Thinking of Anais Nin

Yours, Jimmy

2012-01-06T09:27:00.000-06:00

Written 60 years ago and rediscovered on eBay, a young gay

man·s personal letters become fodder for a new opera..and includes letters from

Anais....

"Dear Jimmy:

Got your last long letter yesterday—be patient now—you'll be free soon. . . . [H]ow terrible it is that one cannot import one's experience—you will have to go through all your infernos. C'est triste. What is the good of gaining one's fulfillment if you have to watch those you love suffer from guilt and atonement? This is no religious language, though it sounds like it! Gore is happy in Rome—I am going to visit my favorite city, Fez—in Morocco—returning to NY in June.

I kiss you—

Anaïs

—Anaïs Nin to Jimmy, 1948"

The actual link is below.

Our site is in contact with David Kodeski who has graciously sent us copies of Anais's letters to Jimmy. Later we will be posting them after we find a volunteer to transcribe them. Apologies for the delay in posting the existence of this exciting new material we were hoping that perhaps more news about the opera would be forthcoming and we could ask for help from our readers in sending financial support to the Suitcase Opera Project

About the Project

For half a century, a cardboard suitcase sits in storage, forgotten. A suitcase filled with letters sent across the continent from one young man to another.

Letters filled with questions about life, art, literature, and the making of self – letters filled with the struggles of what it means to be a young gay man rubbing elbows with the queer literary, theatrical and musical elite of the New York in the early 1950s. Vidal. Capote. Williams. Bernstein. Anger. Letters filled with vivid depictions of long-gone bars that catered to the queer clientele of pre-Stonewall Manhattan – from beery juke-joint pick-up bars to tony salons where the well-dressed and well to do camped and coupled.

A cardboard suitcase, filled with letters that pleaded, cajoled, complained, and questioned. Letters filled with family frustrations, descriptions of beauty, tales of sexual conquest, and pining for lost loves.

From Jimmy to Howard, nearly two dozen letters, from New York to California – from Marine barracks, boarding houses, hotels, and one-room apartments – depicting the life of a bright young man on the cusp of becoming a fully realized and complete person – struggling to become well-read, erudite, urbane – heard, seen, loved.

For half a century, a cardboard suitcase sits in storage forgotten until time and chance tumble together and this case of memory is auctioned off to the highest bidder; its contents unknown. And in the middle-west, at the start of a new millennium, the suitcase is opened and the letters live again.

With a history of devising stage works from found texts, writer/performer David Kodeski, composer Eric Reda and director Karen Yates collaborate for the first time on what will be an unforgettable journey into an undiscovered record of American gay liberation.

The actual Reader link to the original story is below.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/gyrobase/ebay-opera-gay-suitcase-discovery/Content?oid=3305770&mode=print

Wayne McEvilly's Letter From Anais Nin

2011-12-23T07:35:00.008-06:00

This letter was sent by Wayne McEvilly

via Valerie Harms

"Valerie:

I thought of sending you some Nin material for you to use (or not) in your blog. I know she would have liked sharing this material with others. Here's a first.
Please let me know if this is in a format you can place in the blog- and if you would like for me to send more.
Thank you.
Wayne"

We look forward to posting other sharings in the New Year! It would help if we had a document

transcription of Anais's words for those who are accustomed to zooming in on material to read.

Rochelle Holt: Sharon Spencer Papers

2011-11-22T17:14:00.018-06:00

Sharon Spencer and Rochelle Holt January 1979
First an inquiry from Rochelle to Donna regarding finding a home for some Sharon Spencer papers

Donna, I'm in the process of cleaning and findng again. A while ago I remember you said there was a Swallow Press library for pertinent information? I have some of Sharon's books and not sure if they are in there, i.e. WIRE RIMS, VOICES FROM THE EARTH, her last unpublished ms. "Gentle Revolutionaries," a letter from Gabriel Alcocer Sanchez in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico regarding Sharon's last days which I reread, very sad. Anyway, do you think the collection would be interested in any of this??? If so, where would I send?

Then a response from Donna Ippolito

I'm aware of two collections, U.of Illinois Chicago has a Swallow Press collection, but I don't have any contact information. You can look it up online, however, because I've done so in the past, back in 2004, I think. Also, Northwestern U. has an Anais Nin collection. I was there with Valerie some 30 years ago and saw only materials from Nin & Henry Miller, but who knows what other kinds of documents they'd be interested in. When we corresponded about this before, I also suggested that you contact Montclair College. Maybe they have a Sharon Spencer collection by now or would be interested in starting one. Someone in the English Department might also know who else you might contact. These are all just suggestions, of course. I have no specific email links or contact names to provide. Last time this came up, Moira & I tried to find Sharon's sister, who had all Sharon's papers, but the contact information for Pat was out of date and led to a dead end. Also, aren't Anais's papers in California somewhere? Moira might be able to help by putting up something on the website--perhaps a notice that your materials are available, with a call to anyone who might know where they could find a home. I wish I could be more help than this, but if you have time to Google, I'm guessing you will eventually turn up something. Unfortunately, I'm not able to do the legwork. Hope all is well - Donna

Then a reply from Rochelle, who had no luck with Montclair

Someone suggested I start with Montclair where my late friend Sharon Spencer taught a number of years; she passed in 2002. I've found papers, books and her last unpublished ms. I'm wondering if Montclair ever started a special collections for Dr. Sharon Spencer? Let me know. Rochelle Lynn Holt She and I were part of the Anais Nin Circle

No collection was ever started of Sharon's work. I don't know that we have done that for any present or former faculty member.

but did have luck with Northwestern University.

Northwestern U Special Collections will take anything regarding Sharon Spencer which is where I'm sending her last ms. correspondence, etc.

Scott Krafft, Curator of Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections Northwestern U Library 1970 Campus Drive Evanston, Il 60208 has agreed to accept correspondence, books by and about Sharon Spencer. Best to write to him first. Scott Krafft

Anais Nin As A Teacher and Theorist of Creativity

2011-11-06T15:10:00.011-06:00

I'm interested in Anais Nin as a teacher and as a theorist of creativity.
I'd like to bring that very important dimension of her life into the foreground of the discussion about her. Nan Hunt, Leah Schweitzer and I were in a M.A. program with her in the last years of her life. We'll be reading our own work, and discussing Nin's long-term effect on us as poets, teachers, essayists, etc. Let all who might be interested know to show up. All 3 of us did good work then and are doing good work now.
We'll put on a good show. Nancy
--
Please forward to all who might be interested

visit my newly designed website
http://home.earthlink.net/~nshiffrin/

BEYOND BAROQUE
310.822.3006 info@beyondbaroque.org
681 Venice Blvd. West of Lincoln
December 16, Friday 7:30 PM
ANAIS NIN'S STUDENTS, A CELEBRATION
ANAIS NIN'S students read their work and discuss her impact on their lives
Featuring NANCY SHIFFRIN, LEAH SCHWEITZER, and NAN HUNT.

"Eroticism is one of the basic means of self-knowledge, as indispensable as poetry…”
Anais Nin, In Favor of the Sensitive Man
Nancy Shiffrin's new collection of love poems GAME WITH VARIATIONS is now available on-line. Click on the link below to read more and order
http://www.unibook.com/en/Nancy-Shiffrin/GAME-WITH-VARIATIONS
“Nancy Shiffrin's poems are gut-land responses to a personal life of risks, frustrations, and celebrations. Her writing is lean, sensitive, erotic. She celebrates the female body with a rare vigor.” Robert Peters

http://www.othervoicespoetry.org/vol36/shiffrin/index.html
THE VAST UNKNOWING collects a wide spectrum of poetry from Nancy Shiffrin...One of her main questions is Who are we? What made us that person? She explores a number of sources of our identity....(in the poem) “My Shoah” (Shiffrin) brings together many of her disparate threads—family religion...evil...details from her personal history—and makes them work together. When she is at her best, as in this poem, Shiffrin produces deep powerful poetry. G. Murray Thomas, poetix.net

Rose of Sharon and Purple Jacaranda Mist

2011-08-08T09:32:00.019-05:00

"Sharon did not die. Sharon is not dead. Sharon simply decided to live...over there, in another part of the garden...where a half moon floats sustaining the balance of day and night....knowing anytime, she can cross again that red curved bridge. "...I can see her now, standing under the thick purple mist of jacaranda...laughing."

Kazuko Sugisaki

from a memorial booklet on Sharon published by Rochelle Holt of Lioness Press

Today is scholar Sharon Spencer's birthday. She would have be celebrating

her seventy-fifth birthday today.

Her piece Forever Anais graces our web-site as a lovely gift of scholarship she presciently did for our site in it's early days.

We myth you Sharon! Here are the original pieces that were written for the booklet. We posted them on this blog on Sharon's birthday in August of 2007.

