PDF) William Percy; [15] Curtain, Kaier. We can always call them Bulgarians: The Emergence of Lesbians and Gay Men on the American Stage. Alyson Publication, 1987; p.59.

Nexus: Int'l Henry Miller Journal - Vol. 7

2010-06-18T18:49:00.006-04:00

This year’s journal issue of Nexus is now available for sale. To celebrate their seventh year, they are selling copies for just $7 post-paid (this offer is available only to those in the United States and Canada). The 188-page journal may be purchased from their website.

Here’s the breakdown:

Four Letters from Henry Miller to George Orwell
(Henry Miller)
In this series of four transcriptions of letters written by Miller to “Eric Blair” (Orwell’s real name) from 1936-1938, we see both the similarities and distinct differences between the two men. Miller starts off by commending Orwell for his Down and Out in Paris and London, in which Miller finds a parallel to his own life in Paris, and offers a few insightful comparisons. However, Miller also criticizes Orwell’s political views and offers his own philosophy about the human condition, literature and surrealism. We understand from Miller’s side of the correspondence that Orwell, in his letters, has critiqued Black Spring and has been in contact with Jack Kahane. The last letter, written in April 1938, contains health advice to Orwell, who was in a sanatorium with an illness.

Miller, writing from his home at 18 Villa Seurat, would receive Orwell as a guest just weeks after the third letter in October 1936. This series of letters is essential reading for understanding the bonds and divides that would have informed their conversation during that Paris visit in December 1936, just before Orwell continued on to fight in the Spanish civil war.

Reveries of a Solitary Old Man and His Angels – Henry Miller’s Unknown Book and His Encounter with the Magician, Joseph Delteil
(Karl Orend)
In 1975, Miller wrote one of his most obscure books, Je ne suis pas plus con qu’un autre. Written completely in Henry’s imperfect French, he insisted that it never receive an English translation. In this essay, Karl Orend doesn’t merely talk about this book; he goes deep into a lifetime of influences and inspirations, as if Henry is reflecting upon them as an elderly man in 1975, tucked away at his Pacific Palisades home on Ocampo Drive. Some of these accounts are directly related to the writing of the French book: Sylvie Crossman, who suggested he write it; Miller’s earliest exposure to and efforts to speak the French language; and a biography of the relationship between Miller and Joseph Delteil, drawn from decades of their correspondences (Miller quoted Delteil in Je ne suis pas). But, like a reverie, there is a lot of room for free association. The narrative swims from Frank Harris to Renate Gerhardt, spirituality to music, and numerous references to books and authors, always ebbing back to Miller in 1975, reflecting on his life. Chock full of fascinating detail.

Henry Miller and the Celebration of Loss
(Natalija Bonic)
Belgium-based philosopher Natalija Bonic explores Miller’s apparent jubilation at the prospect of human destruction in his earlier novels, especially Tropic of Cancer, where personal loss perplexingly elicits joy. For comparison, Bonic looks to the Greek tragedies and the concept of seasonal solstice, from which we may understand the reversal of expectation in the face of loss. In chaos, we are both liberated and shattered as the standard social boundaries come down. Bonic analyzes three techniques by which Miller sought to disrupt order and generate chaos: by “highlighting the trivial and rejected, flattening the standard perspective, and ‘becoming inhuman.’"

Acceptance and Compassion in Henry Miller’s Book of Friends
(Eric D. Lehman)
Miller’s late-life Book of Friends seems at odds with the celebration of the “destruction of values” that appeared to be his agenda in his earlier books. Against this presumption, Eric D. Lehman questions the critics and contemplates the values of Miller’s anarchist position, which was actually less about total nihilism and more a longing for freedom defined by mutually-supportive compassion. Rather than minimalize the nostalgia and sentimentality that is present in Friends, Lehman takes a deeper look at Miller’s efforts to defend the values of human connection, which involve the acceptance of others as individuals.

Henry Miller’s Paris Guidebooks
(Kreg Wallace)
Kreg Wallace, who runs the excellent Miller Walks blog, contributes this essay about two Paris guidebooks that Miller had used to enrich his discovery of Paris in the 1930s: The Stones of Paris in History and Letters (Benjamin and Charlotte Martin) and The Paris of the Novelists (Arthur B. Maurice). Beyond merely directing Miller to various points of interest, these guidebooks offered descriptions that were quoted and even lifted by Miller in Tropic of Cancer.

Teach as You Like and Die Happy: Henry Miller as High School Curriculum
(Douglas Matus)
Matus, a (former?) teacher in Texas, makes a case for adding Henry Miller to the American high school curriculum. Although the educational overseers may take exception to Miller’s more “obscene” and therefore unsuitable phrasings, there is still value in teaching Miller in excerpts. With Miller’s “bio as the bait”--students often identiy with his ethic of rebellion--his writing is able to reach young people and allow a chance to reveal its true value. Once connected to Miller’s voice, students learn from the history and American literature that Miller often references, or is reference to. The hope here is to engage young students with literature they find exciting, and to develop the “critical faculties of the teenage mind.”

A Birthday Party for Henry
(Harry Kiakis)
Continuing a Nexus Journal tradition, we have another instalment from the personal journals of Harry Kiakis, who knew Miller late in the author’s life. Here, we are at a surprise party for Henry’s birthday on December 26, 1968. Kiakis documents the day, making observations about the event’s many guests, including Hoki [plus her parents, and friend, Puko], Gerald and Diane Robitaille, Henry’s doctor (Dr. Siegel), Bronislaw Kaper, Lisa Lu, Robert Snyder, Allegra Snyder Fuller, Jakob Gimpel, Joe Gray, Bradley Smith, Sydney Omarr, Michael York, and Riko (of 669 Gallery).

Crossing Brooklyn Bridge: An Ekphrastic Correspondence between Walt Whitman, Hart Crane and Henry Miller
(Katy Masuga)
As someone way smarter than me has summarized on Wikipedia, “‘Ekphrasis’ or ecphrasis is the graphic, often dramatic description of a visual work of art.” In this in-depth essay, Katy Masuga uses the Brooklyn Bridge as a central object and concept that binds together the writers Walt Whitman, Hart Crane and Henry Miller in a complex way; abstract yet imtimate at the same time. While Whitman is, by decades, the literary precursor of both Miller and Crane, the three men share a sort of call and response dialogue in their writings about the Brooklyn Bridge: a conversation that transcends time and space, and leaves an impressionistic legacy on the culture’s collective imagination.

June’s Arizona Grave
(Randy Chase)
Some dude writes about June Mansfield’s grave in Arizona, comparing known details of her life to the evidence provided by her tombstone.

Henry Miller: The Author as Artist
(Magnus Grehn)
This brief article details the facts about a recent exhibit of Miller’s watercolours in Sweden, at the Uppsala Art Museum. These works are from the same collection of 21 watercolours that had been displayed in Miller’s first Swedish exhibition in 1967, and had been purchased and housed in Sweden ever since.

June/Nadja: Symbolic Sisters in Arms?
(Michael Jones)
The title character in Andre Breton’s Nadja seems to share affinities with Miller’s wife June. Both women share an “aura of mystery, danger and sexual promise,” both were born in 1902, and both wanted to become actresses. The fact that Miller lists Nadja as one of the influential Books in my Life brings relevance to these parallels, since Nadja was published in 1928, when Miller was then in the thick of things with June as part of his life. In this essay, Jones compares physical descriptions, personality traits and the madness behind the masks of these two tragic muses.

Finding the Feminine: Rethinking Henry Miller’s Tropics Trilogy
(Allison Palumbo)
Henry Miller’s branding by second-wave feminists as “misogynist” has somehow left Miller “on the fringes of scholastic attention.” Now, in 2010, Allison Palumbo uses feminist theory to re-examine the value of Miller’s work, arguing that his subversion of dominant culture to champion individual expression actually reflects feminist interest. Much of her analysis is based on Hélène Cixious’ concept of écriture féminine, which allows for Miller’s expression of the masculine, while it also appreciates the fact that this masculinity is not presented as a position of privilege, but instead undermines phallocentric constraints. To come to this conclusion, Palumbo analyzes Miller’s writings on the body and on the self in his Tropics trilogy.

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Again, this particular volume is only $7 (compared to the usual $20). Get it at the Nexus Journal website, Nexusmiller.org.

The Robert De Niro Connection

2010-05-22T19:20:00.009-04:00

The following is a trivial connection to Miller, but I found it fascinating when I first read about it and think it’s worthwhile to share. Admittedly, there is not much to say on the subject, once the link between actor Robert De Niro and Henry Miller is made. However, I spent the time trying to dig up some research, so, in the spirit on getting this blog going once again, here it is, whatever it is.

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Actor Robert De Niro was born August 17, 1943, in New York City [1]. Author Henry Miller, a native New Yorker himself, was then living in Beverly Glen, California; he was broke, able only to afford the cheapest watercolour paints [2]. It was the kind of existence that De Niro’s own father knew only too well. His father, Robert “Bob” De Niro (Sr.), was a painter, as was his mother, Virginia Admiral, who was also a poet. “My parents both moved in bohemian circles,” De Niro junior has stated [3]. Henry Miller and Anais Nin were two such bohemians.

I have not found anything written by Miller that refers to Bob DeNiro or Virginia Admiral. However, Anais Nin has written of them in her diaries. Her acquaintance with them seems to have begun through poet Robert Duncan, via James Cooney’s The Phoenix magazine enterprise. I assume that Miller’s acquaintance with the couple came through Nin’s introduction.

De Niro’s mother, Virginia Admiral (born 1915) was an artist involved with the San Francisco poetry scene of the 1930s. In 1936, she met the young poet Robert Duncan, with whom, that year, she created the arts magazine Epitaph (later The Experimental Review) [4]. The following year, 1937, Duncan would have poems published in another upstart arts publication, The Phoenix, which was being run by James Cooney out of Woodstock, New York [5]. That same magazine had assigned Miller as their “European editor,” and had accepted Nin’s “orchestra” fragment from Winter of Artifice [6].

By 1939, Duncan had made his way to Woodstock and worked for Cooney as an assistant for The Phoenix [4]. Here, Nin met Duncan for the first time, as described in the “Winter 1939” entry of her published diaries. Around that same time, in the final quarter of 1939, Duncan re-connected with Virginia Admiral, who had transplanted herself from the west coast to New York [5] to attend the Hofmann School of Art [7].

Henry Miller, in Paris and Greece this entire time, arrived back in New York in mid-January 1940. A week or two later, Robert Duncan visited Anais Nin, bringing Virginia Admiral as a guest. Virginia told Anais, “You are much kinder and sweeter than I imagined from House of Incest.” Nin thought Virginia and Robert Duncan were “both children out of Les Enfants Terribles. But they are children.” [Nin’s diaries, “Winter 1939”].

Meanwhile, Robert De Niro (senior), from Syracuse, New York, had just turned 18 in January. Pursuing a dream to become a painter, the young De Niro was studying art at Black Mountain College in North Carolina [3] [8]. To supplement his artistic education, in 1940, he attended a summer school in Provincetown, Massachusetts. [3] Hans Hofmann, of the Hofmann School in New York, was the teacher. De Niro, made class monitor, [7] was a favourite student of Hofmann’s [3], as was a female student—25-year old Virginia Admiral. De Niro and Admiral became romantically involved [3] [9]. As Hofmann’s summer course ended, the couple stayed in Massachusetts, living in a shack by the dunes, picking berries for pocket money, while De Niro worked at a fish cannery [3].

SEE PHOTOS OF THE SENIOR ROBERT DE NIRO AT ARTINFO.COM (Virginia photos are harder to come by).

And then, in 1940, came the infamous erotica-on-demand episode. This is a time when it seems most likely that Henry Miller may have met DeNiro and Admiral.

Beginning during the summer of 1940, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, and several other people took to writing pornographic stories at one-dollar a page for an oil millionaire from Oklahoma who collected erotica. Today, this collection of dirty stories is incorrectly attributed to Miller as Opus Pistorum or Under the Roofs of Paris. This is an interesting but complex chapter, which I won’t go into here [10]. Suffice it to say that Nin had recruited a number of other people to churn out these blue pages; Robert De Niro and Virginia Admiral were two such recruits. Admiral’s involvement began as a typist for Nin’s stories [3], but her involvement grew.

“All of us need money, so we pool our stories,” wrote Nin. “I could not turn them out fast enough, so I inserted some of Robert [Duncan]’s, some of Virginia’s, some of George Baker’s” [8]. Though not a writer, even De Niro was offered a chance to make an easy buck. "It was very hard work," De Niro later recalled, "so eventually I went back to the fishery" [3].

De Niro continued to work for the cannery, but Virginia got herself a female roommate to share an artist’s loft on 14th Street in New York. Nin describes the flat in her diary: above some shops, cold, with high ceilings and large windows, canvases everywhere and nails on walls to use as coat-hangers [11]. By the end of 1940, Anais Nin became a regular visitor for Virginia. “Virginia tells me she is enriched and liberated by our talks,” writes Nin. “[S]he becomes identified with me, repeating my imprisonment in bourgeois life, my liberation through Henry and June.” [8]

By the end of 1940, Robert came to live in the New York loft. But sexual intrigue threatened to ruin things. It was Virginia’s good friend, Robert Duncan, who would prove to be the catalyst. Duncan, a gay man who turned to hustling during this period [12], seduced De Niro, who was beginning his own journey of bisexual exploration [3] [9]. The incident created a rift between Admiral and Duncan, whom she felt had betrayed her. When he asked to stay at her loft, as he’d often done, Virginia threw him out [3] [9] [13].

In her diary entries for June 1941, Nin describes an argument, lasting several hours, that Robert and Virginia had over Robert Duncan. Nin describes how De Niro felt “shocked” and “looked haunted” when he realized that their neighbours had heard the entire argument through the thin walls, and now knew of his secret life. In December 1941, De Niro and Admiral married. In 1943, Robert De Niro junior was born. The couple separated shortly thereafter, and divorced in 1945.

