#henry_miller

[vincentaln]

My beloved fat magenta iguana

[hugotcom]

New Post has been published on Hugot.com

New Post True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life through devotion to something beyond himself. has been published on http://hugot.com/true-strength-lies-in-submission-which-permits-one-to-dedicate-his-life-through-devotion-to-something-beyond-himself/

True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life through devotion to something beyond himself. #Henry_Miller #Strength

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[pete-santiago]

Just going to be one of those days where you curl up like a wolf along side fellow wolves from another time... #Henry_Miller #Celine #east_village (at The Hermitage)

[pete-santiago]

Henry Miller's crib in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. #henry_miller #williamsburg #brooklyn #14th_ward (at Williamsburg)

[lichka]

Giving Up The Ghost (cont.)

"Strangely then, the best argument for fact is the absolute unaffordability of fiction. Thus it would appear the ghost haunting The Navidson Record, continually bashing against the door, is none other than the recurring threat of his own reality" -- Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves, p.149

There is an old Jewish tradition - when you visit a cemetery or a headstone of a loved one, you leave a rock or a pebble on the headstone to mark that you have been there. This is a sign of love and respect, a physical way of letting go, perhaps.

Rabbi Lerner (about.com) speculates: "It is difficult to know exactly when and why the custom originated and whether it is strictly Jewish. I personally suspect that this custom arose out of the time (possible Roman or earlier) when people - not all Jews - would weigh down the grave or seal the tomb with a stone in order to: (1) prevent anyone including animals from harming the body and (2) prevent an evil spirit from escaping out to harm us."

According to Rabbi Tom Louchheim, the custom of putting rocks on gravestones may have originated as a way to participate in building the gravestone (since in ancient times graves were usually marked with a cairn rather than a headstone, as we do today). The usual explanation for this custom is that, unlike flowers, rocks are permanent, so they remain on the grave as a memento forever, and symbolize that you will never forget the deceased. Another theory is that this custom is not for the deceased's benefit, but for the mourner's; seeing all the rocks that other have placed upon the grave is a comfort to someone grieving for a lost loved one. Read more: Why Do People Put Rocks on Gravestones? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_5016452_people-put-rocks-gravestones.html#ixzz1mwCiCO6G

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In the past couple of years, as I spend more time outside and appreciate the history and permanence of rocks of all shapes, sizes, locations and colors and their atomic effect on the energy and space between it all, I noticed that I've gotten into the habit of picking up rocks and storing them in my "ROCKS" pouch, until a later date and place, where I like to throw same rock into a different rabbit hole (into a canyon in Malibu, off of a rooftop in Brooklyn on New Years Eve, etc.) I didn't understand why I did it, but it felt good... to mix up the different energies places carry for me and taking a bit of the earth and leaving (forcing) that energy someplace else. I suppose I felt like I was letting go of some kind of memory that a specific place carried for me, into the same behemoth sized universe that brought the experience to me in the first place. It was all circular and good in my mind, symbolizing closure, change and a continuation of some kind of narrative. I only recently connected my personal odd pattern with this longtime Jewish tradition - perhaps seeing my family leave rocks on headstones at funerals as a little girl became an ingrained habit.

I guess, in a sense, by picking up and letting go of rocks along my personal path and the idea of placing a rock in memoriam for the deceased is a way of GIVING UP THE GHOST (see earlier post on Henry Miller's words). Not to be taken too literally or too abstractly - whatever haunts you, even if it's yourself, a quality you loathe or a pattern you've grown accustomed to - GIVE IT UP. It's just weighing you down.

"It is almost as if entrance let alone a purpose - any purpose - in the face of those endless lightless regions is reason enough to rejoice." -- Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves, p.153

[lichka]

We Have Need for Strong Hands, for Spirits who are Willing to Give Up the Ghost and Put on the Flesh...

-- Tropic of Cancer

Sometimes Henry Miller's words cause a restless stir and leave me a bit breathless, like a punch in the gut. He rambles for pages and pages and irritates for the most part, but then there's that one sentence or paragraph that just hits the nail on the head and knocks you down with introspection for a few minutes. At least long enough to get out your pencil and underline the passage, in case memory fails our life's work of documentation and the need to collect trophies that prove "i was there", "i felt that"...

I'm ecstatic that the Pink Bear sign has a new home (from the woods of hunting season in New Jersey, only to be stolen in the middle of the night by the over-active imaginations of spooky music influenced pranksters, to a corner in my room with a view in Greenpoint, and now on to Aik's apartment in Bushwick). Pink Bears have a new place to congregate in order to discuss, create, socialize... cocktail hour is still on schedule just the coordinates have changed; they are always changing. I'm ok with this sometimes painful truth; in fact, at the moment, I'm really excited about the future and tired of being stagnant. "Home is just a pair of slippers, anyways" is my motto. We learned long ago to keep our belongings minimal (maybe it's because of my romanticized view of immigrant roots and the Diaspora that keep life in small, compartmentalized doses?)... only a few postcards here and there, a couple of notebooks, a device to take a few snapshots, a LAMY pen for the things that need to be written in bold ink, a pencil for the things that can change, on a whim.

The narrative continues, even though I know full well that it is extremely unhealthy to see the whole thing as a novel, separated by chapters and injected with dramatic foreshadowing, and... of course, a momentum building soundtrack.

so, Mr. Miller, you and your disgust for Americana and appreciation for the crisp and magical Big Sur winds, I happily and anxiously accept your call to arms... to "put on the flesh"... but I unfortunately don't have time to read Tropic of Capricorn right now...

"Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos."  -- Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn, 1.

[lichka]

“Everyday we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty.”

Henry Miller, Sexus, p.26

[lichka]

To be sick, to be neurotic, if you like, is to ask for guarantees.

Henry Miller on psychoanalysis.  p.338 of Sexus