Thanks to Wikimedia and their common license allowing our site to reprint this photo of a lovely purple mist of jacaranda. The photo was taken in Bhutan.

The photo is from the Wikipedia entry on this remarkable tree that so defines the far reaching blessings of the spirit of our Rose of Sharon.

Anais's Editor at Swallow Press Has Written a Book

2011-06-24T14:58:00.005-05:00

Donna Ippolito, Anais Nin's editor at Swallow Press has written a book which is reviewed by writer and poet Rochelle Holt. Ms. Holt titled her review

"Dangling Lure" and referenced her poem at the start of the review, but to focus attention

on her review of Ms.Ippolito's work, we are editing her referencing words, and putting her poem at the end. To order Donna's book, please go to her website. Writing Fiction: Ask The Editor

Dangling Lure

Drawing on twenty-five years experience as an editor for Swallow Press that first published Anais Nin; and editor-in-chief for FASA (novels in science fiction and fantasy published by Penguin and Times-Warner, i.e. Battletech; Shadowrun; MechWarrior; Earthdawn), Donna Ippolito has written a unique reference and guide to not only writing fiction but publishing as well.
Succinct responses to questions writers pose comprise Craft; Writing Well; Roadblocks and Inspiration; and Getting Published. Not only apprentices and novices will gain much from this truly supportive source, but experienced writers also can read the craft book to brush-up or re-hone their skills.
CRAFT includes twenty-six responses, lessons, so to speak, that range from Titles; Setting the Scene; Characters Need Plots through Seamless Inner Dialogue; The Antagonist to Reading Like a Writer and Literary versus Commercial.
In Beats and Dialogue Tags, “you can handle multiple speakers with a nice mix of dialogue tags and action tags (or ‘beats’). “Beats” are the gestures, facial expressions, small movements, and even thoughts or feelings that occur in the midst of dialogue.”
The author uses a brief or longer example from a story to illustrate her advice. For “The Antagonist,” usually another person, she says “it could just as easily be an animal, a spirit or nonhuman creature…also a force of nature. In Titanic, it’s an iceberg….”
In WRITING WELL, readers learn to Kill an Adjective. She uses quotes throughout the book to support her advice, i.e. Mark Twain. “If you catch an adjective, kill it.” As she affirms, “Adjectives (and adverbs) do tend to tell rather than show….Readers are looking for an experience…” Knowing the color of a character’s eyes isn’t a way to understand his character unless he’s as cool or cold towards others as his aquamarine peepers!
In ROADBLOCKS AND INSPIRATION, she quotes Jodi Picoult, “who trained herself to grab even 10 minutes at the computer when her three kids were all under the age of 4.” The novelist says, “Writer’s block is for people who have the luxury of time.”
GETTING PUBLISHED is also too glib regarding the ease of publication for novice or professional. “Slush Pile (from which Twilight had luck) or not, your job is to keep writing and to keep your manuscripts circulating. If you know what an editor is looking for and then deliver it, your work will always stand out.”
What writer wouldn’t like to believe this to optimistically and blithely keep sending out work, snail mail preferred (according to the editor) to the tune of what must be $400. a month now. In my day, forty years ago I spent $200. a month on same. Perhaps, the main complaint with this excellent guide book is the absence of truth regarding publication.
Somewhere in the last section of the reference tool should have been mentioned the plethora of self-produced books in the last decade or more. This is due to the ease of publishing that exists via computers with many reputable presses, including Kindred Spirit. Most writers have weighed the decision, i.e. continued wasted postage and long waiting vs. publication and instant gratification regarding a book of poems, stories or a novel.
However, I do believe one should struggle for a short period, maybe a year with the editor’s recommended methods before launching your own work into the public arena and only after consulting some reputable readers who are not family members though they might be friends.
Otherwise, this veteran recommends the veteran editor’s book to everyone who seeks succinct and serious advice regarding writing fiction and publishing as well, hopefully not with the big commercial magazines in mind as they are now fewer than small press.
reviewed by Rochelle Lynn Holt

www.angelfire.com/blues2/rlynnholt

DANGLING LURE

Can’t writing be a hobby, just pleasure?
Must writers become artists to prevail?
In these times, one can self-produce to share.

Not everyone requires fame, for sure.
In truth and in fact, most books rarely sail.
Can’t writing be a hobby, just pleasure?

In dire days only certain authors endure;
See, Alice Hoffman, Shreve, Picoult don’t fail.
In these times, one can self-produce to share.

Few magazines publish literature;
so many writers miss hammering nail.
Can’t writing be a hobby, just pleasure?

Reading and writing both offer cure
to philosophical struggles that ail.
In these times, one can self-produce to share.

Still, masses like fish reach for dangling lure
when manuscripts end up frozen in pail.
Can’t writing be a hobby, just pleasure?
In these times, one can self-produce to share.

Autograph Letter, signed ("Anaïs"), to Robert Kirsch of the Los Angeles Times

2011-05-30T08:57:00.005-05:00

Not sure this offering is still current, but will post for the interest of the copy.

Thanks to Stephen Reigns for sending on this interesting link about a Nin Letter being sold on Abe.com

Autograph Letter, signed ("Anaïs"), to Robert Kirsch of the Los Angeles Times

Description:

Nin writes to author and Los Angeles Times book critic Robert Kirsch, upset that after a favorable review of the first volume of her Diary, he has not responded to Volume II and seem to be ignoring her. Nin clearly craves his approval, and is distressed by his silence. The letter reads, "I am assuming you are still in Paris. I'm following an impulse to write to the man who wrote such a beautiful review of Diary One - I want only to remember that, as what followed baffled me - cancelled dinner, no real answer to my letter on the fate of Vol. II - You are too big a man to act capriciously or without reason. Yet I felt suddenly you did not wish for any friendliness. I made several entries in the Diary for you, first when I read your novel, then on some of your reviews, then on your lecture - at State College. Then I confessed my perplexity to Murrah Gattis who is so loyal to you and justified the eclipse as due to your over-burdened life. At Edelstein I offered you names and addresses of reliable underground sources, one a heroine who was my literary agent in France - Denyse Clairouin [French translator and member of the Resistance, killed by the Nazis] - Suddenly it seemed there was no contact. Are you or are you not a friend? Are you going to let Diary 3 fall into the hands of a psychotic girl who is no critic - If you disliked Volume II you are too honest not to say so. As Durrell wrote: 'everything depends on one's interpretation of silence' - Will the recent entry in the Diary be: Robert Kirsch, once a friend -" Kirsch did in fact write a favorable review of Volume II, which Nin did not see at the time of its publication. In Volume VII she includes a letter she wrote to Kirsch in 1969: "I was on a lecture tour when your review caught up to me - I was stunned as one is when one reaches the fulfillment of a wish and finds it suddenly granted beyond one's imagination. Of all things which have been said, written about the Diaries you wrote what has the deepest meaning for me -" Tall 8vo (12 5/8 x 6 in). 1 long page on air-mail mailer. Roughly cut at top edge, touching a few words of greeting and first line, else fine, in custom chemise. Bookseller Inventory # 248386

Kodos to Alexandra Johnson: Hidden Motives, Hidden Writers

2011-04-18T18:30:00.025-05:00

We have wanted to mention The Hidden Writer: Diaries and The Creative Life by Alexandra Johnson for awhile, because of the chapter on Anais entitled "The Professionally Private Writer

"Inside the vestibule at 215 West Thirteenth Street, a row of doorbell, as tiny as the buttons on a woman's blouse, awaited callers"begins the chapter on Nin, who Johnson dubs the professionally private writer.

Johnson mentions that she worked at UCLA's University Research Library when researching the diaries of Nin and she expresses her thanks in the introduction to this little gem of a book on diaries and the creative life.

"My gratitude to the estate of Anais Nin, especially Gunther Stuhlmann. and to Rupert Pole. for his kindness in granting me access to still private material."

It is this still-private material that makes this tiny chapter both illuminating and painful. This site was started before certain facts were known and Johnson handles this sense of what it was like to read these diaries at the time those of us who founded this site experienced. Although I can't speak for Valerie Harms or Donna Ippolito, this account sums up my current feeling

about the Nin I both loved and respected. Although I no longer share my earlier illusions, I bless the connection and applaud Johnson's brave and astute analysis. Her work is psychologically attuned to the disappointment that the Diaries have brought to those who believed the "spirit" of the work. Johnson doesn't blame as much as just pull off veils. Nin's transparency was not real but her being that touched the young, still seems to touch them, and for this I suggest that we read and experience the diaries as "fiction". Kudos to Alexandra Johnson. My friend William Rossa Cole, years ago, when he introduced me to Frances Steloff at Gotham Book Mart, called me and fellow lovers of Nin " Ninnies" I fear he was too kind. We were ninnies, but thank goodness we saw other things in this bodhisattva of being. Alexandra Johnson outlines the mindset of the seventies ninnies.