Above: Robert De Niro Jr (at right) with his father, Robert Sr., and his mother, Virginia Admiral, in 1992. Photograph © Estate of Robert De Niro Sr., 2009/Ameringer-Yohe Fine Art. SOURCE.

As I stated at the beginning, the De Niro-Miller link is tenuous, but the stronger connection with Nin certainly implies that Miller was or could have been familiar with them. Read more about the bohemian lives of Robert De Niro Jr’s parents in these articles by John Baxter and Christopher Turner. (more details on De Niro Sr's professionl life here).

As a final note of trivia, actor Robert De Niro, in Cape Fear, uses Henry Miller as a means to seduce the character played by Juliette Lewis. [script at Drew's Script-O-Rama].

____________________

REFERENCES

[1] IMDB; [2] Marin, Jay. Always Merry and Bright: The Life of Henry Miller, p.397; [3] Turner, Christopher. “The bohemian life of Robert De Niro, senior”: Telegraph, 11:28PM GMT 19 Mar 2009; [4] Christensen, Paul. "Robert Duncan's Life and Career." American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999 -- sourced at Modern American Poetry; [5] Robert Edward Duncan, Robert J. Bertholf, Albert Gelpi. The letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov, p. 791; [6] Nin, Anais. The Diary of Anais Nin 1934-1939, p. 274; [7] New York Times. "Virginia Admiral, 85, Painter and Writer." New York Times, August 15, 2000: online; [8] Mark Borghi Fine Art . "Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922 - 1993)." Online; [9] Baxter, John. "In the Name of the Father." Excerpt from Baxter's De Niro, in The Sun-Herald: Sept. 26, 2002 - online; [10] For an online overview, see Stephen J Gertz' "The Celebrated Stable of Erotica Writers: Part II"; [11] See Nin's published journals, Vol. 3 - "December 1940"; [12] Duncan, Robert. Caesar's Gate, 1972 - p. xxix, xxxii. Online source; [13] Nin, Anais - "June 1941".

Miller Featured On Swedish Television

2010-04-28T16:37:00.005-04:00

This past week, a Swedish TV program featured Henry Miller during an episode that focused on pornography and censorship. The program, Babel, appears to feature arts and culture topics, which are discussed by the host and guests in between short, produced segments. Babel airs on SVT Play in Sweden—the Miller episode is currently available to view online.

The episode is in Swedish, but there are English interviews with Miller (from archive), Erica Jong and Karl Orend. My favourite parts are with Orend, giving the camera a tour of Miller’s Paris. Here’s the breakdown:

Suzanne Brøgger.
This Danish author, whose sexual writings have generated controversy, had inspired letters from Henry Miller, who wrote that she was “better than Germaine Greer or Gloria Steinem” and “not since the days of Rabelais have I read anything, by man or woman, as daring and courageous as this book by a Danish woman.” [ref.] Miller’s interactions with Brøgger have been written about in one of Roger Jackson’s small press publications, To My Danish Sheherazade: A Visit With and Correspondence From Henry Miller. (1998)

3:20. Brøgger appears in the Babel studio, beginning at 3:20 and remaining until the end, answering questions throughout. I can't really tell you what she's talking about. Archival footage of Brøgger may be found from 2:15-2:40.

Henry Miller.
The main Miller segment begins at 12:10; this includes still photos and:

12:41. A brief black and white clip from 1967, in which Miller states that sex has always been important, since the beginning of time.

15:15. A few still photos of Miller.

18:49. More 1967 film footage of Miller (with Hoki?) stating that he is not responsible for the sexual revolution; the times are simply changing.

19:34. More black and white footage of Miller, this time saying that one cannot take the world too seriously, because, if you do, you’ll kill yourself.

This frame grab is taken from 1967 film archive of Miller, as aired on the Babel program.

Karl Orend.
Miller expert/historian/writer is filmed and interviewed (in English) while walking the streets of Miller’s Paris. (I am providing only partial quotes here; watch the clips to hear full explanations).
13:33. The Orend segment begins.

13:50. Orend is outside the Café de la Liberté, where he tells of Miller coming here after meeting Anais Nin, to excitedly knock out ten more pages of Tropic of Cancer.

14:00. Orend is outside the Hotel Central, pointing out the floor on which Miller had lived.

15:20. Orend talks of Miller’s propensity to show, in his writings, the “worst elements of himself and other people.”

15:35. Orend: “Miller was not writing an autobiography. He was writing a symbolic novel.”

15:55. Orend confirms to the interviewer that Miller did indeed live the bohemian lifestyle portrayed in Tropic Of Cancer; he gives examples.

16:25. Orend walks the Villa Seurat in Paris, and stands at #18, where Miller had lived. A few words about Miller’s life here.

17:05. Orend: “Paris was the thing that allowed him to become himself. It was a combination of Paris and Anais Nin…”

19:07. Orend outside the Hotel Cronstadt, talking about Paris and Tropic of Cancer.

Erica Jong.
Author of The Devil at Large: Erica Jong on Henry Miller.

35:08. A short interview clip in her New York apartment, not talking about Miller, but about the difficulty in writing “good sex.”

Thanks to Magnus G and Roger for the tips about this airing.

Miller Auction Cancelled, Items Bought by Institution

2010-03-17T08:41:00.003-04:00

As you may have read elsewhere over the past few weeks, San Francisco's PBA Galleries were ready to receive all bidders on March 18, 2010, for an incredible auction of Henry Miller items, including his Paris notebooks. These important documents belonged to the personal library of Roger Wagner.

However, those who were salivating to get in on the action should grab a napkin and sit down: the auction will not happen. Yesterday, the entire Miller collection was purchased "by private treaty" with "a major American research institution." Details about the sale can be read at Auction Central News. ACN quotes Mr. Wagner's reaction to the news: ""I'm happy to know that this important archive will stay together and be accessible to the scholars and fans of Henry Miller."

Surely, this can't be such a bad thing to have happened. The name of the institution should be known relatively soon.

The remainder of Roger Wagner's auction items, including papers relating to Charles Darwin and John Steinbeck, will still be auctioned on March 18th at PBA Galleries.

It's Alive....

2010-03-08T21:31:00.002-05:00

I have not died.
I have not been injured in a horrific accident.
I have not joined the circus.
I have not joined a cult.
I have not moved to a cabin in the woods with 100 notepads into which to write my manifestos.
I have not lost interest in Henry Miller.

But I have been preoccupied for the past six months--so much so that I don't know how I'd managed to find the time to run this blog on a weekly basis in the first place.
It's been so long, that I've actually fallen out of the habit. However, I plan to re-read a Miller book soon, get back my mind back into the Miller Orbit, then start hammering out some blog postings again soon.

To anyone who's been chekcing in periodically, I'm sorry to leave you hanging like that.
And thanks.

"Sid Essen" And The Elkus Family

2009-10-11T11:08:00.008-04:00

"How I wish I could change places wih you! I'm a roughneck, as you know, but I do love art, every form of art." --- "Sid Essen" in Henry Miller's Nexus, p. 259

After a four-month adventure in Europe, Henry and June arrived back in America on November 8, 1928. While being processed as they de-boarded the S.S. Leviathan, the Millers listed their New York residence as “116 Willoughby Ave” in Brooklyn. I just wrote about this the other day, and wondered who could have lived at 116 Willoughby, because it was not familiar to me as a Miller address. Thanks to Christopher Nesbit, who has discovered the address on the 1930 Census records for Brooklyn, we now have an answer: Abraham Elkus and family.

Abraham Elkus is portrayed as Sid “Reb” Essen in Miller’s novel, Nexus. According to Miller, his new friend was living a miserable existence, and felt envy and admiration for Miller’s artist lifestyle and apparent freedom. “Reb Essen” is portrayed as someone who wanted to live through Miller and, as such, offered his moral and financial support for his ventures, in 1928 and in 1930 when Henry relocated to Paris. According to an old letter of Miller's, he sent some of his “best letters” from Paris to Elkus in the early 1930s [1]. June also maintained a relationship with Abe Elkus and his wife Ester, while Henry was in Paris in the 1930s and their marriage was collapsing.

Does this all mean that the Millers had in fact stayed at the Elkus house upon return from Paris? Based on the Nexus account of the Elkus family hospitality, it seems a possibility. But it seems equally possible that they simply gave that address to the immigration authorities to not seem suspiciously without a permanent residence. Either way, it’s a solid bookend to the tale of the 1928 Europe excursion, because Abe wass befriended shortly before the couple left for Europe and was there for them upon their return.

THE ELKUS FAMILY IN NEXUS

Around the time that June told Henry that their Europe money was coming from an admirer called “Pop,” the Millers went on a stroll to get cigarettes from a neighbourhood corner store. Here, they met Abe Elkus (“Sid Essen”), a Jewish man playing chess with the shop owner. Sid, “a heavy man with grey hair and a huge cap pulled over his eyes,” [2-187] takes an immediate liking to Henry and June, and suggests that "Mr. Miller" come visit him some time at his “gent’s furnishing” shop on Myrtle Avenue.

Miller, intrigued by Elkus (especially by his Jewishness), takes him up on the offer. The Myrtle shop is “forlorn,” like a “morgue”; its sidewalk window is “crammed with shirts faded by the sun and covered with fly specks" [2-206]. Soon Henry makes it a habit to pop in on Abe at his shop, where he is usually found seated at the back, reading or playing chess to kill the time not filled by tending to (non-existent) customers. They develop an easy rapport that strangers might observe and mistake for lifelong friendship. [2-197]

Abe insists on giving Henry driving lessons, and has him practice by driving him out to Long Island to collect rent money from predominantly African-American tenants of properties he owns. In Miller’s “Schema for Nexus,” he notes: "Trips to negroes Long Island with Elkus..." [3].

Although Abe Elkus runs his own businesses, they are not lucrative and Abe seems to be a miserable and lonely man trapped by his obligations. He laments that he is in a loveless marriage in which he and his wife life in different worlds [2-259]. Henry and June witness for themselves how there’s “nothing between them” when they are invited to have dinner at the Essen house. This visit takes up several pages in Nexus (227-237). Here we meet “Mrs. Essen” (Ester Elkus) who is a good cook and a "good soul," but a “trifle too refined.” As Abe gets drunk, she chastises him for his foul language and talk of things like “wrastling.” We also meet the two (unnamed) teenaged Elkus kids, including the awkward and precocious son who shares the observation that his father “wants to live,” suggesting he go on a vacation.

Myrtle Ave. at Washington St., Brooklyn, circa 1928. Abe Elkus' "gents' furnishings" shop was located "a block or so away [from the corner store] ... on Myrtle Avenue" (Nexus, 187). Photo from the NYPL Digital Gallery, Image ID: 707318F, Record ID: 365823 - Creator: Empire Photographers.

A short time later, Abe visits the Miller apartment, seeking advice from Miller about how to live, afraid that his son views him as a failure: “I want to live again,” states “Reb,” to which Henry suggests he just be himself, even if that means being careless [2-260]. Reb is inspired, and soon helps collect some passage money for the Millers, as a gift from some of his African-American tenants (whom we are told are fond of Henry [2-296]). Reb/Sid/Abe Elkus also offers to help them financially if they are stuck in Europe.

Shortly (a day or two?) before his ship is ready to set sail, Henry makes a final visit to Abe Elkus: “Paying my last respects to the dead.” Elkus suggests that Henry look up Maxim Gorky and Henri Barbusse while in Europe. In the closing pages of Nexus, within a list of parting salutations to Brooklyn and America, Miller adds: “Thank you Reb, I shall pray for you in some ruined synagogue!” [2-305].

Although Miller’s description of “Sid” gives the impression that he’s fairly old, the age listed in the 1930 census suggests that Abe was only 43 in 1928 (to Miller’s 36). This explains why, on p. 259 of Nexus, Henry says to him “You’re almost like an older brother.”

THE ELKUS FAMILY IN THE 1930 BROOKLYN CENSUS

On April 5, 1930, the census taker visited the families on Willoughby Avenue in Brooklyn, in Kings County [4]. At #116, she found Abraham M Elkus, age 45, and his wife Ester, age 42. They had been married in 1911. Abe had been born in Russia, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1887, when he must have been 3 years old. Abe’s daughter, Rhoda was 18 and his son Bruce was 15. His in-laws, the Franks, appear to have lived with them in 1930.

LETTER TO THE ELKUS CHILDREN

While in Paris, Henry and June wrote to Abe’s kids, Rhoda and Bruce Elkus, at least once, as it evidenced by an original letter that was on sale online in 2006. Gerard A.J. Stodolski’s online catalogue of historic manuscripts and letters makes reference to—and provides a large excerpt of—a letter, signed by “June and Henry,” which is clearly in response to two letters sent to them by Rhoda and Bruce. The letter is undated, but the manuscript seller has estimated “1930.” Judging by the fact that it is signed by Henry and June, I would offer that this is actually 1928. (however, June did visit Henry briefly in October 1930, so a 1930 date is not impossible).

In the letter, reference is made to a “cookbook incident” in which it seems the Elkus teens found some of their father’s “pornographic” stash hidden away. The Arab immigrants living in Europe are described, as are the shops, aperitifs and wines of Paris (most of which they are unfamiliar with and have no real “taste” for (“the less I pay for the wine the better I like it.”). Worth noting is the fact that the letter is signed "June and Henry," in that order. The writing seems to be Miller's (you can also see a snipet of the actual letters on the website--it looks like Henry's hand). The placement of June first, then, suggests to me that she had the stronger relationship with the Elkus offspring.

Read the sections of this letter here. If you've got the interest and the cash, you can send them a query to see if it’s still available for sale ($4,400).

ELKUS FAMILY SUPPORT, 1930 AND BEYOND

While living in Paris in 1930 and onward, Henry Miller maintained a correspondence with Abe Elkus, no doubt allowing him a vicarious glimpse into his bohemian life in France. In April and May 1930, Miller’s letters to Emil Schnellock reveal that he was asking Schnellock to share his letters with Elkus, and vice versa [5]. When June popped in on Henry in Paris in October 1930, she arrived with the shirt on her back, while her remaining wardrobe was being shipped to France by Abe Elkus [11].

