Past Postings of Interest to Nin Fans
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 1998 15:27:06 -0800
From: Magnus Torén
Hello out there!
A short message to let you know that the Henry Miller Library and Big
Sur has been under assault by Mother
Nature lately. The highway leading in and out of Big Sur has delivered
clear evidence that the surgery inflicted
on the landscape by us humans is less than perfect: water flows
downhill, and if it is not allowed to flow where it
has been flowing for the past 5000 years or so, it creates havoc.
We've been hammered by a lot of water and a lot of wind, we've been cut
off from the outside with no power, no
phones and no road, we're the happiest community alive!!
In fact some days ago I was getting down, through mud, trees and huge
rocks and boulders, to one of our local
bars. I chatted with one of the regulars, he said he'd never seen so
many happy locals before in his long life on
the coast (Nothing like some time spent looking into the needs of your
neighbors, meeting and cheering on!).
Reality for many is not easy though. Roofs gone, driveways washed out,
gardens wiped out, houses trashed by
falling trees etc. The working folks on the coast living off of the
visiting public are out of work. The highway will
probably not open up for visitors until early April at the earliest,
locals will be allowed in and out on temporary,
emergency roads once per week. All predictions are made hoping there
won't be another deluge.
The evening after the worst of the storm (100 mile/hour winds!!) I sat
on my front porch at home looking out over
what looked like the destruction of Jerusalem: branches, debris, water
gushing everywhere and heavy wind still
howling through the trees. I thought I'd better phone my Mom at home in
Sweden before the phones go out, I
did, it was eleven at night here so I woke her up:
"Hi Mom, my voice is traveling north along the coast, 40 miles through
wires that are dangling in and out of
canyons, across raging waters, in-between redwoods swinging like reeds,
atop hills exposed to ferocious winds,
through whatever switchboards/exchanges, across the north pole, and into
your cozy, centrally heated
apartment in Gothenburg...how are you?"
The Henry Miller Library stood proudly through it all, just some extra
redwood duff on the roof.
This is a very good time for you to help us out! We have no visitors and
no income so please consider curing
the general lack (?) of Miller books and art on yours and your friends
and families bookshelves/walls now!
Shipping and mailing in and out works fairly well ( it may take a day or
two extra) so the time to buy books and art
is now...please e-mail your order with credit card # or phone in at
408-667-2574.
If you need a current list of titles, new and used, (the list also
includes many books of interest other than books
by Miller) and a list of art work etc. available, please e-mail and
we'll get it right out to you.
Magnus Torén
By the way: if you don't want e-mail from the Library please reply with
a delete in the subject.
From the New York Times Feb 20 1998.
Randall Terry, radio show host in support of the indictments against
Barnes and Noble on obscenity charges:
"I'm out to obliterate child pornography"
Mr. Terry after seeing the two titles in question, "Radiant Identity"
and "The Age of Innocence":
"The pictures seemed to be suggestive-the positions of the children,
young girls in the shower, full frontal
nudity, two young boys on the beach."
Really!
Said Jock Sturges author of "Radiant Identities":
"To find the work obscene, you'd have to find homo sapiens between 1 and
17 inherently obscene, and I find
that obscene!"
Really! :) + :)
Subject:
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 08:28:47 -0800
From: Magnus Torén
To: Russel Barryl
Hello out there!
A short message to let you know that the Henry Miller Library and Big
Sur has been under assault by Mother Nature lately. The highway leading in
and out of Big Sur has delivered clear evidence that the surgery inflicted
on the landscape by us humans is less than perfect: water flows downhill,
and if it is not allowed to flow where it has been flowing for the past 5000
years or so, it creates havoc.
We've been hammered by a lot of water and a lot of wind, we've been cut
off from the outside with no power, no phones and no road, we're the
happiest community alive!!
In fact some days ago I was getting down, through mud, trees and huge
rocks and boulders, to one of our local bars. I chatted with one of the
regulars, he said he'd never seen so many happy locals before in his long life on
the coast (Nothing like some time spent looking into the needs of your
neighbors, meeting and cheering on!).
Reality for many is not easy though. Roofs gone, driveways washed out,
gardens wiped out, houses trashed by falling trees etc. The working
folks on the coast living off of the visiting public are out of work. The
highway will probably not open up for visitors until early April at the
earliest, locals will be allowed in and out on temporary, emergency roads once per
week. All predictions are made hoping there won't be another deluge.
The evening after the worst of the storm (100 mile/hour winds!!) I sat
on my front porch at home looking out over what looked like the destruction
of Jerusalem: branches, debris, water gushing everywhere and heavy wind
still howling through the trees. I thought I'd better phone my Mom at home in
Sweden before the phones go out, I did, it was eleven at night here so I
woke her up:
"Hi Mom, my voice is traveling north along the coast, 40 miles through
wires that are dangling in and out of canyons, across raging waters,
in-between redwoods swinging like reeds, atop hills exposed to ferocious
winds, through whatever switchboards/exchanges, across the north pole,
and into your cozy, centrally heated apartment in Gothenburg...how are you?"
The Henry Miller Library stood proudly through it all, just some extra
redwood duff on the roof.
This is a very good time for you to help us out! We have no visitors and
no income so please consider curing the general lack (?) of Miller books
and art on yours and your friends and families bookshelves/walls now! In
addition to the Miller titles we have many other great books. Shipping
and mailing in and out works fairly well ( it may take a day or two extra)
so the time to buy books and art is now...please e-mail your order with
credit card # or phone in at 408-667-2574.
If you would like a current list of titles, new and used, and a list of
art work etc. available, please e-mail and we'll get it right out to you.
Magnus Torén
Latest news on the storm damage:
The splendid solitude that was Big Sur before the Bixby Creek
bridge connected it to Carmel in 1933 has returned. Unlike the old days,
if you want to go there now you'll have to show the sheriff some
identification. Proof of residency (either a driver's license or a
utility bill) or a letter from a business authorizing entry is required to join
the Friday convoys which began February 13 and will end when Highway 1 is
repaired. No sightseers or tourists will be permitted, but delivery
trucks are allowed on the convoys, which will run every Friday.
There are three reasons for the strict rules about
local access to the Highway 1 construction zone: tourists, dollars, and
livelihoods. Almost everyone who has a job in Big Sur depend on the
tourist industry to survive. "We can't open Highway 1 quickly if we have to stop
the equipment every time people want to come through," said Orville
Morgan, a Caltrans maintenance supervisor. As it is, 150 Caltrans, Granite
Construction, and subcontractor employees are working 12 hour shifts,
seven days a week to repair the dozen washouts along the closed section of the
highway, which stretches 70 miles from Malpaso to the Monterey/San Luis
Obispo county line(The Henry Miller Library is located almost smack in
the middle of that stretch). If there are no more slides (and geologist Ron
Richman said he is "positive there will be more slides when it rains')
they are projecting an open Highway 1 in about a month. They are no
longer working at night, for safety reasons. "We've had three people killed
repairing this road in the past 15 years," said Caltrans Manager Gary
Saunders. "We are not going to jeopardize the lives of the workers out
here by working in the dark." One of the fatalities happened in 1983 near
Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. A bulldozer rolled over a steep slope
when the fill gave way. The body of that worker has never been found.
Another worker was killed when he drove his truck off a washed-away portion of
Highway 1 in the dark.