Greetings From The Labyrinth Fes/ Nin's White City

2010-10-01T09:59:00.008-05:00

Arrived in Fes yesterday. Xeroxed seven pages from the second

diary about Fez to read while here. I'm also carrying my Kindle

and Volume 2 is available on the Kindle but of course I wanted our friends to have access to the printed page as well.

"A trip to Morocco. A short but vivid one. I feel in love with Fez. Peace. Dignity. Humility. I have just left the balcony where I stood listening to the evening prayer rising over the white city."

Last night we sat on the top terrace of Riad 9 in the Medina, transfixed with the experience so similar to Nin's listening to the evening prayer rising over the city, along with the spectacular sight of all the birds that owners let out of cages at this time of the day. A powerful and magical moment. This is a treasure of a Riad, the owner bought it eleven years ago, he was the second foreigner to buy a home in the Medina and it has been lovingly restored.

Steven Reigns was kind enough to send an audible file of Nin talking about Fez in Volume 2. How I wish I knew how to attach at m4a file to a blog for any of you reading this post.

And So Forever Palimpsest

2010-06-27T23:22:00.003-05:00

"The pages of our life are blurred palimpsest, new lines are wreathed on others half erased and those on older still and so forever....."

The novelist Anaïs Nin claimed an involvement with Vidal in her memoir The Diary of Anaïs Nin but Vidal denied it in his memoir Palimpsest.

In a recent WSJ magazine spread (june 2010) there is an article entitled

Estate of Grace

a story about Mitchell Denburg's hacienda beneath a dormant volcano in Antigua, Guatemala

"He's an avowed fan of the architecture here, and can wax nostalgic about the Antiguqa that existed before Guatemala's 35 year civil war broke out in 1960.; a Central American hideout for the international jet set, with a generous helping of bohemianism. This was, after all, where Gore Vidal came to stay in the late 1940's taking over the ruins of a Carmelite convent, living with Anais Nin and according to local legend, turning his self-imposed Antiquan exile into an ongoing party. by Mark Rozzo

WSJournal magazine June 2010 \\Michael Reynolds

Letters To Our Site : History/Herstory Anais Nin

2010-06-14T10:03:00.000-05:00

This letter from Matilde Batista dated April 12, 2002. We apologize that we were unable to change any part of the offending line as it is in a graphic designed when this version of the site was launched in 1996.

Dear M. Griffin

Please note that the sentence in your website which states that Anais Nin was born of a Catalan father and a Danish mother is incorrect.

Anais' father, Joaquin Nin Castellanos, was CUBAN;

the Nins were Catalans, and the Castellanos were Cubans who came from the Canary Islands.

Anais' mother Rosa Culmell Varigaud, was CUBAN. (Rosa's father, Thorvald Culmell Shistensen, was Danish; Rosa's mother, Anais Variagaud Bodin , was born in New Orleans, USA)

Thorvald Culmell and Anais Varigaud lived in Cuba and their seven children were born there" Rosa, Edelmira, Anais, Antolina, Pedro, Enrique and Thorvald (Am not sure of their birth order.) Only the girls had offspring.

Although Anais and Joaquin Nin Culmell were born in Paris and Berlin, respectively, Anais' brother Thorvald, was born in Cuba in 1905. When Anais' mother took her children to live in New York, they were often visited by their Cuban cousins.

Sincerely,

Matilde Batista

Corfu/Korfu Rental :Vacation Where Nin, Durrell and Miller Stayed

2010-04-23T17:48:00.000-05:00

Vacation Rental on Corfu! Korfu Ionian Islands Greece

Very special and exclusive holidays in the house of Lawrence Durrell, Henry Miller and Anais Nin - partly with original furniture from 1935. It has about 90 sqm with 4 sleeping rooms, dining room/living room, full equipped kitchen, 2 bathrooms (shower/tub). Room service possible, cleaning twice a week. Washing machine, Coffee maker and toaster. Breakfast balcony and living room with a perfect ocean view. 2 minutes walking distance to the nice beach with clear water. Parking space

For More Information and Rates

Sliver of Sound, Almost 45 Years Old, Anais Nin Repost

2010-04-22T22:36:00.000-05:00

"The dream was always running ahead. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle." Anais Nin

Special guest poet and Nin scholar Steven Reigns has been kind enough to forward information on his participation in helping to bring a historic interview with Anais Nin "from the vault".(The Pacifica Radio Archive) His interview wraps up a month long series honoring Women's History Month. Reigns selected the audio as a special guest scholar/poet. The interview recorded in 1955 just before the release of Nin's Diary. The interviewer Francis Roberts speaks intimately with Nin about her writing styles, the origins of her diary as well aso her relationships with intimates mentioned in her Diary.

To give more background on Reigns, he produced the 105 Birthday Celebration for Anais held at the Hammer Gallery in UCLA: This video of Reigns introducing Anais Nin @ 105 underscores his remarkable devotion to her legacy and attests to his talents in integrating Nin studies in a manner that marries scholarship and poetry.

Reigns writes:

"I’m so pleased that the Anais Nin radio archive project I was asked to introduce is now online. It will be playing across the country throughout the week. It can also be listened to online."

http://fromthevaultradio.org
http://audio.pacificaradioarchives.org

Kudos to Reigns who can be found at www.stevenreigns.com . Our thanks for his courtesy in mentioning our site.
.

Anais Nin Wikipedia Entry

2010-04-07T20:59:00.000-05:00

The Wikipedia Entry for Anais Nin
(English)

The Wikipedia Entry for Anais Nin
(French)

The Wikipedia Entry for Anais Nin
(Espanol)

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.
Anais Nin

Anais Nin February 21, 1903 8:16 pm Neuilly-sur-Seine France

2010-02-21T00:01:00.020-06:00

Anais Nin Natal Chart

Anaïs NIN : astrologie et thème astral

English

Anais Nin on Facebook

2009-12-16T09:40:00.000-06:00

Today there are 12,092 fans on this Facebook page.

And what an easy way to get involved with Anais Nin fans (or ninnies as my skeptical pal

William Rossa Cole used to call those who he considered fans of her work) since he brought me to meet Frances Steloff at Gotham Book Mart, how irritated could I get by his little jab/jest.

The contact person for the site is Corina Joy. You can reach her by email by signing up as a fan for the site or reading the Wall

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Anais-Nin/6260799661

To distinguish her page from others on Facebook, look for this

picture of Nin (which I haven't seen in this format with the teapot)

I still prefer to think of her drinking coffee! being a tall Americano myself and my love of this quote of Anais which we use on

our ordering page on AnaisNin.com for my favorite book on Anais, Benjamin Franklin's Recollections of Anais Nin by her Contemporaries. One of those out of print gems that you should search for on ABE.com you can buy a copy today for $3 or

click on Amazon's link to ask for it to be added to the Kindle

bookstore!

"Joy appears now in the little things. The big themes remain tragic but a leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the taste of coffee--Joy accompanied me as I walked to the press. The secret of joy is the mastery of pain."

-Anais Nin

Guestbook Over Run With Spam & A Blossom

2009-07-20T22:11:00.020-05:00

We used to be able to afford to have an earlier web master (who we called our Amazon Warrior Princess) who delted the spam and smut entries over morning coffee. Of course she was paid, but it was a boring

irritating and frustrating task.

Because it became so difficult even with the security enabled News/Event board that Rochelle Holt monitored so effortlessly we had to completely stop it. Tonight we found in the endless spam for Chinese herbal products and mean spirited comments like "anais would laugh at you" this

entry from artist Ania.

She asks that you visit her site, of course this is the mythical Anais Nin quote that has become the most sought after quote. Sounds like her, but may be an urban legend, but it certainly is the most asked question over the years. (Commercial projects wanted to know the source so they can make a proper attribution) Even if it's apocryphal, the quote is beautiful presented! And the note cards are lovely!

If anyone finds the original source of this quote in Nin's work or Nin's speeches, let us know

and we'll buy a mug for you from the artist. You can follow her @aniaart.

Here's her post which we're finally adding to the guestbook but are sharing it with you.

Anais Nin quotes have drawn me in...I love useing her quotes with my artwork.

"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the

bud was more painful than to blossom.\\\"
That quote was perfect to describe my \\\"Blossom\\\" stillife, which depicts a life with Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
http://www.zazzle.com/aniaart*
My name came before finding Anais Nin quotes!

Simone Lorenz and Bruce Cohen and Rupert Pole

2009-06-28T10:35:00.012-05:00

Simone Lorenz and Bruce Cohen, spoke for Rupert Pole in the early

negotiations of the Anais Nin web site.

Here they are in the 1995 at Anais Nin's home in Silver Lake. Rupert Pole is on the right and they are on the left. Sharon Spencer is looking up at Simone who had compiled a beautiful edition of quotes from Anais which was at that time among the Nin fans, expected to be published soon.