On November 18, 1930, Miller wrote to Elkus to ask him to raise $100 for a cheap passage for him back to New York [6]. Miller did not return to New York in 1930, but I can’t tell if this was for lack of raising funds or not. A year later, Henry would lament that his American friends are not replying to his letters; even “Elkus is silent” [7]. Another year later, in October 1932, as the Millers were heading for divorce (Miller in Paris, June in New York), June wrote to Henry, asking that he “write me care Elkus” [8]. In December 1933, when Anais Nin was his love and June Mansfield a memory, Henry began to have morbid thoughts—“a premonition of imminent death.” With this in mind, he wrote to Anais with concern about “a faint recollection that before leaving for Europe one of my friends (A.M. Elkus) induced me to draw up a will leaving everything to June. I now withdraw that…” [1]. Earlier that year, he’d also panicked that his contributions to posterity--his letters and other writings--were at threat of being lost. He imagined June throwing everything into a fireplace; he adds, “Elkus too has a wealth of material from me” [9].

Henry’s letters (at least some) to Abe Elkus would end up in the private archive of Celia Conason [10]. Not only would Emil Conason maintain a relationship with the Elkus’s, but June seems to have as well, right into the late 1940s. In 1947, it was through Ester Elkus that Emil Conason heard that June was struggling in poverty [12].

At left: 116 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn, as it looks today (Photo © 2009 The Corcoran Group, Inc.)

116 WILLOUGHBY AVENUE

116 Willoughby Avenue, near Waverly, still exists, and has been recently sold. The Corcoron real estate listing includes several photographs of the interior----very atractive, but completely renovated from what it must have looked like in 1928.

If you’re the one who bought the house, you can proudly claim that “Henry Miller ate here.” And maybe, just maybe, it is reasonable for you to suggest that Henry and June slept there as well.

____________________________________

REFERENCES

[1] Miller, Henry and Anais Nin. A Literate Passion: Letters of Anais Nin and Henry Miller, 1932-53. Gunther Stuhlman, ed: pp.228-229 - letter dated Dec. 6, 1933; [2] Miller, Henry. Nexus; [3] "Schema for Nexus," Pacific Book Auctions - PBA Galleries listing, Item 81: link; [4] I take this date from that listed on the census form, in a statement that beings "Enumerated by me on..." The census is for Brooklyn, Kings County, Ward G.D. 11, Block C, p.127, Sheet # 9A. This census document was sent to me by a third party, so the source is unclear, but probably from an online database of public records; [5] Miller, Henry. Letters To Emil, pp.40 + 53 (April 1930; May 10, 1930); [6] ibid, p.66; [7] ibid, p.89 - Nov 1931; [8] Martin, Jay. Always Merry And Bright, p. 268; [9] Miller, Henry. Letters To Emil, p.112 - January 1, 1933; [10] Ferguson's Henry Miller: A Life, footnote 9, chapter 9: he references a letter from Henry to Abe, dated October 20, 1930; [11] ibid, pp.172-173; [12] ibid, p.310.

The Millers Return From Europe, 1928

2009-10-08T22:27:00.007-04:00

When I took a look at the ship manifest for Henry and June’s return voyage to New York from France in 1928, I thought it would confirm two things at least: when they arrived back and where they lived at the time. Instead, I’m a bit confused. What follows is a post in which I try to work through this confusion and come to some conclusions. But this will no doubt raise more questions than provide answers.

In 1928, Henry Miller and his wife, June Mansfield, went to Europe for an extended stay. For Henry, it was his first time in Europe, first time in Paris. In future references, Miller would call this his “one year” in Europe [1]. However, there seems to be a generous rounding-up of numbers by Miller. By my estimation, the Millers left for Europe in July 1928 and, as the ship manifest indicates, returned in November 1928: a total of four months.

DEPARTURE

Just by comparing the Big Three biographies of Miller (Martin’s Always Merry And Bright; Dearborn’s Happiest Man Alive; Ferguson’s Henry Miller: A Life), I already see conflict: Martin says they left in April 1928 [2-149]. Dearborn, however, says July 1928 [3-114] (Ferguson says “summer” [4-164]). I side with Dearborn and Ferguson on this, for reasons I laid out in my posting about the Millers’ vacation in Quebec in 1928; the reason being that Dearborn establishes, from a letter to Emil Conason, that they were in Quebec in April, making a simultaneous ocean-crossing to Europe impossible.

RETURN

More confusing are the accounts of the return of Henry and June to America. Ferguson says “early in 1929” [4-164]; Martin says “January of 1929” [2-160]; and Dearborn says “January 1929” [3-116]. Miller’s contemporary account would help clarify this fact. However, for someone who wrote so thoroughly about his own life, there is not much written about the first trip to Europe. Nexus ends as he’s about to depart. Nexus II (which had only ever been published in a small batch in French) was never completed, so it ends in mid-tour. The only letters that appear to cover this period were to Emil Conason, and that correspondence seems to be in a private collection (to which I have no access).

This poster of the S.S. Leviathan which Henry and June sailed on for their return to New York in 1928, is posted at Ocean-liners.com, at which you'll find many real photographs of the ship.

Maybe they know something I don’t. Keep that in mind. But official documentation seems to state that Henry and June had in fact returned to New York on November 8, 1928.

SHIP MANIFEST

This ship manifest originates from Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957: (National Archives Microfilm Publication T715, 8892 rolls); Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service -- National Archives, Washington, D.C. It can be accessed on paid public record websites such as ancestry.com

Which brings me to the ship manifest. On November 2, 1928, the S.S. Leviathan departed from the port at Cherbourg with Henry and June Miller on board. The Leviathan was originally a German ship until the Americans got their hands on it during the war and made it their own. In 1923, it was launched into passenger service by the United States Line. Although Prohibition turned it into a dry Atlantic cruise, by the late 1920s, they permitted alcohol once US waters were cleared. [history at The Great Ocean Liners; Wikipedia; and Ocean Liners].

The bottles must have been locked up behind the bar as the S.S. Leviathan re-entered American waters, heading for New York City, where it arrived in port on November 8, 1928. They missed the federal election by two days: Herbert Hoover’s Republicans had been given the green light to take over America once Coolidge’s term ran out in March. But Henry and June’s two missing ballots would hardly have made a difference in native New Yorker Alfred E Smith's Democrat, anti-Prohibition campaign: Hoover was up on him by six million votes. (but who says they would have voted Democrat? Or voted at all? There’s a subject for debate.)

The ship manifest for the S.S. Leviathan clearly identifies Henry Miller, born December 26, 1891 in New York, and June Miller, born January 28, 1906, also in New York. It’s got to be them! And the date is November 8, 1928.

WILLOUGHBY ADDRESS

Here’s a mystery for which I have no answer or even clue. Henry and June’s address in the United States is listed as “116 Willoughby Ave., Brooklyn.” I know nothing about them ever having lived this address. I am guessing that it was a friend’s address—but I have no access to the 1928 Brooklyn city directory to see if I recognize the name.

UPDATE Oct.10/09: Thanks to Christopher Nesbit for locating Willoughby Avenue on the 1930 U.S. census: the tenant at 116 Willoughby Ave. is Abraham Elkus and family, including Jacob Frank and Rose Frank (the Elkus in-laws). Using this info, I think I've got a connection. Please see my following post about Miller and the Elkus family.

Before leaving for Europe, the Millers had been living in a furnished apartment on Clinton Avenue [2-149]. Mary Dearborn writes that their friends had “smoked them out of” that apartment [3-114]. There may be further detail somewhere (I can’t find one in Nexus), but I will venture that the financially-challenged Millers were probably without a permanent address in advance of their voyage across the Atlantic. Any New Yorkers out there willing to look up the 1928 Brooklyn directories to see whose couch they surfed upon, on Willoughby Avenue?

Dearborn writes that the Millers stayed briefly on Decatur before finding a place in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighbourhood [3-116]. Martin says they moved into an apartment at Fulton and Clinton upon their return [2-160]—my understanding is that they were living at 180 Clinton before Miller took off for Paris in 1930 [5]. Both Clinton and Willoughby appear to be in Fort Greene (or so my random Google search seems to suggest).

How’s that for inconclusive?

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REFERENCES

[1] See, for example, the chronology on the inside flap of Miller's My Life And Times: "Toured Europe for one year with June on money given to her by an admirer"; [2] Jay Martin's Always Merry And Bright: The Life of Henry Miller (1978); [3] Mary Dearborn's Happiest Man Alive: A Biography of Henry Miller (1991); [4] Robert Ferguson's Henry Miller: A Life (1991); [5] This is what I posted in my list of Miller's New York addresses (to 1930)...but at this moment, I can't remember where I got that information--which is why I've since been trying to annotate everything a lot more vigorously.

The Annotated Nexus - Pages 61, 62

2009-09-13T18:00:00.002-04:00

61.0 Continuing from page 60, Henry’s young, troubled acquaintance Curley and his pal come back to the apartment to go through Stasia’s personal belongings in her messy room. A potentially incriminating note is found from Mona to Stasia. The two young men fuss over putting Stasia’s room back in order.

61.1 the paintings
On page 55, Henry talks about a portrait Stasia makes of him. On page 60 [see 60.10], he talks about borrowing her paint and brushes. On page 61, we see further evidence that Stasia [Jean Kronski] was a visual artist, whose works were displayed inside the apartment. The moment the light in the basement apartment is switched on, Curley and friend jump at the sight: “[Curley’s] friend pretended to be frightened by the paintings. He couldn’t take his eyes off them.”

61.2 booby hatch
Curley’s friend claims to recognize the type of art—he’s seen the likes of them before “in the booby hatch.” A booby hatch has come to mean a mental hospital. A full etymological history is provided on the website Grammarphobia, which explains that a “booby” originally meant a fool or dunce. Interestingly, in explaining when the word “booby” came to be slang for a woman’s breast, the article refers to the Oxford English Dictionary as it cites Miller’s Tropic Of Cancer with the earliest reference ("boobies," p.111). However, the Online Etymological Dictionary states that “boobs” came into the language in 1929, and was likely derived from late 17th century references to boobies.

But breasts are not relevant in this case. The connection being made to Stasia and mental hospitals on page 61 has been established several times already in Nexus, starting at 8.26, 10.1 and elsewhere.

61.3 jimmy
I think most people recognize this word as meaning an object that is used to pry open, or used to manipulate a lock so that it opens without a proper key (see etymonline). This is what Curley’s friend uses on a big trunk of Stasia’s found under her toilet box, and again on a little iron casket found inside. On page 62, Curley will refer to his friend as a “thief,” which explains how he happens to have a jimmy with him.

61.4 billets-doux
Once the small iron casket is removed from Stasia’s trunk and opened, the three men are confronted with a “heap of billets-doux—from friends unknown.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary translates this from French as “sweet letters” (or love letters), a term dating from 1673. Henry recognizes the handwriting of one of these letters as belonging to Mona. The letter opens, “Desperate, my lover…”

61.5 supposedly been flushed down the toilet
It’s curious that Miller comments that this letter from Mona had “supposedly been flushed down the toilet.” It would be easy to recognize paper that had been wet, but how could he know it had been in a toilet? A few days earlier, Miller had discovered bits of a torn envelope in the toilet [p.52], so perhaps he’s making his conclusion based on that. Curley tells Henry to hold onto the letter, because he “may need it later on.”

<---- Previous Page 60 . Next pages 62, 63 ---->

Tropic Of Cancer: 75th Anniversary

2009-09-07T15:57:00.009-04:00

“TROPIC OF CANCER is, therefore, strong meat and not for the unripe intelligence. It cannot usefully be attacked or defended: it must be accepted or denied. In no work hitherto has been seen such a remorseless description of thwarted appetites and unappeased desires.”
-- Obelisk Press publicity leaflet for Tropic Of Cancer [1]

The general media may acknowledge the 75th anniversary of Tropic Of Cancer in the year 2036, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the publication of the novel in the United States in 1961. However, 2009 marks the 75th anniversary of the first pressing of Miller’s controversial masterpiece. In fact, it was 75 years ago this month, in September 1934, when the Tropic Of Cancer first edition became available in Paris.

Shifreen and Jackson’s Henry Miller: A Bibliography of Primary Sources (Vol. 1) codes the first edition of Cancer as “A9a.” It details that the book was published by the Obelisk Press (338 Rue Saint-Honoré) in Paris, and was physically printed in a batch of 1,000 by Lecram Press. Each copy sold for 50 francs and displayed the written warnings: “NOT TO BE IMPORTED INTO GREAT BRITAIN OR U.S.A.” and “MUST NOT BE TAKEN INTO GREAT BRITAIN OR U.S.A.” For each copy sold, Miller earned a 15-franc royalty.

In honour of this anniversary, I provide the following links to items (on this blog and elsewhere) regarding this classic Miller novel:

THE PHYSICAL BOOK: image of the pictoral cover, as well as the customized half-leather box it apparently came in. From Manhattan Rare Books.

THE COVER ARTWORK: notes about the cover and its young artist, Maurice Girodias.

THE PUBLISHER: overview of Jack Kahane and his Obelisk Press in Paris.

WHO'S WHO: list of the real people who are portayed as pseudonyms.

ORIGINAL FIRST DRAFT PAGES: at the Beinecke Library.

THE CHOICE OF TITLE: the meanings behind the title, Tropic of Cancer.

MILLER'S HOME AT TIME OF PUBLICATION: he moved in the day that Cancer was published.

TIMELINE OF THE NOVEL: 15 moments in the life of the novel (with emphasis on the first few steps leading to its creation and publication).

THE FILM ADAPTATION: the making of the 1970 film version.

THE HATER: Judge Michael Musmanno's quotes reflect the opinon of those who are offended by the novel.

THE PEDDLER: Eve Adams sells Cancer at Parisian cafes.

