Britt Govea of (((folkYeah!))) — who's also a Henry Miller Memorial Library board member — was spinning classic film tracks.
While the Library conveyed its own magic.
Then the night itself began.
Among this year's short film finalists..."Las Palmas" — a kind of vignette of how northerners might travel when they find themselves in sunnier lands where alcohol is less taxed.
Coincidentally or not, the HMML's own Hippie Sven followed in his own short film feature.
To provide some balance, Sven's alter ego, HMML director Magnus Torén, was also in attendance.
While "Tuba Atlantic" earned second place in the jury's selection, on Sunday it also received the Audience Award.
"Luminaris" received the jury's first place award.
The short films were great. So many events at the Henry Miller Memorial Library are wonderful. But it's the people who gather for them who make them real happenings.
(And by the way, if you missed the Gala Finale to the Big Sur International Short Film Series at HMML, you can catch it at the Independent in Sand City on Thursday, September 6.)
Don't know whether you've seen and heard Koyaanisqatsi before. But whether or not you have, I can't think of a better place to see and hear it (a first or third time) than within the amphitheatre of redwoods at the Henry Miller Memorial Library.
The HMML is already a noted film venue through the year-after-year success of its Big Sur International Short Film Series. But for experiencing a film like Koyaanisqatsi, whose very nature is a meditation upon the mythic upheavals in our relationship to wilderness and technology, the HMML is an even more poignantly fitting venue than usual.
Joanna Newsom, Tim Fain, and Philip Glass performing at this June's benefit for the HMML at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco.For Koyaanisqatsithe HMMLwill have a new state-of-the-artsound system in place to join its state-of-the-art projection system — the better to take in both the poetic visual imagery of the film and Philip Glass' musical score.
Speaking of which, here's a very important element of the evening: director Godfrey Reggio and composer Philip Glass will both be in attendance, and they'll host a question-and-answer period with the audience prior to the screening.
You can get your tickets here.Get them quickly, though. As I type this, a month before the event, half the available tickets already have been sold.
Image from "Koyaanisqatsi."Often we wax nostalgic over bygone cultural highpoints that we may or may not have been able to participate in ourselves. Say, the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1969, to take one event in particular, or, on the other hand, the "bohemian" reputation of the coast in the 30's and 40's.
But such cultural highpoints are still happening. And it's still largely up to us how much we choose to live within them.
Even if you haven't heard the term thethird space used formally, undoubtedtly you already understand it.
Kreuzberg Café, San Luis ObispoWe need something more than a first space (our home) and a second space (our workplace) in order for our communities to really thrive.
Blue Bottle, Mint Plaza, San FranciscoIn The Great Good Place, Ray Oldenburg...
"...identifies third places, or 'great good places,' as the public places on neutral ground where people can gather and interact. In contrast to first places (home) and second places (work), third places allow people to put aside their concerns and simply enjoy the company and conversation around them. Third places 'host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work.' Oldenburg suggests that beer gardens, main streets, pubs, cafés, coffeehouses, post offices, and other third places are the heart of a community’s social vitality and the foundation of a functioning democracy. They promote social equality by leveling the status of guests, provide a setting for grassroots politics, create habits of public association, and offer psychological support to individuals and communities."
Sally Loo's, San Luis ObispoKreuzbergOr in a third space, you can maintain your own cool quasi-anonymous distance instead — and observe the people and scene around you...
Sally Loo's...even as you get a little of your own work done at the same time.
Bello Mundo, San Luis ObispoBut keep your cool. Maintain your cool.
And display a little elegance.
Post No BillsOne of my favorite third spaces is Post No Bills in Sand City. I'm typing this journal here right now. Not only does Post No Bills feature a remarkable rotating lineup of beer taps — and artisan bottled beers in a wall-to-wall cooler — but it's consciously composed as a place where friends and "familiar stangers" can meet and interact.
This Thursday, April 5, a remarkable event will be occuring here. Post No Bills is located on the ground floor of The Independent.
No, the Red Hot Chili Peppers won't necessarily be appearing.
Henry Miller Memorial Library, Big SurBut on Thursday, April 5, the Henry Miller Memorial Library will be migrating northwards nonetheless. And they'll be packing alot of magic tricks in their carpetbag — books, food, drink, song, art...and some of the best films from the past six years of the Big Sur International Short Film Festival.
This means that two of the best places on the central coast are somehow converging — just for this one night.
"Is there a lovelier place to see live music in California than Big Sur's Henry Miller Memorial Library? Alas, Los Angeles, there is not. And as if to add insult to regional injury, they've gone and booked an excellent lineup of summer and fall shows that could easily pull audiences well beyond the library's 300-capacity lawn."
And the above accolade couldn't even foresee Wednesday night's stealth, invitation-only Red Hot Chili Peppers' concert — which was a surprise inauguration to the band's upcoming world tour celebrating the release of their 10th album, I'm with You.
But no better prelude to what would transpire than the introduction given by Henry Miller Memorial Library's president Maria Garcia Teutsch:
"Once again Emil White's little cabin plays host to a mad group of geniuses, The Red Hot Chili Peppers. We would begin by thanking them for supporting us here, hanging as we are on the the side of a continent, with condors overhead flipping the bird to extinction.
Big Sur resident Flea at Wednesday's stealth concert at HMML. A fan photo that appears in Spin magazine."And the Red Hot Chili Peppers are on their own cliff edge at the beginning of a world tour, with a new album humming and vibrating, waiting in the wings to be released next month, and we, the few joyous souls gathered here in this tiny canyon, get to be a part of its first flight, what a rare moment to be alive under these redwoods, under these stars close enough to 'drink.'
"We are also very grateful to the kind people at (((folk YEAH))) without whom this most special event would not have happened with such gossamer strings of perfection. Thank you.
"As a coastal watershed, we here at Henry Miller Library know something about the fragility of this ecosystem, and the beauty inherent in the Big Sur community, our neighbors, on this, our 30th anniversary season.
"It is important to us to maintain our commitment to artistic freedom, to the environment, to inspiration, and for this we could ask for no more fitting band than the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who are also close to their thirty year anniversary, and who, in all that time, have never failed to 'let her rip.'"
Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at 11:11PM 