Party at Silver Lake House 8/27/95: Bruce J. Cohen,Simone Marie Lorenz,Sharon Spencer, Bebe Barron, Renate Druks, Kazuko Sugisaki, Rupert Pole. (Photo by Simone Marie Lorenz, © 1995. All rights reserved.)

To read Simone's touching piece Remembering Rupert click here.

Recently we sent a couple of postcards from Valerie' Harm's generous offer (which the site has been mailing out) to Simone. we asked if it was okay to post a New Year's greeting that she and Bruce had sent out to friends on New Years. Here it is to inspire everyone today, as every day in a sense begins a new year, from that date! you begin writing your new day, new year message

in your journal.

From Simone" January 1, 2009

In my silent morning meditation, the attached reminder arose. While sharing the writing with Bruce, bright sunlight passed through the crystal hung in the window and then through the water in Bruce's drinking glass, sending dancing light and prisms of color across the page.

Delighted and in gratitude for this spontaneous display of beauty we wanted to share it with you...

Anais Observed: On DVD At Last!

2009-06-17T13:43:00.029-05:00

Anais Observed is On DVD .... although with a different cover than the original video.

"A 60-minute color documentary on Anais Nin. The NY Times said, "All of her fans should be sure to see this movie." And James Leo Herlihy: "Robert Snyder gives us a deeply captivating experience of the 20th Century?s greatest art form..."

Order Form

http://www.mastersmasterworks.com/nin.html

You can also order the original book the film was based on and originally published by Swallow by Robert Synder (who passed away in 2004) There can't be many, so order now!

Just after Rupert Pole died, when the Lifestyle editor of the LA Times Janet Eastman was writing a piece in The LA Times on Nin's Home , in Silverlake, "Storied Past, Uncertain Future" the site lent this film (in video form) and the book with the other materials to the writer. In the story Eastman writes:

"Photographs and the 1973 documentary "Anaïs Nin Observed" by the late Robert Snyder show her posing, her hand gracefully holding her chin, at the mosaic-top dining room table alongside a bank of windows. Or sitting on an orange pillow on the coral carpet in the living room next to the glowing fireplace, her hair swept into a loose roll, lipstick perfect on her upturned smile, barefoot and wearing a scooped-neck caftan, her only accessory her diary in her hand. "

It's a Keeper.

Morning Song

2009-06-17T09:27:00.016-05:00

On Jewel's 1995 album Pieces of You she wrote a "Morning Song" with the lyrics:

"You can be Henry Miller and I'll be Anais Nin /Except this time it will be even better/we'll stay together in the end."

This morning over morning coffee, I was thinking of this song, and realized

that not everyone knows about it...Years ago the site sent Rupert a copy of

the CD to show him how au courant Anais, ever current was still in the hearts of young artists.

Hard to believe that was almost a decade ago!

Louveciennes Maison Up For Sale Again

2009-06-07T02:17:00.007-05:00

"Louveciennes has always known how to hide its secrets behind thick walls..."

Le Figaro, March 12th, 1996

Nin's former home in Louveciennes is for sale...

Check out the listing link and follow the chatter on

twitter.com/anaisninblog

And from our archives, read about

the amazing young woman

Barbara Sapp's valiant effort to save the the home last century.

Many came to the site and filled out

petitions in French and English.

We Write To Taste Life Twice

2009-05-28T06:12:00.006-05:00

"We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection."Anais Nin

This is a greeting card from Paper Lantern..design is done and copyrighted @ Lindsay Whiting 1995 available from:

Paper Lantern
PO Box 1871
Boyes Hot Springs, CA 95416
707-996-0302

We are writing the company to see if we can purchase some
sets...thought others might like to know about the card...on the back is this information about Anais:

Anais Nin (1903-1977)
Born in Paris to aristocratic artist parents, Nin's early years were spent in the company of some of the finest artists of the day. In 1914, her father abandoned the family, and Nin emigrated to the U.S. with her mother. On a ship bound for N.Y., Nin began the journal that would evolve into the most acclaimed of her literary career. largely self-taught, she left school at age 15, became a fashion and artist's model and studied Spanish dance. Nin was intensely
interested in unraveling women's inner lives. she underwent psychoanalysis, and even became a lay analyst. Along with other writers, she established Siana Editions to publish her work that was thought to be too controversial for the time. Through her novels, essays and short stories, and love affairs with men and women, Nin gained her reputation as a literary artist and sexual icon. She is best known for her relentlessly introspective diaries, comprised of 11 volumes from 1914-1974.

Kindle Revolution: Hearts A Fire

2009-04-28T21:36:00.010-05:00

Here is a photo from Amazon.com's site of someone reading from the new Kindle. The Kindle is an electronic book, which one can tell from the reader reviews (3000 plus!) is really just a slim slate (and this reader swears by hers, although she wasn't able to "buy" books in places like Guatemala, it still allowed me to read samples of the 250,000 titles they have and which I had downloaded maybe twenty samples. and of course any titles I had already purchased,The real power of the Kindle hasn't even been tapped,

like it's name, its a movement that hasn't even begun to "catch fire" but it already gives a lovely light and definitely is a super way to travel with 100 books in one's purse or briefcase!

We see, the power of the Kindle in the deals it now makes with publishers when books are requested to be available on the Kindle. The ability for publishers to put their out of print books as well as their current lists on a Kindle and access readers without incurring massive production costs.

Most Kindle titles are $9.99.

Let's start a Kindle Anais Nin revolution. Sign on to our web site and from the bookstore links, ask that the Diaries be available on a Kindle. Follow this link

to see a sample link. This may take time and dedication, but we need your help! Everyday,(particularly all you wonderful followers!) log on to the bookstore and go down the list and where it says CLICK HERE TO ORDER just click on and when you see this image of a Kindle check the link that says: Tell the Publisher! I’d like to read this book on Kindle. Let's not all start with Fire!

15 Free Nin Postcards

2009-04-15T23:30:00.010-05:00

Valerie Harms has been kind enough to send on a few postcards

from the Celebration weekend.

If you would like a postcard, please send a S.A.S.E. to

Anais Nin Web Site, PO Box 412 Beverly Shores, IN 46301.

Attention: MC Griffin

Or if you are overseas just send us your name and address

on a postcard! We'll send one back even if you are not in the US.

First fifteen responses will benefit from Valerie's generosity.

2009-03-20T17:53:00.001-05:00

Valerie Harms Five Star Review

(picture of Valerie with Anais, cf Valerie's Memory on our Memories Page)

Valerie Harms reviews Anais Nin Character Dictionary and Index to Diary Excerpts by Benjamin Franklin V, published by Sky Blue Press, 2009. This publishing event deserves 5 stars.

We owe premier Nin scholar Dr. Franklin and publisher Paul Herron a huge debt of gratitude for this book. Benjamin Franklin is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of South Carolina. The author of many books about American authors, plus jazz greats, and several books about Anais Nin, Professor Franklin now gives us an invaluable reference book.

I wish I’d had it when I was reading all of Nin’s diaries and fiction. Even though I tried to sort out characters myself, especially as I read Nin’s early stories and novel in Northwestern University’s Special Collections Department and eventually compiled Waste of Timelessness and Other Stories as a rare edition. But now the book is available for longterm fans of Nin’s work as well as newcomers.

The character dictionary scrupulously tells who is who and where they are written about. I was especially interested in frequent characters—e.g. Djuna, Jay, Lillith, Lillian, and Sabina. Surprising to me were the frequent references to God and on p.36 the reference for “Don Juan” as “man who hates Dona Juana.”

Part Two gives a list of all Nin’s published fiction as well as a list of the characters who appear in each work. Very helpful.

The final part of the book indexes the diary excerpts that were not indexed in the published Diary of Anais Nin. Thus, many of these come from volumes of the Anais: An International Journal. Here one can trace the references to Hugh Guiler, Otto Rank, and many others.

This book belongs in the personal library of all those who love Nin’s work and to university and public libraries around the world. This 162 page paperback costs $19.95. Order from your bookstore or visit http://www.skybluepress.com/.

Quotes from reviewers:
This book will help readers more easily understand the origin of the repetitions, continuities and discontinuities within Nin’s oeuvre and to distinguish the intentional from the accidental. – Tristine Rainier, Director, Center for Autobiographic Studies.

Once again, Benjamin Franklin V has meticulously explored the domain into which too few Nin scholars have entered: the domain of facts. His achievement is a major gift to Nin scholars and to the future of Nin criticism. – Philip K. Jason, author of Anais Nin and Her Critics.

Additional note: A Café in Space, The Anais Nin Literary Journal, Vol. 6, 2009, edited by Paul Herron, is also available from Sky Blue Press. This issue features excerpts from a newly found trove of letters from Anais’ father, Joaquin Nin y Castellanos, to Anais. It’s fascinating the material available on the Internet now. I recommend viewing the interview with the elderly Bebe Barron at www.youtube.com/user/TheStevenReigns.