THE BLOG TOUR: MillerWalks.com takes you on a then-and-now tour of Miller's Paris, as portrayed in the novel.

THE MONETARY VALUE: the cost of a fist edition (note: visit the Manhattan Rare Books link above to see the current value).

THE COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY: everything you ever wanted to know about every edition of Tropic Of Cancer.

THE SEARCHABLE TEXT: Cancer is available on Google Books, where you can read selected pages and do a word search...yes, even the naughty words.

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[1] The entire single-page publicity leaf is re-printed in Karl Orend’s On the 70th Anniversary of Tropic of Cancer (Alyscamps Press, 2004). It appears to be the same text printed on the inside flap of the original novel (see image at the top of thhis post).

Who's Who in 'Tropic Of Cancer'

2009-08-30T13:43:00.005-04:00

“This is libel, slander, defamation of character.”
--- Henry Miller, Tropic Of Cancer (p.2)

Tropic Of Cancer contains some shockingly unflattering portraits of people Henry Miller knew personally. Although Miller protected his own identity in his first draft of Cancer, signing off as “Anonymous,” [1] he was not so discreet with his real-life characters. “I am living in the Villa Seurat,” reads the original opening line, “the guest of Michael Fraenkel.” [2] Michael Fraenkel---not even the courtesy of a fake surname! By the time Tropic of Cancer hit the presses, however, Michael Fraenkel became “Boris”; likewise, everyone else took on an alias.

But, to anyone within or knowledgeable about Miller’s social circle in the 1930s, the real identities were not very difficult to figure out. “I really should have sued him for having me appear as a sex fiend in the guise of Van Norden,” stated Wambly Bald in the 1960s [3]. A man named Jean Moscelli sued Miller for libel over a portrayal relating to a “Jimmie’s Bar” story told in Cancer [4]. June Mansfield, Henry’s wife, was emotionally shaken by his portrayal of her in Cancer. “I remember how you winced when you read the first pages of this book,” wrote Miller in an early, unpublished section of Cancer. “You did not wince only—you howled. You uttered the foulest, cruellest words I have ever heard. You would have killed me with your words if you had talked another five minutes …. [You] shrieked that you would like to take a knife and kill me, that a knife was too good for me …” [5].

Pseudonyms were used in every edition of the book since it was first published in 1934. But, in 1941, Miller, trying to raise funds, sold a “keyed” copy of Cancer to erotica publisher Gershon Legman, among others; in it, he wrote down some real names of his characters. According to Miller biographer Jay Martin, this keyed copy of Cancer passed through two more pairs of hands before ending up at the archives at the University of Texas [6]. However, publisher Roger Jackson writes that this keyed copy at the U of Texas is “not one which Miller annotated. This copy is a 1948 Obelisk Press edition which has a simple listing of 7 characters on one of the preliminary pages” [7]. [item currently listed in U of Texas Harry Ransom collection].

Using letters, early typescripts and other sources, in 1993, Roger Jackson published his own listing of pseudonyms and their real life counterparts from Tropic Of Cancer (in Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. 1, pp.939-941). The following list draws heavily from Jackson’s list, with a couple of additions, and includes pseudonyms for which I have no real name to attach :

ANATOLE = Anatole Pachoutinsky [8]
BESSIE =
BORIS = Michael Fraenkel
BOROWSKI = Ossip Zadkine
CARL = Alfred Perlès
COLLINS =
ELSA = Greta ? [13]
EUGENE = Eugene Pachoutinsky
FANNY (Moldorf’s wife) =
FILLMORE = Richard Galen Osborn
GALLAGHER = Tex Carnahan
GERMAINE = Germaine Deaugard
GINETTE =
IRENE = Grace Hodgson Flandrau
CRONSTADT = Walter Lowenfels
JIMMIE =
KEPI =
KRUGER = Frederick Kann [11]
M. Le CENSEUR =
M. Le PROVISEUR =
MACHA =
MADAME DELAORME = Germaine Dulac
MARCELLE =
MARK SWIFT = John Nichols
MARLOWE = Samuel Putnam
MOLDORF = Joseph Millard Osman ? [12]
MONA = June Mansfield
NANANTATTEE = N.P. Nanavati
PECKOVER = Madison Kirby [9]
SERGE =
SYLVESTER = Joseph Schrank
TANIA = Bertha Schrank
VAN NORDEN = Wambly Bald
WILKIE = Herbert Wilkie
WREN, Mr. & Mrs. = Mr. & Mrs. Bloom
YVETTE =

When considering the character and reputation of these real people, all of whom have passed on, don’t forget that Miller had taken creative liberty in his characterizations. Karl Orend writes that Michael Fraenkel “accepted” that “Miller was writing symbolic fiction.” And we, as readers, must acknowledge this as well. Even Miller--who maintained his actual identity, “Henry Miller,” in Tropic of Cancer--acknowledged that his character was not necessarily authentic. “I created a monstrous character in my books and gave him my name; he’s a demon, a rouge, a scoundrel … It was mostly exaggeration and bravado, you see. The character was me and wasn’t me. It is as if there are two Henry Millers" [10].

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[1] Jay Martin. Always Merry And Bright, p.264; see also the facsimile of this first page signed “by Anonymous” on p. 51 of Henry Miller’s My Life And Times; [2] facsimile of original corrected typescript page, Henry Miller, My Life And Times, p.53; [3] Kenneth C. Dick, Colossus Of One (1967), p.196; [4] Karl Orend, The Brotherhood of Fools & Simpletons, p.51 – no further details available about who Moscelli was; [5] Roger Jackson (editor). From Tropic Of Cancer: Previously unpublished sections, pp.93, 95; [6] All from Jay Martin’s article, “Biography And Humanity”: Humanitas Communitas, 1999: p.20. Online PDF; [7] Shifreen and Jackson. Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol.1, pp.939; [8] This is confirmed by George Wickes in the Letters To Emil index, p.161; [9] Recently identified by Kreg Wallace at Miller Walks; [10] Quote taken from Karl Orend's "On the 70th Anniversary of Tropic Of Cancer," p.25 -- the original quote is from a letter to Anais Nin, I believe, but I couldn't find it.; [11] In the Comments section of this posting, Kreg Walace points out how Kruger seems to be Kann: "Miller actually meets up with him again in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare when he arrives in Kansas City (Kann left Paris in 1936 to teach at the Kansas City Art Institute) and he tried to interest Miller in Freemasonry. I don't think Miller actually names Kann in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, but the indication that he was a painter who had once put Miller up in his apartment on the rue Froideveaux makes his identity clear"; [12] In the Commenst section of this post, Kreg at Millerwalks makes a case for this possibly being the true identity of Moldorff: "Moldorf is associated with Cronstadt (Lowenfels) and Boris (Fraenkel) in Tropic of Cancer. Osman and Lowenfels lived in the same building in Paris and it was Osman who introduced Miller to Fraenkel. At the time, Miller was helping Osman write a book on the treatment of infirm children;" [13] In the Comments section to this post, Michael makes a case that Elsa's real name is Greta: "On page 89 of Letters to Emil, Miller mentions a woman called Greta who lived with him and Michael Fraenkel at the Villa Seurat. His letter was written in November of 1931, and apart from Elsa having been substituted with another German maid during or after Miller's stay, it looks as though it could be the same woman."

Henry Miller Illustrated

2009-07-25T12:09:00.006-04:00

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed several books from the Introducing and For Beginners series published by Icon Books (UK; in the US as Totem Books). The series uses illustration and collage art and a concise information style to briefly but evocatively explain the concepts, ideas, science, philosophy, and social movements of our human history, and to tell the stories of the complex individuals behind them. Writers have had their due in this series, but I had never seen an edition on Henry Miller.

In 2001, an Argentinean publisher, Longseller, in association with Paidós, released Spanish-language translations of this Icon Books series, under the name Para Principiantes (For Beginners) [Paidós calls it Para Todos (For Everyone)]. One such edition was an illustrated life of Henry Miller. Due probably to the explicit sexual depictions in the book, it fell under the Para Principiantes line (as it was certainly not “for everyone.”)

Henry Miller: Para Principiantes is written by Pedro Ghergo (apparently a writer of children’s books). Accompanying his text are illustrations by an artist named Lato [I couldn't find a website for his work]. The drawings are fairly simple, and the young Henry is drawn in a generic way (and with too much hair and big square glasses). But it’s still interesting to see a visual interpretation of a story I know well.

About half of this book is viewable online, using the Google Books feature. The Amazon website states that the book is no longer in print, but the Longseller website seems to suggest it is.

Above: Argentinean artist Lato illustrates the scene in which Miller is about to meet June Mansfield at Wilson's. Image © Longseller, 2001.

Casting Suggestion: Langella as Miller

2009-06-04T19:45:00.008-04:00

While viewing the excellent film, Frost/Nixon, it struck me that actor Frank Langella would be a great casting choice to play an old Henry Miller from the 1960s. All it would take are some blue contact lenses and a bit of a Brooklyn accent (Langella is from New Jersey)--the rest is already in place. I was last inspired by the idea of casting Miller for a movie a few years back, when I posted 'Casting Henry Miller.'

In the film Starting Out in the Evening (2007), Langella played a writer. Check out the photo still below and tell me that is not Miller.

Frank Langella as character Leonard Schiller in Starting Out in the Evening (photo: Roadside Attractions).

At right of this paragraph is a photo of Miller with glasses, from around the same age period of life. At the bottom of this post is a larger photo of Miller, several years earlier. Langella is actually 71 years old, but can play a bit younger, I think. A film about Miller's redemption in the courts with the Tropic of Cancer trial seems possible, maybe with some flashbacks of his life, with a younger actor playing younger Miller . Anyone got a few million lying around?

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Blog Update: Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been too busy for the blog, and will probably not have time again until July. But I'll be back.

Henry Miller, 1946. Photo by Hagermeyer, in the Archive of California.

Quiet Days In Clichy - The Basics

2009-05-17T15:37:00.012-04:00

“When I think about this period, when we lived together in Clichy, it seems like a stretch in Paradise. There was only one real problem, and that was food. All other ills were imaginary.”
Henry Miller, Quiet Days in Clichy, p.41

SUMMARY

Quiet Days in Clichy is a short novel that contains a second story, “Mara-Marignan,” which covers the same time and place: 1933 Paris, while Miller was rooming with Alfred Perles in Clichy. Quiet Days casts an eye on the prostitutes in Montmartre, some of whom Miller meets and beds in between hunts for his next meal. In his Clichy apartment, his friend and flatmate Carl (Alfred Perles), takes in a teenaged runaway named Colette—which prompts a visit from the police. “Mara-Marignan” covers similar terrain, with the bohemian Miller and “Carl” caught up in sexual drama with a few women.

A few of the book locations, Place Clichy , his apartment on avenue Anatole France, and Café Wepler, may be read about at the Miller Walk website.

The 1956 first edition of Quiet Days in Clichy (Image source: Patrik Andersson)

WRITING MOTIVATION

A few months after Miller returned to New York from Europe in 1940, he was broke: “[I will] take anything from anybody, like a dog takes a bone” [1]. A quick money-making opportunity arose when a man named Barnet Runer arranged for Miller to write pornography at a dollar a page, for a Oklahoma erotica collector named Roy M. Johnson [2]. Early drafts of “Mara-Marignan” and “Quiet Days in Clichy” were the result. Johnson was not impressed; he found them to be “too poetic” [3].

WRITING

“Mara-Marignan marinated” was first written in New York City, in May 1940 [4]. “Quiet Days in Clichy” was completed a few weeks later, in June 1940 [5]. Jay Martin comments that, “as they stood in 1940, the two tales were mediocre as literature and feeble as pornography” [6]. Both stories were re-written in Big Sur in May 1956 [4/5], for publication a few months later.

MANUSCRIPTS

The manuscripts for both stories went missing in the 1940s. “The scripts (two) were lost for over ten years,” wrote Miller in 1956. “Turned up miraculously—where I won’t say now—and I rewrote” [7]. The (original?) manuscripts, typed and corrected, are currently housed in the George Howard Papers collection at the Archives of California.

PUBLICATION

The first edition of Quiet Days in Clichy was published in Paris by the Olympia Press, in June 1956. The edition included several photographs of 1930s Paris by Brassai [8]. Miller feared that his “highly censorable script” would be “suppressed immediately it’s out (in English)” [9]. The first American edition went to press on July 1, 1965 at Grove Press in New York, as a Black Cat imprint [10]. The book continues to be published in the U.S. by Grove Atlantic.

ALTERNATE VERSION: "BERTHE"

In 1959, The Henry Miller Reader published a story called “Berthe.” As Miller clarifies in the introduction to the piece, “This text is a rewrite from the original draft called ‘Mara-Marignan’ … The point about it is that I tried to recapture the story as I told it originally—to a friend in Paris—almost immediately after the incident occurred. I must have written it five or six times … It might be regarded as a companion piece to ‘Mademoiselle Claude.’—another of several tributes to the prostitutes of Paris. It is a true story, needless to say, and quite ‘unvarnished’” [11].

FILM AND TV ADAPTATIONS

Quiet Days in Clichy has twice been adapted for film. First, in Denmark as Stille dage i Clichy (1970), directed by Jens Jørgen Thorsen. Second, director Claude Chabrol filmed his version in France in 1990.

The HBO TV-movie, Women And Men 2: In Love There Are No Rules, features an adaptation of the “Mara-Marignan” story, called “Mara.” The film stars Scott Glenn as Miller (a brief New York Times review).

“It is strange that I always think of this period as “quiet days.” They were anything but quiet, those days. Yet, never did I accomplish more.”
Henry Miller, Remember To Remember (from The Henry Miller Reader; p. 323).