2009-02-22T13:55:00.000-06:00

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country. " Anais Nin

This is Anais Nin's birthday weekend (she was born February 21, 1903) In her honor, fly a kite, start a new career, make a new friend or make plans to travel to a new country.

The official release date for Sky Blue Press's latest was on her actual birthday. We await a review from Valerie Harms and will link to it when it's posted.

Other news on her birthday weekend are notes from Jan- Christine Johnson who tell us about Annette Nancarrow who explains:

The beautiful and lively artist Annette Nancarrow comes to life in her memories and never to be seen photographs in "ANNETTE’S MEMORIES" -

The correspondence with Dr. Juergen Hocker was from May through August 1991. Nancarrow speaks of her relationship with Anais Nin, Hugh Guiler, and Rupert Pole in Acapulco, Mexico and New York City.

There are a few surprises for your www.anaisnin.com readers.

Nin painted an attractive portrait of Nancarrow in her writings - the lovely Lisa in "Collages" and the Diary.

2009-01-30T13:00:00.000-06:00

New from Sky Blue Press foremost Nin scholar Benjamin Franklin V

has written the book book Anais Nin Character Dictionary and Index of Diary Excerpts

"Anaïs Nin Character Dictionary and Index to Diary Excerpts by Benjamin Franklin V is an alphabetical list of the name and description of every character Anaïs Nin used in her published fiction cross-referenced with the title(s) in which the character appears. Includes an index of persons, titles, and places included in every excerpt from Nin’s diary which has appeared elsewhere before publication in book form, including the remaining unpublished diary. A must for anyone studying Nin’s work, and a source of learning and fascination for even the most casual of readers

Franklin is the author of : Recollections of Anais Nin: By Her Contemporaries.

By clicking on this Look Inside Link you can access a recollection or two.

2009-01-17T05:54:00.000-06:00

Valerie Harms sent us an article from the NY Times on the second day in January. It hasn't been posted until now as this writer has been in Guatemala.

NY REGION January 02, 2009 City Room: Gotham Book Mart Holdings Are Given to Penn By Sewell Chan The University of Pennsylvania Libraries are now home to about 200,000 items from New York's landmark Gotham Book Mart, which closed in 2007.

About 200,000 items from the Gotham Book Mart, which closed in 2007 after 87 years as a New York literary haven of international stature, have been donated to the University of Pennsylvania.

Readers of the Diaries will be familiar with Anais's descriptions of the Gotham Mart along with her friend, the amazing Frances Steloff who lived in an apartment above the store even after it was sold in 1967. She died in 1989 at the age of 101. The photo above is taken by Adele Aldridge who has this memory of Steloff on her web site

You can read Frances's reminiscences about Gotham in Celebration by Valerie Harms and Adele Aldridge which is on our site. You can also try to find an original copy on Abe.com. Listed in order of price, the last

book shown is signed by Nin and is $80.

2008-12-02T08:55:00.000-06:00

This photo of Anais's brother is taken from the UC Berkley press release on January 20. 2004 announcing his death. Photo credits and a print quality image link are available below, or link directly through the press release by Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations

Joaquin Nin-Culmell (UC Berkeley photo)
Print-quality image available for download

Thanks to Jan Johnson for this link

You can find the Nin poetic warmth and gentleness in Joaquin Nin-Culmell's "Six Variations of a Theme by Luis Milan" on You Tube. Leo Brouwer is the guitarist. There are a number of photographs of Professor Nin-Culmell that I have never seen. The You Tube site is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG0zmn7iOH0 . It is a new gem of a posting. Many thanks to "grenouilleGG" of Espana.

2008-11-16T11:31:00.000-06:00

This image was taken from a blog on my space, we grabbed the image from Google Images, and wanted to attribute the beautiful artwork and encourage visiting such a creative site. We post it
because this is the quote the site is most asked attribution for...
we don't know if it's apocryphal if might have been a line in a lecture, many of these lectures were transcribed by Evelyn Hines whose book The Sensitive Man and Other Essays published by Swallow Press had "summarized" many of the lectures Nin gave in the last years of her life. It's really a marvelous little book and
we'd encourage everyone to try and grab a copy on a site like abe.com. To our knowledge, the quote is not in the Diaries or the fiction...but like any urban legend, it's true even if it never happened!

2008-11-08T15:42:00.001-06:00

Apologies for linking to a fabulous interview in an earlier post which was posted on you tube and taken down because of copyright infringement. Perhaps those of you that are French speaking can find it from the above note (taken from a great web site on Miller which notes:

Le sel de la semaine TV show interviewed Anais Nin ten months later, in 1970. You can view the full hour interview (in French) for free on your computer by visiting the Radio-Canada (CBC) Archives website

Happy Hunting! in the Les Archives of Radio-Canada. We'd love it if someone would volunteer to translate the below for the site.

It looks like you might be able to link to it (juin 18, 1970) by linking here! which will bring you here

and this photo speaking of copyright issues is from brittanica.com Anaïs Nin, c. 1972.
© Bettmann/Corbis

2008-10-12T17:06:00.000-05:00

Jan-Christine Johnson wrote us about a new book of poems entitled Dear Anais (with a preface by Tristine Rainer)it's available on Amazon. This is what the author, Diana Raab wrote about her recent work on her very nice Wordpress blog Diana's Notebook in the post Poetry and Journals,

"Excuses are made by those who make mistakes. Apologies are made by those who did something wrong. I did neither, but I do want to explain my lapse in writing. My new poetry collection DEAR ANAIS: MY LIFE IN POEMS FOR YOU (preface by Tristine Rainer), was released this week and I have been busy with the preliminary publicity.
I hope my readers buy this book not only because I admire Nin and her wise words about writing, love and life, but the collection is a good example of how poems can be culled from journals. All the poems in the book were born on the pages of my journal. (BTW, if you read the book and enjoy it, please consider posting a review on Amazon…it will help other readers and me of course!)Many of the poems were inspired by a famous quotation, a compelling line or an observation. These all serve as good launching points. Poetry is all about observations and the more you see, the stronger your poetry will be.
Until next time—happy reading and happy writing!"

2008-10-07T18:41:00.000-05:00

This Photo of Anais Nin in 1932 was lifted from an early Nin web site now defunct. However, in honor of Google's tenth anniversary, they opened a window to the old search engine...and we found the entire site on the wayback machine an entire site with lots and lots of very fine academic stuff (from Leipzig) the pages were maintained byAnja Beckmann. Thanks Way Back Machine...and don't lose this link. We hope it works for a long time as the original URL is no longer functioning.

Check out this link. It is an amazing resource....as a starter...

Anais Nin's mother, Rosa Culmell y Vaurigaud, was born in 1871, the eldest daughter of the Danish consul to Havana, Thorvald Culmell Christensen, who was born in Denmark, and his wife Anais Vaurigaud y Bourdin, of French descent but born in Cuba. Thorvald was a successful businessman and they lived in a big house on the Malecon beachfront, a fashionable area of Havana. The couple eventually had 9 children, 5 daughters and 4 sons, and were of the highest social standing in Havana. Anais Vaurigaud, the grandmother of Anais Nin, left her husband and her children and moved into her own house in Havana where she lived as she pleased. As Rosa was now the oldest daughter it fell to her to organise the household, a task for which she was well prepared during her education in the exclusive Brentwood catholic convent school in Long Island, New York, where she also learned perfect English. Due to her important role in the Culmell household she was still single at the age of 30. She had singing lessons and was said to have a beautiful voice.
Anais Nin's father, José Joaquin Nin y Castellanos was born in Havana in 1879, the first son of a Spanish Cavalry officer, Joaquin Nin y Tudo, and his Cuban wife Angela Castellanos y Perdomo. The family moved to Barcelona in 1880 and Joaquin Nin stayed there until he was 21. He studied the piano and eventually became a concert pianist, he departed for Havana in 1901 and gave his first concert there in february, he had to live with money from relatives, though, as he had not yet made a name for himself.
Joaquin and Rosa met in a music store in Havana. She was independent, much older and more mature than him but they shared a love for music. She fell for the romantic image that he cultivated and he sensed that she would help him to further his career. Her father was against a marriage with the poor musician from Barcelona but allowed Rosa to have singing lessons with him and they soon gave their first joint concert. They married on April 8, 1902, and Rosa's father paid fro them to go to Paris and live there until Joaquin could look after the family with his own income.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010801160612/stinfwww.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~beckmann/nin.html

Happy Birthday Google! and hey thanks for these oldies but goodies and reminding us of the Wayback Machine.

2008-08-11T17:33:00.000-05:00

Valerie Harms has solved the lack of photos of Ian Hugo! She advised us that she went to Google/Images and typed in
Hugh Guiler and eh voila! there are many pictures. We agree with Valerie, the first one in the list, one of Nin and Guiler is the best!

Valerie's memory of Hugh Parker Guiler(Ian Hugo) is now up on our site. It's listed in Memories as well as Scholarship on www.anaisnin.com.

Other photos of Ian Hugo can be found at roberthaller.com.

A video link to one of his films is here. Music is by Bebe Berron.

2008-08-11T15:44:00.000-05:00

Steven Reigns, who produced the fantastically successful celebration of Anais@105 at the Hammer Gallery at UCLA February 23, 2008 met Bebe Barron and interviewed her
for the event. A few weeks later, Barron died, and Steven was asked to speak at her memorial.

Here is the link of Nin Scholar and Poet Steven Reigns at Bebe Barron's Memorial.

Steven's latest book of poetry (he's editor)with amazing portraits by Jenny Walters can be ordered on Steven's website.. This photo we have used is by Jenny Walters and is scanned from the book.

The book is breathtaking.

"I’m so proud of this collection. It is an anthology of autobiographical poetry written by gay, lesbian, and bisexual seniors. I felt honored to teach this group for over 16-weeks. The writings in the book were born out of a weekly workshop. I edited the collection, Jenny Walters took AMAZING portraits of the participants, novelist Dorothy Allison wrote the preface, and Thaddeus Root designed the book"

An on-line video of the workshop from which the collection that Reigns edits, can be found here. Apologies that we don't yet know how to add videos to this blog so they are embedded!

2008-08-04T12:26:00.000-05:00

Email Exchange between Donna Ippolito and Eric Lloyd Wright, shortly after Rupert Pole's Death,

May 2007

Dear Lori Flynn, (at that time Eric Lloyd Wright's assistant)

Please let me thank you again for being in contact with the site and letting us know about Rupert Pole’s new representatives, the Wrights. We appreciated receiving the two articles, which Moira has posted on the site.

As time goes by, perhaps you will encounter other information or material
that you would like to pass on or call to our attention. At present, changes to the site are only made seasonally, but we can always add information you feel might be of value to our blog, which can be edited without paying hefty maintenance charges.

As the editor of the official AnaisNin site, I thought it would be good to
follow up by filling you in a bit more. The site is a labor of love, what Moira always calls a "pro bono" site. So much of it has been done through her personal funding and/or the donation of time and creativity of many people. Its whole reason for being is to give voice to those who knew the real Anais. Actually, I’m one of those because I worked as an editor at The Swallow Press, back when it was in Chicago and publishing Nin’s fiction and other books about her.

I also knew Rupert, and I adored both him and Anais. You may be interested to know
that www.anaisnin.com came into existence because we were dismayed by the distorted image of Anais in two recent biographies. Many of us knew her secrets long before they reached print, and it didn't affect our love or respect or admiration one jot. People who knew Anais personally and were inspired by her greatness of spirit are still alive to affirm her impact as a muse as
well as an artist. I have never known anyone more generous toward other creative people. This deserves to be recognized as much as her literary achievements, and that is our one goal and purpose. We are proud that the Nin site has become a lighthouse library of information on Nin's life and work, all of it free of charge! There is still much that we’d like to do, but it would require an operational grant that doesn’t seem to be in the stars for us. Though I’m not available on a day-to-day basis, please feel free to contact me with any questions, concerns, or for any
other reason. Moira and I would always be happy to hear from you. Also, I hope it will be OK with you if we forward any queries that come under the auspices of Nin's estate rather than our website.

Donna Ippolito
Editor , www.anaisnin.com
www.dreamscoop.blogspot.com

Dear Donna,

Thank you for your email to Lori. I’m glad that you are continuing on the website for Anais. It is important work to keep the public aware of her contribution to our cultural way of life. There is an Anais Nin Trust which is managed by three members of the board – Kazuko Sugisaki, Paul Herron and myself, Eric Lloyd Wright. The literary and licensing agent for Anais’ work is Barbara Stuhlmann. Kazuko, who you may know, is a writer, translating Anais’ work into Japanese and has been very close to Anais and Rupert over the last 40 years. I am an architect and Rupert’s brother. I had been a close friend of Anais’ for 30 years. I look forward to working with
you in the future to keep Anais’ legacy alive. Her extraordinary creative
writing and life must be made available to as broad an audience as possible.
With Best Regards

Eric Lloyd Wright

2008-08-04T09:19:00.001-05:00

Permissions, Copyrights, Publishing.
There is an Anais Nin Foundation and an Anais Nin Trust.
As Paul Herron has advised our site:

Please note that Paul Herron of Sky Blue Press not Blue Sky Press is not phasing out, and has released Volume 5 of A Café In Space: The Anais Nin Literary Journal this year, and Vol. 6 is set for release in 2009. In addition, the 1939 version of The Winter of Artifice was also recently released. We are still distributing Volumes 1-19 of Gunther Stuhlmann’s Anais, An International Journal and that is not the same journal as A Café In Space: The Anais Nin Literary Journal nor is it a continuation thereof. Requests for permission are to be made in writing to the Anais Nin Trust, not the foundation

Herron is a member of the Trust (as he notes in an earlier email to the site in January) and we presume, can forward any written permission requests in writing to the said Trust.

Rupert Pole was the President of the Anais Nin Foundation. On the death of Nin's agent extraordinaire, who wrote the brilliant introductions to the Diaries, Pole wrote the site with instructions.

May 30, 2002

To: Subscribers of ANAIS: an International JournalThe Anais Nin Foundation announces regrettably that we are terminating future publications of ANAIS: an International Journal. This is to honor the last wish of Gunther Stuhlmann, before his death in April this year, who had been its sole editor and had heroically dedicated his time and effort bringing out nineteen volumes of the Journal.Please understand that the checks already received by the Foundation for the next issue of the Journal will not be returned to the senders because we are short of man-power at this time, but these checks will not be cashed. Also we
are sorry to announce that we are no longer able to meet your requests for back issues. All activities concerning the Journal will cease from this date.We thank all the subscribers for the warm and enthusiastic support you have given to the Journal over the last two decades.

Rupert Pole

President The Anais Nin Foundation

When Rupert Pole died, our site's editor Donna Ippolito (who was Anais Nin's editor at Swallow Press) had a cordial email exchange with Rupert Pole's step brother Eric Lloyd Wright. Wright had designed Nin and Rupert's House of Light on Hildago which had been for many years the address for the Anais Nin Foundation. At that time he was kind enough to give us an update on the new realities. We will post portions of these emails in our next blog.

2008-08-03T10:15:00.000-05:00

When Anais Nin died, her obituary in the New York Times noted that her husband was Hugh Parker Guiler also known as Ian Hugo. On the other coast the LA Times ran a similar story listing Rupert Pole as her husband. Their birthdays were three days apart. Hugo's birthday was February 15th, Pole's the 18th. Nin's birthday was February 21st. In her diaries Nin writes about her interest in astrology particularly in the eccentric Conrad Moricand Moricand, who Nin referred to as the last of the Mohicans and Henry Miller as The Devil in Paradise in his book of the same name:

"... It was Anus Nin who introduced me to Conrad Moricand. She brought him to my studio in the Villa Seurat ..."

Pisces Artwork by Celebrations's artist Adele Aldridge from her Yoga Babe Cafe

A discussion of Nin's Sun/Neptune trine which might explain the bi-coastal valentines from an astrological perspective can be found in Nick Dagon Best's analysis: Anais Nin My Funny Valentine on Astrology for The Soul.

Nin was a Pisces. Her two life long Valentines were Aquarians. Other insights can be found on astrology.com's Star Stories

Story: Author and diarist Anais Nin kept private record of her wild sensual double life, the one she kept secret from her husband for decades. She began writing her diary while sailing to the U.S. from Spain just prior to the outbreak of the first World War. Her most famous liaison was a love triangle with fellow author Henry Miller and his wife June.
Stars: Nin was born with natal Jupiter and the Sun conjunct in Pisces, trine Neptune retrograde in Cancer, signifying both her great love of pleasure and gift for documenting her experiences and deepest feelings with little evidence of
self-censorship. Astrology demonstrates how transits involving Neptune, and its strong relationship with Jupiter and the Sun in her natal chart, had a recurring presence at key moments in her life.

2008-07-20T14:26:00.000-05:00

We want to thank Jan Johnson for suggesting to Rochelle and I that the site have a little memory of Anais's husband, Hugh Parker Guiler, known as Ian Hugo.

This photo of Ian Hugo was taken in 1983 and appears on www.roberthaller.com.

Dear Moira and Rochelle, Rochelle mentioned in a posting that she has an Ian Hugo article. Out of fairness and due respect to him, could you devote part of www.anaisnin.com about the banker who had the magical courage and insight to become an artist ? You know his life changed because of his love for Anais. Thank you / Blessings. Jan-Christine Johnson

Valerie Harms, who had met Ian Hugo was asked to write a brief memory which she just shared with the site. We regret that we have no photos of Hugo to accompany her text.