REFERENCES

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[1] Martin, Jay. 1980. Always Merry And Bright: The Life of Henry Miller, p.369: Henry Miller to Huntington Cairns, March 12, 1940; Cairns Collection, Library of Congress; [2] Jackson, Roger, and William Ashley. 1994. Henry Miller: A Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. II; p.12; [3] Martin, Jay. 1980. Always Merry And Bright: The Life of Henry Miller, p.369; [4] Miller states this himself at the end of the book, p.154; [5] Miller states this himself at the end of the “Clichy” story, p. 96; [6] Martin, Jay. 1999. “Biography & Humanity.” Humanitas-Communitas (Winter 1999): p.22; [7] Miller, Henry. Henry Miller and James Laughlin: Selected Letters. George Wickes, ed.; p. 123 – letter to “Jay” dated 7/21/56. In the intro to the story “Berthe,” in The Henry Miller Reader (1959), Miller will say that the manuscript for “Mara” turned up “15 years later.” However, in January 1950, he had offered “Mara-Marignan” as a publication option for James Laughlin (see Laughlin letter, 5/1/50); [8] Shifreen & Jackson, A100a/b (see Bibliography of Primary Sources, v.1; [10] Shifreen & Jackson, A100e; [11] Miller, Henry. 1959. Introduction to “Berthe.” The Henry Miller Reader; p.190.

The Gift Of Art: Grosz' Ecce Homo

2009-05-02T16:58:00.013-04:00

In 1927, June Mansfield left for Europe without her husband, Henry Miller. She returned a couple of months later with a trunk full of souvenirs, including two books that featured the artwork of George Grosz. One of these, Ecce Homo, would help inspire Miller’s interest in becoming a visual artist.

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June returned to New York from Europe in July 1927 [1]. “She was bursting to tell me things,” wrote Miller of June’s return: “Val,” she said, “[Paris is] what you’ve dreamed of all your life. You belong there…” [2]. Back at the Henry Street basement apartment, June presented Henry with a number of souvenirs, including Parisian menus, “a poster peeled from a pissoir on the Rue Blondel,” [3], “paintings, carvings, art albums,” [4] and books. She had met a number of artists in Paris, and had them autograph their work, when possible [5]. One of her signed souvenir books was a published play by the French-born German expressionist and surrealist, Iwan Goll.

METHUSALEM BY YVAN GOLL

Iwan Goll (1891-1950, known alternately as Yvan Goll) met June Mansfield (at right) in Paris in June 1927. He was 36 years old, and was busy writing scenarios for German composer Kurt Weil. Written and produced in 1922, his surreal, absurdist play, Methusalem, or The Eternal Bourgeois, featured “human beings … [who achieve] no more than sexual encounters, eating, and the evacuation of wastes” [6]. While June was in Paris in 1927, the play was being revived on stage by Jindrich Honzl [7], and co-starred Antonin Artaud [8]. It was likely at a staging of this production that June acquired her bound copy of the play and had it signed by the author, Goll.

Above: A photo still from the 1927 production of Goll's Methusalem, as directed by Honzl. Source: New York Public Library's Digital Gallery.

Amazingly, the actual signed copy of this book--which June brought back from Paris and, no doubt, placed in Henry’s hands for his review in their Henry Street basement apartment—is currently available for sale, for $1,500, from Between The Covers. Goll’s German inscription to June may be seen below (image from the BTC website).

Katja, in the Comments section beneath this post, has kindly applied her German-to-English language skills (and keen eyesight) to Goll's inscription to June. She offers the following translation, which certainly enhances the intrigue and mystery about June:

"For June Mansfield, The wild gypsy, The romantic also very demonic (--refers to June--). Iwan Goll, Paris, June 27."

June’s copy (above) of Methusalem was a 1922 first German edition (Methusalem oder der ewige Burger). When this play was first produced, the costumes had been designed by artist George Grosz. Three pages of Grosz’s designs were published in this edition of Methusalem (one, seen at left, from this website; a second, larger example is at the site for the ABC Gallery).

GEORGE GROSZ’S ECCE HOMO

While the few Grosz pages in Methusalem offered a taste of the artist’s work, a full buffet of his subversive style was on display in an art album called Ecce Homo, which June also brought back for Henry. George Grosz (1893-1959) was part of the German Dada movement, and came to be known for his satirical, often grotesque caricatures, such as those portrayed in Ecce Homo (1921/1922).

“[June] returned with a copy of that sensational album of George Grosz’ Ecce Homo,” wrote Miller in To Paint is to Love Again (1968). “What a revelation it was! Such unmitigated savagery, such sublime desperation, such remorseless excoriation! An enlightened madman, I thought. A Goya come to life. A more ferocious Goya than ever Goya was. And what magistral, devastating use of the water color medium” (p.5). “For his violent colors he blended arsenic, vitriol, cyanide of potassium with an admixture of vomit, shit, sweat and tears” [9].

About a month or two after receiving the Grosz portfolio from June, Henry returned to his apartment after a night “jaunt” with his friend, Joe O’Reagan. Miller was still buzzing with inspiration from the Turner paintings he’d just seen in a department store window. “I say it was Turner’s watercolors which started it,” Miller writes in Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymous Bosch, “But George Grosz had much to do with it” (p.88). That night, eager to try his hand at drawing, Henry’s eye happened to be drawn to the cover of the Ecce Homo book. “The first thing I attempted was to copy the portrait on the cover - Mr. Homo himself - which I had assumed was a caricatural self-portrait of Grosz” [10]. “The resemblance I succeeded in achieving excited me so much that then and there I lost all my fears and inhibitions about drawing” (Big Sur, p.89). “From that day I took pleasure in using pencil and brush” [11]. “Since I had never evinced the least ability to draw, this first successful effort gave me confidence to continue a pursuit which has given me as much, if not more, pleasure than writing” [10].

Above: Plate IV from Grosz' Ecce Homo

ECCE HOMO REVISITED

In the Henry Miller Papers of the Archives of California, there’s a reference to an essay Miller wrote in 1934, called “George Grosz—an appreciation.” I have not found any other reference to this essay, anywhere--which means it may not have been published.

In 1966, Grove Press re-published Grosz’ Ecce Homo; this time, including an introduction by Henry Miller. That same year, the introductory essay was published on issue #40 of the Evergreen Review, as “Man In The Zoo: George Grosz’ Ecce Homo” [12]. This entire article is available online on the Evergreen Review website.

Above: An etching from Grosz' Ecce Homo

Although I am not sure where Henry’s copy of this influential Grosz art portfolio went to, there may be a hint in one of his letters to Emil Schnellock from April 1933, in which he notifies his friend that he has mailed him “a Grosz Album” (Letters To Emil, p.118). But the exact title is not mentioned (according to this gallery bio of Grosz, he had published at least three other art albums in the 1920s).

After receiving his complimentary publisher copies of Ecce Homo (1966), Miller made sure to send a copy to the person who had turned him onto to the artist in the first place. On January 18, 1967, Miller sent a copy to his ex-wife, June Mansfield (now June Corbett). On it, he inscribed: “To June – To replace the original you brought back from Paris in 1927! Remember that? Henry, 1/18/67.” The actual signed book—with its direct link between Henry, June and his success as a watercolourist—is for sale by Between The Covers, for $1,250 (US). [shown below]

“Looking at the drawings in Ecce Homo today I am filled with the same excitement and unbounded admiration for the artist as I was in 1927 when I first saw his work. All through the years these expressions of despair, hate and disillusionment, as Grosz himself called them, have remained with me as if burned into my brain” [10].

P.S. In the hardcover edition of the Miller autobiogrphy, My Life And Times (Playboy Press, 1971), is a reproduction (p.176) of two pages from (what I assume to be) Miller's Paris notebooks--including a sketch that he describes as "a feeble attempt to imitate Georg Grosz, the German artist, after looking at his famous album of water colors called 'Ecce Homo'..."

REFERENCES
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[1] Martin, Jay. Always Merry And Bright; p. 140-141; [2] Miller, Henry. Nexus: p.179; [3] Martin, Jay. Always Merry And Bright: p. 141 – Martin lists various items that June had collected into a “black pasteboard trunk.” His source for the list of items is referred to in footnotes as Tropic Of Cancer manuscript, III, 6-7; [4] Miller, Henry. Nexus, p. 179; [5] See note 4. Martin refers to “autographed manuscripts of poems.”; [6] Jacqueline Rollfinke. 1986. The call of human nature: the role of scatology in modern German literature, p.165; [7] Witkovsky, Matthew. 2004. "Surrealism in the Plural: Guillaume Apollinaire, Ivan Goll and Devìtsil in the 1920s." Online at Surrealism Centre ; [8] Brandt, George W. 1998. Modern theories of drama, p.171; [9] Miller is quoted in Dissent magazine, Winter 1972 – they appear to be quoting the Evergreen Review, but I’m not sure which article; [10] Miller, Henry. “The Man at the Zoo,” published in Evergreen Review [No. 40, 1966], and available online; [11] Miller, Henry. “An Open Letter to All and Sundry,” in Stand Still Like the Hummingbird, p. 44; [12] According to Shifreen & Jackson’s Bibliography of Primary Sources, this Evergreen essay is the same as the one that appeared in Ecce Homo (Item A179 + B177).

The Santa Fe Social Pages

2009-04-17T19:35:00.010-04:00

About half-way through Henry Miller’s American road-trip, which was to become The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, he stayed over in New Mexico for a short stay. It was April 1941. Only a few weeks earlier, Henry had returned to the South, after having interrupted his adventure and flown to New York due to the death of his father. He hoped for a “pleasant and picturesque” stay in New Mexico [1], as his 1932 Buick sedan rolled him towards his new destination.

On April 12, 1941, Henry wrote to Anais Nin from Sante Fe, NM. He had recently been in Santa Rosa, where he mailed her a letter and bought a new pair of shoes, as his old pair was practically coming apart off his feet. He arrived in Sante Fe in the morning, anxious to receive more money through Western Union, since he only had $5 left. “Can't say yet what I think of Santa Fe. It's 7200 ft. high and makes you very nervous. I'm jumpy. The last 300 miles were quite grueling.” [2]

On April 19th, he writes Anais from Albuquerque, where he is thinking of staying on for a week. “Can work in peace here,” he states. “This place in itself is nil. They tell me Taos is fine” [4]

“On the license plates in New Mexico it reads: ‘The Land of Enchantment’. And that it is, by God!” writes Miller in Air-Conditioned Nightmare [p.239]. Once he hits Tucumcari, the desert terrain disorients him: “there is nothing but enchantment, sorcery, illusionismus, phantasmagoria.” He goes on to describe the general area shared by Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona as “the land of the Indian par excellence. Everything is hypnagogic, chthonian and super-celestial.” In New Mexico, Henry has found that he “cough[ed] like hell” due to the dust in the atmosphere [3].

1941 New Mexico license plate. Source: Plate Depot

Beyond these things, Miller has left very little behind about his fleeting experience in New Mexico. But his stay was enough to make the Santa Fe social pages. Under the “Village Gossip” column of the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper, for April 26, 1941, there is mention that Miller is “coming back” to Santa Fe (his original arrival was April 12th). This is possible. But, by April 30th, he was posting letters to Anais from Arizona [4].

The Santa Fe New Mexican column mentions that Miller has recently come from Europe and Greece, and quotes him as saying “the present way of life, which is America’s, is doomed as surely as that of Europe.” The quote would appear in The Colossus of Maroussi [p.236] when it is first published in October 1941 [5]. The paper could not have the book yet, but offers this clue as to its source: “Mr. Miller has four columns in the special section called ‘American Writing’ in the April 21 issue of the ‘New Republic.’ It is entitled ‘A Peroration to a Book on Greece.’ Mr. Miller points to the wonderful effect a visit to Greece had upon him.” [this essay appeared in New Republic just as the column says, and is listed under Shifreen & Jackson as C87].

While in Santa Fe, Henry apparently made the acquaintance of newspaper writer Brian Boru Dunne, if his gossip column in 1945 is any indication. “Miller … is an interesting writer, who visited Santa Fe about three years ago, after he got out of Crete and Greece” (Santa Fe New Mexican, March 16, 1945, p.6). “He told me how he dodged the chief of police in Crete, fearing he would be asked about passports he did not possess. Later, Miller discovered the chief of police had been requested by Mother England to show him about. Miller might have saved $100 to $200 in taxi fares if he had not been so suspicious, Miller wrote eloquently in ‘Colossus of Maroussi,’ about his visit to Greece.” Dunne implies that Miller told him this story himself. It would not have been hard for Miller to have found Brian Boru Dunne in Sante Fe. He appears to have worn a hat like a dandy, and pursued every female in Sante Fe, giving them gold watches he bought in bulk for cheap: “BB Dunne gained fame as the town's society reporter and all-round eccentric” [6].

At left: The header graphic used for Brain Boru Dunne's social column.

Dunne mentions Miller’s new book, “The Murderer,” whose title he finds “disagreeable.” Maybe he would have appreciated it more if he named it correctly: Murder The Murderer, a 70-page book published in October 1944, and subtitled “An Excursus on War from ‘The Air-Conditioned Nightmare’” (not then released). Dunne goes on to complain: “Unfortunately for this Villager, Miller forgot to send a copy—merely sent a publisher’s blurb with two big-lettered words, ‘Cash’ and ‘Charge.’ It would require a plumber’s income to buy all the books brought to the attention of this columnist. Miller is now living in Big Sur, Calif., and he asks: ‘What do you know about the magazine Circle?’ Frankly, this is one magazine I have missed.” Throughout 1944, Miller’s essays and artwork had appeared in a new magazine called Circle.

“Miller is a super-sensitive writer,” continues Dunne. “[He] could not sleep in a room at a hotel in Lourdes as he wondered: 'Who has occupied this room, and which of the 500 diseases left germs in that wallpaper?'” Miller, accordingly dressed, and shoes in hand, tiptoed down to lobby. Slept on two chairs and 'beat it' out of Lourdes.”