Photographs: I know there are some wonderful ones of Hugo doing his copper engravings. In fact, a short film shows how his method. Perhaps stills are available, I don’t know. The person who would have had these pictures is Gunther Stuhlmann, her agent. I believe on his death they were given to Rupert Pole. Another person who might have pictures is Paul Herron, whose Sky Blue Press (www.skybluepress.com) continued publishing Anais, An International Journal. Haste is required with him because he is phasing out, I believe. Other sources might be scholars, such as Benjamin Franklin.

NB a recent response to this italicized note from Valerie, from Paul Herron, posted on our guestbook:

Please note that Paul Herron of Sky Blue Press not Blue Sky Press is not phasing
out, and has released Volume 5 of A Café In Space: The Anais Nin Literary
Journal this year, and Vol. 6 is set for release in 2009. In addition, the 1939
version of The Winter of Artifice was also recently released. We are still
distributing Volumes 1-19 of Gunther Stuhlmann’s Anais, An International Journal
and that is not the same journal as A Café In Space: The Anais Nin Literary
Journal nor is it a continuation thereof. Requests for permission are to be made
in writing to the Anais Nin Trust, not the foundation

Thus if anyone wishes to volunteer to pursue these suggestions that Valerie suggested the site pursue, we'd be most grateful. for the site, we'd very much appreciate it. The lovely , elusive and evocotive snippet that Valerie penned makes us wish very much that we had the staff and money to pursue these tasks.

A loyal reader has sent these Ian Hugo photos Some Hugo images here:
The loyal reader also sent on a film link! for Ian Hugo

2008-05-15T15:13:00.000-05:00

Steven Reigns has let us know about the recent death of electronic pioneer Bebe Barron who was a part of the recent celebration at the UCLA Gallery in honor of Anais Nin's 105th birthday. Reigns, the inspired producer of this event says that this is the most complete obit for Bebe. We have shamelessly lifted the photos used here from that site. So be sure and check out this link for the full story!

2008-04-01T16:51:00.000-05:00

Anais Nin @ 105 is now online!!!
Thanks to the camera work and editing of Ian Mackinnon, Anais Nin @ 105 is viewable on youtube.

For those who missed the event on February 12, 2008 at the Hammer Museum, you can see a list of the videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheStevenReigns

You Tube limits videos to only 10 minutes. Some speakers’ presentations had to be cut into two or three segments. Below is a list of the video links in order:

Steven Reigns Introduction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g1WGJmg39w

Tristine Rainer 1:
Tristine Rainer 2:

Eric Lloyd Wright 1
Eric Lloyd Wright 2

Adam Barron & Video of Bebe Barron:
Adam Barron & Video of Bebe Barron 2

Deena Metzger 1:
Deena Metzger 2:
Deena Metzger 3:

Steven Reigns Closing Remarks:

Much gratitude and thanks to: Darin Klein and James Bewley and all of the staff at the Hammer Museum, Moira Collins of AnaisNin.com, Paul Herron of Sky Blue Press, Tristine Rainer, Eric Llyod Wright, Deena Metzger, Adam Barron, Bebe Barron, Leonard Neubauer, Alex Epps, Karina Wilson, Danelia Wild, Treasa McNamee, and Ian Mackinnon.

2008-03-14T20:27:00.000-05:00

Talk given on 2.12.08 by Steven Reigns, organizer of Anais Nin @ 105 . Poet, artist and educator, Reigns starts graduate school at Antioch in April.

This talk was given with a power presentation which the site is trying to figure out how to share with viewers. So picture Reigns words with wonderful images of Nin, her friends, her books!

We have photos of the speakers which we will post as soon as summaries of their biographies are available to post with their picture speaking at this sold out event in honor of Anais at 105.

I’m Steven Reigns and it’s been a pleasure to organize Anais @ 105 and bring together people who knew Nin intimately. I didn’t know her personally but when I discovered her writings as a young reader, I felt as if I did know her personally—and even intimately. Many people feel the same way. Nin was interested in personal connection and creativity. There are endless stories of how diary passages, her lectures, or a personal conversation with her altered peoples lives. Her name has inspired the name of a perfume and her affairs the first NC-17 movie, Henry & June. Who was she, really?
Anais Nin was born in a suburb of Paris on February 21, 1903. Her parents separated due to her father’s affairs. Nin’s mother decided to take the children to America to start a new life. On the trip to the US, at age eleven, Nin started keeping a diary as a letter to her father. The diary was a way for the young girl to document life in a new place. She was self educated after grammar school and worked as a model to help bring money into her single parent household. Her first published writing was at the age of 15 imploring the importance of owning a liberty bond. She wrote in the diary daily for the remainder of her life. There are 69 volumes of diaries. During the last thirty years of her life Nin kept writing but used file folders instead of bound notebooks. The original writings comprise of more than 35,000 pages. The diary was a confident, record keeper, secret keeper, and a lifelong artistic endeavor. In 1966, at the age of 63, Nin had the diaries commercially published. They documented her emotional journey as an intellectual woman, artist, and of those around her. The diaries were a commercial success, being published in the midst of a sexual revolution, Nin soon became in demand to speak at colleges and universities. She was the darling of the lecture circuit and received hundreds of letters from fans, all of which she answered personally.
Nin married banker Hugo Guiler at the age of 20. Hugo’s job relocated the young couple to France. Before publishing the diaries was even a consideration, Nin published, at the age of 28, the non-fiction book, DH Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study. The book’s reception disappointed Anais and she divided her attention briefly between writing and pursuing a career as a dancer. During this time she met Henry Miller, wrote fiction, and sought out analysis. In 1934, Nin returned to the US and briefly started a psychoanalysis practice.
Nin was a well-read writer with an incredible work ethic. Nin’s writings progressed as she published 15 books during her lifetime, not including the 7 published diaries, and a book of interviews. Most of her books were avant-garde novels of the French surrealistic style. In the 30’s, when there was little interest in her writings, Nin purchased a printing press and printed her own books, sometimes spending 12 to 14 hour days standing at the foot operated press. At one point, needing money, Nin wrote erotica for $1.00 a page to an unknown collector—these writings were to be published posthumously as the best sellers Delta of Venus and Little Birds. These erotic stories brought more attention and acclaim than even the Diaries.
Nin’s artistic achievements were great but her sensational private life has seemed to eclipse it in the public eye. Many details of her complicated life were omitted from the published diaries, only to be revealed after the death of her husband Hugo in 1985. Details of Anais Nin’s full life have been published in the unexpurgated diary series A Journal of Love. One of the biggest details omitted was the presence of a husband, giving readers the impression that Anais was self sufficient and self-sustaining. Then there were the affairs: she had a long affair with Henry Miller—even financially supporting him at times, had an affair with the political revolutionary Gonzalo More, book reviewer Edmund Wilson—which was actually after he reviewed her book, had relations with two of her therapists: Rene Allendy and Otto Rank—a highly unethical practice due for men in their situation. Aside from her affairs, there was also casual sex with many men, and sometimes women. There was drug experimentation and an abortion. In 1947, Nin met Rupert Pole in New York and proceeded to have a lifelong, intimate relationship with him. She even marred Rupert while still married to Hugo. Neither man knew about the other and Nin divided her time for over twenty years in 6-week increments between NYC with Hugo and in LA with Rupert. Her bi-coastal life, love affairs, and lies to cover them up were kept in a recipe box she labeled the “Lie Box.”
In this unconventional life, one situation is highly debated---a paternal incestual affair when Nin was 33 and her father 55. Nin’s writings of this time, in diary books numbered 37 through 46, have been scrutinized. We’re left wondering if she was trying through sex to recapture the attention of a father absent for 20 years, or if she used sex a means for revenge, or if the writings were simply a psychological exercise as she worked through her childhood abandonment.
This month Nin would have been 105. She spent the later part of her life living in Silverlake. During this time she befriended many young women who saw her as a mentor and friend. I’m pleased two of them are here with us. We will also hear recollections from someone who knew Nin for over 40 years, and hear from a family member and now the executor of the estate.
Nin was a pioneer, believing her emotional experience was worthy of daily documentation, that love affairs were to be recorded and examined, she believed in her writings enough to purchase a printing press and print books herself. Even though there were glaring omissions in the diaries published during her lifetime, it was still a bold act to reveal oneself so intimate on the page.
Tonight’s program does not seek out to unify a profile of Anais Nin, its aim is to give a clearer picture of the complex woman and writer.
Closing Remarks:
Thank you for attending tonight’s event. The Hammer is a perfect venue for an event honoring Nin. Her original diaries are kept at UCLA a few blocks away. I want to give an extended thanks to Moira Collins of Anaisnin.com, Paul Herron, Ian McKinnon, Darin Klein and all of the Hammer staff and especially tonight’s speakers.
Some of the speakers will be signing their books in the lobby; Sky Blue press is also selling the original, uncensored version of The Winter of Artifice, as well as A Café in Space: the Anais Nin Literary Journal, which is filled with information about Anais and her writings. Be sure to investigate those before leaving tonight.