The Air-Conditioned Nightmare was first published in December 1945. Miller, “a Santa Fe visitor some time ago,” once again appears in the Santa Fe New Mexican gossip page ("Paso Por Aqui"), on February 1, 1946. Instead of giving Nightmare a proper review, the anonymous author chose to quote a negative “slating” the book had received from the New York Times, by Bernard De Voto: “Miller’s dissatisfaction with America [would be] understandable in the Twenties, but ‘in 1946 it looks less like young innocence and youthful idealism than arrested development.’”

The Santa Fe is quoting De Voto’s “Mr. Miller's Chthonian Nightmare,” New York Times, January 27, 1946.

REFERENCES

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[1] Miller, Henry, and Anais Nin. 1965. Letters to Anais Nin. Ed. Gunther Stuhlmann: p.246; [2] ibid: p. 247; [3] Miller, Henry, and Anais Nin. 1987. A Literate Passion. Ed. Gunther Stuhlmann: p.326; [4] Letters to Anais Nin (1965), p.256; [5] Shifreen & Jackson. Bibliography of Primary Sources, Vol. 1: Item A26a; [6] La Farge, John Pen. Turn Left at the Sleeping Dog: p.109-110.

Vintage Miller

2009-04-10T19:32:00.007-04:00

In 1996, the Kenwood winery of Kenwood, California, released a Cabernet Sauvignon with a watercolour painting by Henry Miller on the bottle’s label. The painting, “Clown” was part of the vineyards’ Artist Series that began in 1978. Miller had approved the use of his artwork shortly before he died in 1980.

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In 1973, Miller painted two pictures of clowns, apparently referred to as “Clown A” and “Clown B” [1]. One clown is described by Miller as having the “head up and turned backward.” The other is described as the “most famous one,” which he had in his personal possession in 1979 [2]. In a letter dated 2/14/79, Miller is not sure which is A or B—neither am I. But the “famous” clown—now seemingly referred to as “Le Clown”(1, 2)—seems most certainly the one featured on the bottle of Kenwood wine. This image is widely available today as a lithographic print. In 1978, Miller had won first prize for this painting at the Tel Aviv International Art Fair [3].

(see Karl Orend’s Henry Miller’s Angelic Clown for an explanation of Miller’s interest in clowns, which were featured in his Smile At the Foot of the Ladder.)

Sometime after the Israeli award in 1978, and before February 1979, Miller received a letter from a vinyard owner named Marty Lee. Lee was co-founder of Kenwood winery in 1970, along with his brother Mike, college roomate John Sheela and winemaker Bob Kozlowski (a brief history). In 1978, to commemorate their first reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (from 1975), they used artwork by California-based artist John Goines. The image of a naked woman lounging on a hilltop was rejected by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for being “obscene and indecent.” But the “notoriety and rarity of the original design (which was released in a limit of 80 cases) launched the Artist Series in a big way,” states their current website.

I wonder if the issue of censorhsip is what brought Henry Miller to the minds of the Kenwood team. Miller, who was living in Pacific Palisades, was not doing much writing or painting in 1979. His eyesight was failing him in one eye, and had left him blind in another. For this reason, when Marty Lee’s letter arrived to his attention, he had to decline their request for a commission of original artwork for their new Artist Series of wine [4].

On February 9, 1979, Lee wrote Miller again, to suggest an alternative. He asked for permission to use a lithograph of Miller’s “Clown,” which already existed and would be easier on Miller. In exchange for a copy of the lithograph, Lee would offer several cases of wine, plus five cases of the “Clown”-labelled wine once it was bottled—probably not until 1981 or 1982.

In reply, on February 14th, Miller tells Lee that the “proposition sounds OK”---but “God knows if I’ll be alive in ’81 or ’82.” Miller died on June 7, 1980, but the Kenwood winery continued working with Miller’s estate towards the inclusion of his artwork as part of the Artist Series. But it would take another decade before the project was begun.

In October 1992, after a long, cool growing season, Kenwood gathered grapes from the Lindholm and Montecillo vineyards on the hills of Sonoma Valley (details). “It was aged in small French Oak barrels and bottled in March 1995," after being blended with Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Unlike previous Artist Series wines, this one was held off market a year longer than usual, until Autumn 1996. The recommended drinking time was 2000-2005. According to the wine review website, Snooth, this Miller-labelled batch of wine should be good to drink until 2018.

The 1992 Kenwood Artist Series batch received some high praise (Snooth). Although Miller did not live to sample this particular wine, his opinion of Californian wines in general was not one of high endorsement. In the documentary Dinner With Henry, Miller says “I really don’t care much about California wines, they don’t taste much different, one from another.”

The Kenwood Artist Series continues, with their last edition (bottled in 2006) featuring artist Shepard Fairey, newly famous for his Barack Obama "HOPE" poster.

________________________________________
REFERENCES

[1] Facsimilies of some of the correspondance between Lee and Miller was made available on a Kenwood promo flyer in 1996. Lee is the one to refer to a "Clown A" and "Clown B." Miller does not remember which was which; [2] Miller's letter to Lee, dated 2/14/79; [3] This is claimed by Miller in his letter to Lee--I haven't been able to substantiate it otherwise, although his artwork was on exhibition at this Art Fair in Israel; [4] Lee's letter, dated February 7, 1979, in which he is commenting upon a letter I have not seen.

The Annotated Nexus - Page 60

2009-04-04T21:43:00.006-04:00

60.0 Miller recounts several details about living with Stasia in the basement, including secret meetings in her room with Mona, her poems, wall painting, and wrestling. Sometimes he would go out to meet with a friend like Osiecki or Curley, to avoid the basement’s “loony atmosphere.”

60.1 a benefactor
Henry is asked sometimes to leave the basement apartment so that Mona and Stasia can entertain a “benefactor”—“who brought a supply of groceries or who left a check on the table.” The women would use various kinds of secret communication to discuss these arrangements without Henry’s knowledge. See 51.1 about the allusion that Mona and Stasia sometimes used sex to raise money.

60.2 the poems Stasia wrote
Miller comments that Stasia’s poetry has been becoming “more and more unintelligible.” On page 48 (48.3), Miller makes reference to Stasia (Jean Kronski) writing poetry. In Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal, volume 4, Karl Orend presents two poems attributed to Jean Kronski, including one that was published in the Paris edition of the Chicago Tribune.

60.3 Rimbaud’s influence
Jean claims that it may be Arthur Rimbaud’s influence that has made her poetry, in Miller’s eyes, “more and more unintelligible.” “Rimbaud set out to transform his art, and language itself,” writes Penguin Classics of the French poet, “by a systematic ‘disordering of all the senses,’ often with the aid of alcohol and drugs.” In Miller’s study of Rimbaud, to come much later in his life (Time of the Assassins), he criticizes modern poetry (circa the beatnik era): “They justify their impotence by deliberately making themselves unintelligible” [p.59]. On the previous page of Nexus (59), Miller discusses Jean’s interest in Rimbaud.

60.4 Osiecki
A bit of social relief from the happenings in the apartment (including wrestling matches between the women) comes from Miller’s neurotic Canadian friend, Osiecki. We first saw reference of him in Nexus at 9.9. He is portrayed in Plexus, and will appear in an extended scene in Nexus starting on page 133.

60.5 a funeral parlor, a few blocks away
Osiecki takes Henry out for a few beers, to a speakeasy above a nearby funeral parlor. On page 239, Miller will make reference to an “Italian” funeral parlor, but its location is not specified—it may not be the same. According to a Brooklyn directory of undertakers in 1922, a man named Bernard Reilly worked as an undertaker at 9 Henry Street (at Fulton), which was six blocks north of the apartment. I’m not sure that an undertaker’s address necessarily means that a funeral parlor existed there. Nor does it mean that this was the parlor that Miller was talking about.

60.6 wandering about … Hoboken
When Osiecki wasn’t available, Miller would sometimes “forlornly” wander through Hoboken, New Jersey: “I’d try to convince myself that it was an interesting burg.” Perhaps Miller decided to go to Hoboken because it reminded him of the time he and June were married there in 1924. At that time, he’d thought of Hoboken as “a sad, dreary place. A city more foreign to me than Peking or Lhasa” [Sexus, p.452].

60.7 Weehawken
As an alternative to Hoboken, Miller would sometimes visit Weehawken to catch a burlesque show. The town is compared to Hoboken as “another God-forsaken place.” Weehawken, New Jersey borders Hoboken. “Weehawken was then [in the 1920s] a town of 14,000 nestled on the cliffs of the Palisades, and familiar to most New Yorkers only as the other end of a short ferry ride” (Greg Lawrence, Dance With Demons: New York Times excerpt, 2001). I wasn’t able to identify any burlesque houses in Weehawken for this time period.

A postcard of West Hoboken, showing lower Weehawken in 1913. Source: Maggieblanck.com

60.8 continual chanting of love songs
Mona and Stasia’s constant singing (“in Russian, German, even Yiddish”) is one of the things creating a “loony atmosphere” in the basement apartment, which Henry sometimes wants to escape. See 57.4 about Mona and Stasia repeatedly singing Let Me Call You Sweetheart. They sing it again on page 151.

60.9 dreary talk of drugs
Miller also gets tired of Mona and Stasia talking about drugs. Drug use is not something I’ve found much reference to in Miller’s books. According to Anais Nin, June talked often of drugs: “June talked constantly about drugs, like the criminal who returns to the scene of the crime. She needed to mention the subject while violently denying ever taking drugs (two or three times, perhaps).” She then summarizes Henry’s opinion of drug use: “taking drugs denoted a deficiency in one’s nature” [Henry and June: from the unexpurgated diary of Anaïs Nin, p.201].

60.10 caricature of Stasia
Sometimes, when bored, Miller would borrow paint and brushes and make a caricature of Stasia directly onto a wall in the apartment. In response, Stasia (Jean) would make one of Henry. Henry also tells of painting a skull-and-crossbones over Stasia’s door, to which she added an image of a knife. I assume that he borrowed the paints from Stasia (as the active visual artist of the three).

This reference establishes that Miller was at least casually painting in 1926. It would be amazing to somehow find a photograph of this wall caricature, because it would not only let us see an image of “Jean Kronski,” but also reveal an early example of Millers’ painting abilities.

60.11 pearl-handed revolver
As a random point of interest, Miller mentions that Stasia once showed him a small revolver she owned, “just in case.” In screenwriter Bernard Gordon’s memoir, Hollywood Exile (p.12), in which he writes about his wife Jean Lewin’s younger years (I believe that this Jean is at least in part the basis of “Jean Kronski” a.k.a. Stasia), he mentions that Jean left New York with another woman, hitch-hiking to California, dressed as boys. While doing so, they ran into some trouble, remedied by a revolver produced by Jean’s friend. Maybe the gun actually belonged to Jean?

60.12 Polish section of Manhattan
During one of Miller’s local wanderings, he ends up at a pool-hall in the Polish section of Manhattan. As far as I can tell, the traditional Polish neighbourhood of New York is Greenpoint, in Brooklyn, with a couple of others in Queens (see this Newsday article). As for Manhattan itself in the 1920s, all I can really dig up as a possibility is the neighbourhood around “St. Stanislaus's Polish Roman Catholic Church, in Seventh Street, between First Avenue and Avenue A” (New York Times, Oct. 15, 1922, p.16). Maybe some of you New Yorkers know better?

60.13 Curley
While in the pool-hall mentioned above, Miller happens to see a young man he knows named “Curley,” who is with a strange young friend just out of prison. They want to go back to Miller’s apartment to hang out. On the subway there, Henry tells Curley about his strained situation with Stasia; Curley reacts as if this is a familiar scenario to him.

In Tropic of Capricorn (pp.111-119), Miller describes his young friend Curley, who applied to Miller as a messenger boy when he was 14, back in Miller’s Western Union days as an employment manager. In Capricorn, Miller states that Curley lives in Harlem, and has no moral sense or shame, which made it easy for him to act as an opportunistic thief. His parents were carnival folk who were always traveling and had no use for him. Henry liked the young lad, but he never trusted him: “He would do anything in the world for me and at the same time betray me” (112).

In Sexus, where Curley makes frequent appearances, Miller describes him twice (pp. 16, 47) as his “little stooge.” Throughout the novel, Curley is mixed-up in Miller’s tangled love life.

Even in Plexus, Curley re-appears. When we last see him (Plexus precedes Nexus chronologically), Henry and Mona try to reason with him to not lead a life of crime, nor to kill the step-father that he loathes (p.521-525). Hearing Miller describe Stasia as an unwanted 'third person' probably reminds Curley of the intrusion of his hated step-father.

In Nexus, the psychopathic Curley will be in the basement apartment for the next couple of pages, fixated on the idea to help Henry “rid” himself of the troublesome Stasia.

<--- Previous page 59 . Next page 61 --->

Nexus: The Int'l Henry Miller Journal - Vol. 6

2009-03-29T19:10:00.004-04:00

The sixth edition of Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal has now been released for 2009. The journal is published annually, and compiles a wide-range of material devoted to the subject of Henry Miller. The current volume is 270 pages.

CONTENTS

Page 3 – What India Means To Me (by Henry Miller)

This five-page homage to India and its people was originally published in January 1949, in the English section of a Bombay-based magazine called Kaiser-I-Hind. Miller had written it only a year after India had won its independence from English colonial domination. Miller blames the morally and spiritually “bankrupt” West for the physical and social strife afflicted upon a now “mummified” India; but Miller anticipates a re-emergence of the nation, which he characterizes as spiritually enlightened, where the human spirit blossoms to its fullest (even when “clad in rags”). [Annotated by Karl Orend]

Page 11 – The Edge of the Miraculous – First Reflections on Henry Miller and Art (By Karl Orend)

Besides his output as an author, Henry Miller also produced over 3,000 watercolour paintings in his lifetime, some of which have been exhibited internationally. In this essay, Karl Orend traces the origin of Miller’s relationship with the visual and musical arts, and considers how they influenced his written work. Through his interactions with Art and artists themselves, he learned how to observe life with greater attention to detail, recognizing life itself as a “form of great art” (Art in everyday life)---something gleaned from Elie Faure’s History of Art. The flow of his writing style reflected the free, creative flow of the music and painting that inspired him. He learned to paint with words, and to make those words interact with the reader (as does great Art). While the act of writing tired him later in life, painting offered relaxation, freedom, and a reward equivalent to love.

Page 39 - Dear Henry, Dear Father – An Epistolary Exchange Between Heinrich and Henry Miller, 1937 (by Karl Orend)

In 1937, while Miller continued his struggle as a full-time writer in Paris, his father, Heinrich, also struggled with failures in the tailoring business in New York. Here, Orend presents a summary of a letter written from father to son, requesting a discrete, monthly financial contribution to help with his support of the family. But Heinrich Miller does not fully realize the extent to which Henry has been suffering in Paris. Using quotes and explanations, Orend summarizes Henry’s responding letter, in which he blames the “too dreamy” paternal bloodline for its sad lack of success, and itemizes the reasons why his literary career has left him in near-poverty and forces him to shamelessly accept all charity---even to steal from friends. This is a rare and intimate glimpse into the relationship of Henry Miller and his father.

Page 44 – Fucking Your Way to Paradise: An Introduction to Anarchism in the Life and Work of Henry Miller (by Karl Orend)

As he has done with the subject of Art in this issue, Karl Orend takes the theme of Anarchism and traces its origins and influences on the life and work of Henry Miller. Influenced in his anti-war stance by his grandfather Valentin Nieting, an anarchist sympathizer, young Henry Miller had a turning point in 1912, upon attending a lecture by Emma Goldman, and purchasing books there by Nietzsche and Max Stirner. Miller would come to embrace an individualist anarchism, which would later find contradiction with his desire for community and compassion. But the “danger” that revolutionary anarchism presents was almost always present in Miller’s written work; he wanted to contribute to the destruction of the State so that a brotherhood of individuals could arise—a perspective of Miller’s that is often minimized and lost in the smokescreen of the sex found in some of his writing. Orend does well to establish what “anarchist” meant back in the early 20th century. He also shows that Miller stuck tenaciously to his individualist anarchist ideals for nearly his entire life.

Page 78 – Personal Landscapes: The Influence of The Story of My Heart on The Colossus of Maroussi (By Eric Lehman)

In Miller’s Colossus Of Maroussi, the Greek landscape is described with a grand and pronounced lyrical style, which seems uncharacteristic when one considers the city-centered novels that preceded it. In this essay, Lehman suggests that this change was influenced by Miller’s reading of Richard Jeffries’ The Story of My Heart, which viewed the English countryside for its social and spiritual symbolism, and not merely as geography. Through Story (which he read before writing Maroussi), Miller found a kindred spirit in Jeffries, whom he wrote about in his Books In My Life. Several key links are made between the two books, including the portrayal of natural landscape as having a transformative effect on human character and soul.

Page 90 – Henry Miller Decades Later (by Richard Kostelanetz)

Artist Richard Kostelanetz was an undergrad at Brown University in 1961, when he wrote a B.A. honors thesis on Henry Miller. Decades later, in 2009, passages from this thesis finally see publication within the pages of Nexus. Kostelanetz looks at Miller’s prose of self-liberation, and its pre-occupation with human filth. He also examines Miller as voracious reader and literary critic. A number of critical points are also made: his occasional use of "sad clichés," and the weakness of his portrayal of the sexual experience. In conclusion, Miller is placed on the level of “major writer” in the hierarchy of American literature---one level beneath the greats.

Page 115 – Writing the Underground (by Maria Bloshteyn)

Miller’s texts and characters have been repeatedly linked to Dosteovsky’s Notes From Underground, although Miller never made any explicit connection between his work and that particular novel (although he greatly admired the Russian author). However, Bloshteyn--author of the recent The Making of a Counter-Culture Icon: Henry Miller’s Dostoevsky--finds several compelling links between the unnamed narrator of Notes From Underground and Miller’s Paris-based novels. Besides outward similarities of age and life situation between Miller’s “Henry Miller” character and the ‘Underground Man’ of Underground, these two anti-heroes share similar perspectives on contemporary culture and its dominant paradigms. Bloshteyn goes further to find influence of this novel on the works of Anais Nin and Lawrence Durrell.

Page 165 – Hoki Enacts the Death of Mishima (by Harry Kiakis)

Harry Kiaskis once again provides Nexus Journal readers with a glimpse into the daily life of Henry Miller, as recorded in his personal journal notes, this time circa 1971. Here, we find Henry’s wife Hoki about to open a private Japanese club on Crenshaw Blvd, and acting out the public suicide of Yushio Mishima; and we get Henry’s reactions to the cost of his Insomnia book and his first screening of the documentary The Henry Miller Odyssey. Other brief details and quotes pertain to his son Tony, Christmas cards, and Henry getting a kick out of a brand new tape recorder.

Page 169 – Henry Miller’s Passionate Reading of Images (by Branko Aleksić)

Aleksić maps the theme of ‘art in cinema’ throughout the writing career of Miller. Miller is placed within the new cinematic art movement in Europe in the 1930s, and shown to have been influenced by it in his adoption of Surrealism in the 1930s, as found in his screenplay Scenario (a Film with Sound). Filmmaker Luis Buñuel figures prominently in this influence. [essay translated by Karl Orend]

Page 184 – Henry Miller’s Tropic Novels: Weather, Sickness and Benjamin’s Flăneur (by Heather Marcelle Crickenberger)

Referencing Walter Benjamin’s study of Baudelaire as flănuer, Crickenberger finds that Henry Miller fits the profile of an active urban observer; an intellectual parasite on an idle stroll at his own pace, particularly through the streets of Paris in the novels Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn. Miller’s narrative is filled with “placeness,” in which the flănuer feels at home—in fact, the external world merges with the monologue he presents us with, and the urban landscape comes to reflect his mental state. Miller’s flănuerie is a form of spiritual practice.

Page 209 – Transgressing the Law of Literature (by Katy Masuga)

Masuga considers the limitations of language, and how Miller’s fluid and abstract prose helps to orient readers to an awareness of allusions rather than deceiving them into believing that words can render accurate images of the world. Miller accepts that writing begins where life ends, because the writer is removed from whatever compelled him to write. This dilution of expression is further eroded by attempts to capture objects with specific words—in reality, meanings are fluid. Miller captures the layers and textures of possible meanings . His constant play between the unification and destruction of language “announces the possibility of instability within language itself.”

Page 240 – Melancholic ‘Jabberwhorl Cronstadt’ & the Epileptoid Beast (by Sadi Ranson-Polizzotti)

In this essay, Ranson-Polizzotti interprets the character ‘Jabberwhorl Cronstadt’ (from Black Spring) as a veiled description of author Lewis Carol. Although the character is thought to be based on Miller’s friend Walter Lowenfels, clues are presented from Millers’ text to suggest that Miller consciously meant to reference Lewis Carol (including, but not limited to, his use of “nonsense” prose and the name “Jabberwhorl,” which is similar to Carol’s “Jabberwocky.”)

Page 249 – M: The Studio for Henry Miller (by Roger Jackson)

Jackson provides us with an overview of M: The Studio for Henry Miller, which acted as a studio and bookshop for the works of Miller. The studio was founded and run by Kathryn Winslow in Chicago between 1948-1958. Miller contributed his works and was appreciative, but, as the quotes from letters reveal in this essay, Miller was also embarrassed to promote a studio named after him; Winslow, it seems, was disappointed by his reaction to her generous efforts on his behalf. The piece contains ten photographs of the exterior and interior of the studio as it existed in the 1950s. It was torn down in 1958.

Page 260 – Review Essay: Obelisk and Olympia (by Jeff Bursey)

Bursey reviews the books, Obelisk: A History of Jack Kahane and the Obelisk Press (Neil Pearson, 2008) and The Paris Olympia Press (Patrick Kearney, 2008).

The current volume is available for US $20 (or $24 internaitionally) via the Nexus website.

The Cosmodemonic Offices

2009-03-20T22:44:00.011-04:00

“After working several months as a messenger,” wrote Henry Miller [1], “I entered the Western Union as personnel manager in 1920 and left afterward the end of 1924” [2]. Portions Sexus and Tropic Of Capricorn are devoted to Miller’s job for the communications giant he would maliciously dub The Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company. After a few months of working as a “special messenger”/employee spy, Miller was given a position as employment manager (Capricorn 19).

But, which office did Henry Miller work out of? This was a question that Kreg at Miller Walks proposed to me, along with several clues and leads. In our first collaboration of sorts, I have taken these leads and tried to piece together some answers as best I could.

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In the 1920s, Western Union was a monster of telecommunications, with thousands of offices throughout the United States and abroad. In New York, by 1920, they had both an uptown and downtown headquarters, a few employment offices, a large operating room beneath Wall Street, plus many cutomer outlets in Manhattan [2a]. To the best of my knowledge, here are Miller’s affiliations with the various branches:

* 195 Broadway, headquarters: Miller demands to see management here, after being denied a messenger job the day before; he will later be transferred here to keep him out of trouble.
* 186 Fifth Ave, Western Union Telegraph Building: Miller is hired here.
* 33 Park Place: the main employment office where he works the first couple of years; this is actually where he first applied as a messenger, but was rejected.
* 175 Fifth Ave, WU employment office in the Flatiron building;
* Unknown loft building where he would sleep at his desk and roller-skate.

SELLING HIMSELF AT THE 195 BROADWAY OFFICE

In Tropic of Capricorn, Miller describes how he was rejected for a messenger position during a visit to the “employment bureau of the telegraph company” (16) [see 33 Park Place]. “Rankled” by the snub, Henry got up early the next morning and, bypassing the employment office, went directly to the “main offices” (17) to see the president of the company: “…up to the twenty-fifth floor or wherever it was that the president and the vice-presidents had their cubicles.” (17)

The Western Union office building at 195 Broadway was 26-stories high [3]. Between 1913-15, it had been expanded from the previous 230-foot WU head office (b.1875) at Broadway and Dey, which had been damaged in fire [4]. This upgraded Western Union headquarters (shared by AT&T) stood in Lower Manhattan at Broadway and Fulton [take a look at the exterior and beautiful interior of the building as it stands today, at the 195Braodway website].

The company president was Newcomb Carlton. I can’t confirm that his office was on the 25th floor as Henry said, but that would make sense. The Vice-President was JC Willever. In Miller’s Molloch, Willever is called ‘Twilliger,’ and described as “That jackass on the thirteenth floor” (36). Miller got only as far as speaking with Willever’s secretary, who could not easily brush off Henry. As a result of his perseverance, Miller was sent to see the general manager “in another building uptown” (Capricorn 18). This reference to “uptown” also helps locate this office as the downtown (Lower Manhattan) location.

HIRED AT THE 186 FIFTH AVENUE OFFICE

Completed in 1884, the Western Union Telegraph Building (186 Fifth Ave) operated from West 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue, SW corner—uptown from 195 Broadway. Here, Miller was offered to work as a “special messenger”; an apprenticeship of sorts: “I was to float from office to office and observe the way affairs were conducted by all and sundry” (Capricorn 19). He was to discretely meet the general manager at his home from time to time to report on “the conditions in the hundred and one branches of the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company in New York City” (19). One such office may have been in the Flatiron building across the street—but I’ll get to that soon.

View some current photographs of the Western Union Telegraph Building (slated to become condos) at NYC Architetcture and Flickr (1, 2).

Above: This Western Union stone carving is found on the fascade of the

Western Union Telegraph Building at 186 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE AT 33 PARK PLACE

After three months of his probationary “special” assignment, Miller was given an office and a title of employment manager. “I was sitting at Sunset Place hiring and firing like a demon. It was a slaughterhouse, so help me God” (Capr 19). The name “Sunset Place” comes up a few pages earlier in Capricorn: the day he first applied for a messenger job and was denied: “…the employment office—at Sunset Place, they called it” (Capr 18). As far as I can tell, there was never a place called “Sunset Park” in Manhattan, although there is/was such a place in Brooklyn and Palisades Park, New Jersey. I believe Sunset Place is code for “Park Place,” which was just a few blocks north of the WU downtown headquarters.

In a 1919 New York Times article, I found a reference to “Western Union emploi office, 33 Park Place” [NY Times, Mar 22, 1919]. But I’ve been hard-pressed to find any other references to this address as a Western Union office. However, In Jay Martin’s Always Merry And Bright, he quotes from a letter that a prospective job applicant wrote after meeting with Henry in 1921: “When I was up to the main office at 33 Park Place…” (59).

And consider this. Below is the header of a Western Union telegram blank with Henry’s name and title on it: “Henry V. Miller, Employment Manager, Messenger Department.” The location—33 Park Place—clearly designates the location of his office.

Above: Miller's name and work address on a Western Union telegram blank.

In Miller’s Moloch, he identifies Western Union as “The Great American Telegraph Company,” and describes the building this way: “its messenger employment department [was housed] in a low ramshackle building in the downtown section of the city. On the top floor was a wardrobe depot; on the floor below a tailor shop, where the discarded uniforms of the messengers were renovated, cleaned, and pressed” … “The ground floor of this building was sectioned off into the employment office proper, facing the street, and a dressing room which occupied the rear of the premises. Along the side wall of this rear room tiny cubicles were partitioned off so as to permit the newly appointed messengers to dress and undress” (17-18).

“The employment office itself was exposed to the public eye. Two enormous plate-glass windows permitted the curious passerby a full sweep of the drama that was constantly being enacted within” (17-18). Later, in Sexus, Miller will describe this location as “the old messenger bureau with the dressing rooms in the rear” where he was able to get away with “shenanigans” (271).

Above: A view of the south-west corner of Church and Park Place in 1919, with the NW corner visible across the street. I believe that 33 Park Place was at or very close to this intersection, on the north side. Photo: New York Digital Gallery.

Miller describes this "downtown" building as “low” and “ramshackle.” This certainly does not seem to apply to the 10-storey, brand new Western Union Telegraph Building, the 26-storey headquarters at 195 Broadway, nor the grandiose Flatiron building uptown. I have been unable to find many details or photos of 33 Park Place in the 1920s. Below is a photograph of a building at the NW corner of Church and Park Place in 1934. Perhaps this is the buidling? Maybe it's the tiny buidling barely seen to its left? Perhaps the original 33 Park Place had been replaced by 1934? I have no conrecte answers.

Above: NW corner of Park Place and Church (1934). Photo: New York Digital Gallery.

The final piece of evidence that Miller worked at 33 Park Place is found on the New York locations list [5] that Henry had drafted for Robert Snyder’s documentary, The Henry Miller Odyssey: Both “Park Place NY” and “Flatiron bldg” are identified as his “WU offices”.

SHENANIGAN TRANSFER TO 195 BROADWAY

In Sexus, due to some shenanigans, Miller tells of a forced transfer to “the main office” with “Twilliger” about fifteen floors above him (the height confirms this is the downtown office). The office space was small and sweaty, and so loud that he had to see the company doctor more than once due to the strain that the necessary shouting caused on his throat. This appears to have lasted “a few months” (271).

FLATIRON BUILDING: THE “LAST” HEADQUARTERS

On page 272 of Sexus, Miller writes that he was then moved “uptown from the main office.” As a landmark, Miller happens to mention the clock on the Metropolitan Tower, which he sees out his window. The Metropolitan Life Tower is located at Madison Square, a two-minute walk from the Flatiron building, at the opposite southern corner of Madison Square Park.

Above: The Flatiron building (left) and Western Union Telegraph Building (right). Photo: Ardalan on Picasa.

The 22-storey wedge-shaped Flatiron building—located at the tri-section of Fifth, Broadway and 23rd—was just across the street from the Western Union Telegraph Building at 175 Fifth Avenue. The Flatiron would come to tower over the ten-storey WUTB when it was completed in 1902. Although I’ve barely found any reference to a Western Union employment office here in the 1920s, Catch 22 author Joseph Heller does confirm that one existed here in the 1940s, when he was a messenger boy: “I believe it was on street level in the Flatiron building itself that a large, central Western Union office was situated, with a locker room providing space and facilities for forty or fifty of us to change into our work clothes" (Heller, Now And Then (1998), p. 122).

This reference to a street-level employment office supports Miller’s description that he gave to his children, as recounted in Big Sur and the Orange of Hieronymous Bosch: “I gave them as good a description as I could of the streets and sights I loathe. I didn't start with Fifty-ninth Street either, but from the Flatiron Building at Twenty-third Street and Broadway. To be exact, I started from the Western Union office there, from the ground floor, where I once had my headquarters, my last headquarters" (81).

SLEEPING AND SKATING IN A FACTORY LOFT

But, in fact, Miller was transferred once again, “this time to the top of an old loft building in the twine and paper-box district. My desk stood in the center of an enormous deserted floor …” (Sexus, 365). Near the end of this career as an office worker, Henry would sometimes sleep at his desk and roller-skate in the expanse of the loft. I have no idea where this location may have been (any New York readers know where the "twine and paper-box district" was?).

From there, Miller eventually fled the life of office drudgery forever, “determined never to take a job again" [6].

REFERENCES

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[1] Miller's own biographical chronology, available at the Henry Miller Memorial Library wesbite; [2] Unpublished letter by Miller to Huntington Cairns, 1939--in Erica Jong's Devil At Large, p.74; [2a] Addresses referenced in George P Oslin, The Story of Telecommunications (1999); pp. 244, 254, 264, 300; [3] O'Shea, Michael Vincent. The World Book, 1918; p. 4208; [4] New York Times, Nov 19, 1911: "OLD WESTERN UNION BUILDING SOON TO GO"--see also NYC Architecture; [5] I had saved images of this handwritten list from Ebay about two years ago; [6] Miller's biographical chronology for 1924, found on the inside flap of the hardcover edition of My Life & Times.

Miller's Lucky Talisman

2009-02-28T16:29:00.013-05:00

On the dust-jacket of the 1961 edition of Sunday After The War, is a black and white portrait of Henry Miller (below), photographed by Larry Colwell. One detail about this photo has always intrigued me: no, not the weird pockets that droop like sagging breasts—it’s that low-hanging object on a chain around his neck. I wondered if that garish piece of folk art had a story and meaning behind it.

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Henry Miller met the Palestine-born Jewish painter Bezalel Schatz in December 1945, at a birthday party held in Henry’s honour in Big Sur [1]. Schatz, known to all as Lilak, proposed an art-book collaboration idea to Henry, which would become the lofty limited edition publication, Into The Nightlife [1]. Henry and Lilak became great friends. When, in 1952, Henry married Eve McClure (ref.)--the sister of Lilak’s wife Louise--they also became brothers-in-law, although at a distance: Lilak had moved to Israel several months earlier, after nearly 15 years in the U.S. [7].

It seems to me that Lilak sent Henry his lucky talisman directly from Israel in 1951 or early 1952 [2]. “I received this gift at a very low ebb in my life and [from] that moment I received it my ‘luck,’ so to speak, turned. I attribute this good fortune more to the spirit in which my friend sent it than to any magic inherent in the words,” wrote Miller to Elmer Gertz in 1962 [3].

The talisman in question was a rectangular, thin, silver tablet on which was written archaic Hebrew text. The words had been translated by numerous Jewish friends, but always with slight variation [4]. Henry understood it to be a “well-known Hebrew prayer which the rabbi recites on special occasion in the synagogue” [4]. Although Henry never wrote its meaning down, he remembered it as such:

God bless you and protect you. May the radiance of His vision illuminate your countenance. And may He instruct you in his ways.

I am absolutely not an authority on this subject, but a bit of research suggests to me that this is a variation on a prayer spoken on Purim, that goes:

May the Lord bless thee and guard thee. May the Lord let His countenance shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.

Henry was also under the impression that this silver amulet was 400-500 years old [5]. “[It’s been] so worn down by contact with the skin of everyone who’s worn it or touched it that the characters are almost effaced” [6].

He was also led to believe that it had been crafted by the Jews of Yemen. The Yemenite Jews were a subject of interest for Miller in 1950-51. When Lilak was still in Big Sur, he and Henry “had long talks about these wonderful artistic Jews [of Yemen]. He [Lilak] has painted a few—years ago” [7]. Schatz had indeed made portraits of Yemenite Jews, back in 1937, before he left the then-Palestine for the U.S. that same year [8]. One such etching from 1937, below, is entitled “Yanny Yemenite,” posted on the website for Beit Chevarim synagogue.

In 1950, Henry was also hearing about the Yemenite Jews from J. Rives Childs, who had recently been on an “ambassadorial mission” in Yemen and had sent information and souvenir spoons from Yemen as a gift for Henry’s daughter, Valentine [9]. In Books In My Life (1952, p. 254), Miller referenced “the wonderful Yemenite Jews who have in Yemen (Arabia) one of the most interesting capitals in the world — San'a.” Henry had been impressed with photographs of San’a found in a 1947 issue of National Geographic (but which he’d only seen in June 1950) [10].

The Jews of Yemen are thought to have migrated to that Arabic region in the time of King Solomon, to acquire gold and silver for the Temple of Jerusalem. They established a unique Jewish culture of their own over the following centuries. Shortly after the establishment of Israel in 1948--and the resulting heightened hostilities between Jews and Arabs--the Jewish population in the Muslim republic of Yemen suffered an anti-Jewish backlash. The resulting exodus in 1949-1950 (under the nickname Operation Magic Carpet) brought 50,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel, virtually emptying the population from Yemen. (all of these references from Wikipedia and the Jewish Virtual Library). It seems likely that these world events brought the Yemenite Jews to Miller’s attention.

The Yemenite Jews had a reputation as silver-smiths (ref: aish.com – see several examples of their work at the Anahita Gallery), and brought this trade with them to Israel. “There are thousands of these talismen floating about in Israel and elsewhere,” wrote Henry in 1962 [4].

When Henry reunited in Spain with his friend Alfred Perles in 1952, one of the first things Alf noticed was Henry’s talisman: “He could have been taken for a mildly eccentric tramp” [11]. Perles observed that Henry was quite serious about the medallion’s “miraculous qualities. He claimed he hadn’t had a day of bad luck since acquiring it. ‘I never take it off,’ he said. ‘Not even in bed,’ Eve confirmed with a wry smile. ‘I’m full of black and blue marks.’ ‘That’s a by-product of passion.’ Anne laughed. ‘That talisman also probably makes for virility.’ Henry laughed” [12]. (Miller would later write that Perles’ account should be “taken with a grain of salt” [3]).

Nearly a decade later, Henry was still wearing the Yemenite talisman. “I’ve worn it for a very long time,” he explained to his friend, Brassai, in 1960, when it had become exposed after he undid his shirt buttons on a hot day. “Rightly or wrongly, I think it will bring me luck” [6].

In preparation for understanding his client for the legal defence of Tropic Of Cancer in 1962, lawyer Elmer Gertz read Perles’ book and was intrigued by the account of Miller’s talisman. A query about it to the publisher of the Henry Miller Literary Society resulted in a direct response from Miller himself, on January 3, 1962—from which much of the information in this posting comes. By this date, Henry no longer wore the talisman, “because I am tired of answering the foolish questions people put to me” [4]. Instead, Henry carried it in his pocket [4]. And a good thing, too, because the legal proceedings begun in 1962 had the good fortune to lead to the veil of obscenity finally being lifted from the novel once and for all in 1964 [13].

Footnotes

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[1] Miller, Henry. My Bike And Other Friends; p.19; [2] Gertz, Elmer, and Henry Miller. Years of Trial and Triumph; p.3. Miller writes, “this brother-in-law who sent it to me…” (emphasis added). Schatz relocated to Israel in 1951. This timeline seems consistent with the fact that Miller describes the talisman heralding an era of better fortune than the one he was leaving—his marriage to Lepska ended in 1951-52, and his marriage to Eve was to occur in 1952, which at the time he would have considered good fortune; [3] Gertz, Elmer, and Henry Miller. Years of Trial and Triumph; p.3; [4] ibid, p.2; [5] In Brassai’s 1960 account of a conversation with Miller in 1960, he quotes Miller as saying “400 years” (Henry Miller, Happy Rock; p. 83)—in the Gertz book, Miller is quoted as saying “500 years” (p. 2); [6] Brassai. Henry Miller, Happy Rock; p. 82; [7] Childs, J. Rives. Collector’s Quest; p.22—letter from HM to Childs, May 10, 1950; [8] Biography at the Schatz House in Jerusalem, online; [9] Childs, J. Rives. Collector’s Quest; p.48; [10] ibid, p.29; [11] Perles, Alfred. My Friend Henry Miller (paperback, 1962); p.161; [12] ibid, p.163; [13] Elmer Gertz Collection, Southern Illinois University.

Henry Miller Memorial Library - New Blog

2009-02-15T16:12:00.005-05:00

Emil White was a friend and assistant to Henry Miller during much of the author’s years lived in Big Sur, California. White lived in a cabin, four miles from Miller’s home. In 1981, a year after Miller’s death, White converted his home into the Henry Miller Memorial Library. This year, the Library will celebrate its 28th birthday. Although it’s not really a library, and could not be defined as a Miller museum per se, it does house some important archival material related to Miller’s life, it does sell Miller books, and it does function as a creative space that honours and celebrates the life and work of Miller. The HMML website goes further to explain what it is and isn’t, and provides some history and photographs.

Magnus Toren has been Executive Director of the Library since 1993/94. Toren discusses the Library and its mandate on a Net Squared online video. On this video, he also talks a bit about the HMML website, which has been active since 1995. Outside of the Wikipedia entry on Miller, the HMML is that first thing one finds when searching on-line for Henry Miller. On January 17 this year, the website created a new feature: a Henry Miller Memorial Library blog (see the first post, “The Henry Miller Library: Where Nothing Happens?” for a mission statement).

Magnus Toren talks about the HMML in an online video.

The blog is captained by Keely Richter, an Archivist at the HMML. Essentially, it appears that Keely will vicariously allow us all to live and work at the HMML through weekly, intimate postings about the daily activities at the “intimate little grove” in Big Sur. Although not usually about Miller in a direct way, Miller is omnipresent on various levels. In her most recent post (Feb 7), she is reminded how much she loves Miller, and discusses the HMML’s current project of scanning the original Miller-Emil Schnellock letter archive for posterity [an image of an original letter fragment is included].

SCHNELLOCK ARCHIVE

The HMML holds the Henry Miller / Emil Schnellock Archive, a collection of letters (and other items) between Miller and his boyhood friend Schnellock from New York, between 1922 and 1934. This priceless correspondence was the first thing to be relocated for protection against the recent wildlife in Big Sur (which the HMML survived unscathed). In this 2000 article in the Monterey County Weekly, Magnus Toren describes his experience in Big Sur, and details are provided about the Schnellock Archive.

ASHLEY COLLECTION

The HMML holds “the world’s most complete collection of English language Miller editions, including almost every published version of Tropic of Cancer (over 120 in all),” through a donation by William Ashley.

EMIL WHITE COLLECTION

Archive of materials relating to the life of the Library’s founder, Emil White.

BIG SUR COLLECTION

Books, pamphlets, letters, photos, magazines etc., relating to Big Sur.

PING•PONG

The Henry Miller Memorial Library publishes its own literary journal, called Ping•Pong (Miller was an enthusiast of the game, ping pong). The journal does not print works by Miller, but instead those of cotemporary authors who reflect the same kind of vitality as Miller—and, as such, “not everything published in Ping•Pong will be pretty”: “[If Miller were] alive and writing today, these would be his peers and contemporaries.”

The Henry Miller Memorial Library also hosts live musical events (Neil Young, Patti Smith and Phillip Glass have all performed here), an international short film screening series (this year from June 11 – August 30), writing workshops (next one in March), and local art exhibits and lectures.

For more images from both inside and outside the Henry Miller Memorial Library, see CuriousYellow's Flickr photo set.

HMML BLOG