2008-03-08T14:33:00.000-06:00

Video of Bebe Barron on YouTube can be viewed here.

"This is a short interview with electronic music innovator Bebe Barron about her friend and mentor Anais Nin by Ian MacKinnon and Steven Reigns for the ANAIS at 105 event at The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles".

Also check out NPR's March 8th piece on The Berrons: The Forgotten Pioneers of Electronic Music by Susan Stone.

Photo above by Bebe Miller and taken from the NPR site.

2008-02-21T12:14:00.000-06:00

Anais Nin's 105th Birthday, February 21, 2008

“We have reached a hastier and superficial rhythm, now that webelieve we are in touch with a greater amount of people, more people,more countries. This is the illusion which might cheat us of being intouch deeply with the one breathing right next to us. The dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephone, take the place ofhuman intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millionsbrings a greater and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision.”—Anaïs Nin, Diary Four

We have heard through the Anais Nin grapevine, that the Anais@105 birthday celebration, a mini-symposium with speakers who knew Nin personally that was held at the Hammer Gallery at UCLA was a huge success.

This "jewel" of a venue was filled to capacity (300) and in fact could not accomodate the overflow crowd. What a testament to the spirit of Anais Nin who still speaks at 105 to the young.

Congrats to Steven Reign for his unflappable panache in conceptualizing and then actualizing this event without a paid staff.

We will add pictures of the speakers and brief summaries in the weeks to come. There is a pdf available of the program and if someone wishes to have it emailed to them, please sign up on the news-event board of the site, and one of our administrators will email it to you.

2008-01-20T10:51:00.000-06:00

Copy of the flyer for the event

being held in Anais's honor at the

Hammar Art Gallery at UCLA on February

12th.

2007-12-01T17:30:00.000-06:00

Anais Nin would have been 105 on her next birthday February 21, 2008

A special event is being hosted at the Hammer. Details are below.

2007-12-01T17:21:00.000-06:00

Anais@105

Please SAVE THE DATE Anais@105

http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/calendar_full_Feb_2008.htm#day12

February 12th, 20087:00 PMHammer Museum 10899 Wilshire Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90024-4343Anais Nin @ 105Honoring Anaϊs Nin, the writer who documented culture, artists, and her own emotional journey in a daily diary started at the age of eleven. Featuring reflections by those who knew Nin personally: electronic music pioneer Bebe Barron (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4486840) ;

writer Deena Metzger (http://www.deenametzger.com/);

architect Eric Lloyd Wright (http://elwright.net/);

and founder of the Center of Autobiographic Studies, Tristine Rainer (http://www.storyhelp.com/).

Organized and hosted by Steven Reigns.

2007-11-27T03:48:00.000-06:00

"Essential Anais Nin CD: Excerpts from Her Diary and Comments In this recording, Anais Nin reads excerpts from her diary and answers questions. Unabridged. 1 CD" Caedmon/Harper Audio

And from AudioFile a review: (check the magazine for full review)

"The French author and critic Anais Nin wrote her more important works in English. Long considered of minor significance, her fiction is now gaining critical respect, while her diaries remain widely admired for her insights into the literary figures she rubber elbows with, particularly her lovers Henry Miller and......

2007-11-09T18:31:00.000-06:00

When I was working on the diary
I became aware of a wonderful image:
relationships were very much like stellar
constellations--friendships gravitated around
the cities of my life. Paris, New York, Los Angeles, (Rome)
Anais Nin Slightly Revised

Artist Patricia Glee Smith , Otricoli, Italy

Artist Patricia Glee Smith did that little drawing of the snail mail below
many years ago for a rubberstamp site, The RubberStamp Queen. On the site she is briefly described:

Most of the stamps in our catalog were drawn by Patricia Glee Smith, an American painter and etcher who lives and works in Rome, with her Italian filmmaker husband. She is an artist involved in many archaelogical digs around the world. Her tiny drawings have graced the pages of The New Yorker, and her large etchings and paintings are in private collections around the world. Her trompe l'oeil murals have been commissioned for private residences, from an elegant palazzo in Firenze to a spacious highrise on Chicago's Lake Shore Drive

Please check out her beautiful site at:

Patricia Smith, Otricoli, Italy

She is also a frequent contributor to the spectacular daily graphic email the Italian Notebook
a free daily email about all things Italian for Italy lovers everywhere! write info@italiannotebook.com for further info on her posts. Since there is a new post every
day our site does not have specific addresses for her specific entries, but perhaps you
can try search engines under these terms:

"contributed by Patricia Glee Smith (see bio), accomplished artist and very involved archaeology afficionado based in Otricoli, Umbria. " and these particular articles:
Collestatte Chestnut Festival "Collestatte - All over Italy local festivities or sagre are held to celebrate harvests, saints or special foods. "

or Olive Picking "Tuscany - There are some rituals in Italy which are timeless, and have remained virually unchanged throughout the centuries. Olive picking is one of them."

2007-10-18T09:53:00.000-05:00

L'Escargot to Go.

Apologies for the continued snafu on posting to our guestbook (our newsboard is still working, Paul Herron one of the Foundations trustees just posted that there are 15 copies of Winter of Artifice still available!) Our server is in the midst of being moved (a very expensive propostion, the rent for the server each month is $1200 a month, so we really don't have a say in the process as we just pay a one time fee each year to a friend, who ran the site for about ten years for nothing. Although we pay a monthly maintence fee to a very fine webmaster, if a server is denying him entry because of larger issues (obviously our site is only one of hundreds on the server) there is really nothing that can be done. We apologize to all those who wish to share their thoughts with the world about Anais. Consider this a snail mail message about the overdue work. It's financial. Also the owner of the server has been working and traveling in Ireland. Once its moved these issues (caused by the fact that the website was created in 1995!) Can you believe,pre-Google, we had a clean, clear, google look before it was created?

We will post after this message, a recent exchange that was sent to me by our site's editor Donna Ippolito.

Luckily, our audio from Anais is working. We are not able to solve individual issues, but many download and hear her voice daily! So our suggestion is, try a friends computer or visit a public libary.

And really great ideas, like diary sharing (mentioned in the email exchange below) can be done by individuals doing their own blogs! Try out the idea of the newest thing since sliced bread, a blog.
Every writer and communicator can easily share their ideas easily without knowing a spec of html code or still thinking that a URL is part of a set of mountains in the steppes of central Asia (the Eurls!)
www.blogger.com, www.tripod.com, www.typepad.com, www.squarespace.com even www.thought.com! should be enough to get you started.

Write a blog devoted only to Anais and we will link to you until our guestbook is back up and running. The newsboard is more important as the issues in the guestbook often arise because of people spamming. The security is heightened on the server because of this, and this good news bad news is just what we have to live with. We don't pay thousands of dollars for a web site to have it spammed. Until we had a registration process our old web maven got up daily and had to delete by hand hundreds of spam messages. Obviously we couldn't afford to keep doing this! If you feel you just can't wait to share your ideas, just post to our newsboard momentarily.

Here is the email exchange our editor sent to us.

From: Jan Johnson
To: "Rochelle L.Holt"
Subject: Sharon Spencer and Anais Nin Website
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:07:43 -0700 (PDT)

Rochelle:

Thanks for your note. It is appreciated. Always a pleasure hearing from you. I still have over thirty copies of Sharon Spencer's "Dance of the Ariadnes". Still doing some brain storming on what to do with these books. Been very busy these days.

On my computer, I have difficulty accessing Anais' audio interviews. I have the right player but it is a no go. How is the Guest Book coming along ? I note there have been no visitors leaving notes. There is so much to do with anaisnin.com. Perhaps a virtual diary for the anaisnin.com audience ? When her diaries were published, women would share with her how she changed and transformed their lives. It would be great if this can be continued with the website. Please advise.

Enjoy your stay in Bolingbrook.

Keep in touch.

Sincerely,

Jan-Christine Johnson
3636 Sixteenth Street NW
#A916
Washington DC 20010

opera9261956@yahoo.com

"Rochelle L.Holt" wrote:
Jan,
I'm now in Bolingbrook outside Chgo until early Jan. I wanted to let
you know that I have several copies of Sharon's book DANCE OF THE
ARIADNES. Actually, I've dispensed with l3 boxes but have 4 boxes
here. Are you interested in a box for distribution, fundraiser, gifts
on your end? $20. which will cover shipping on my end. I paid for the
entire s/h fee for all boxes and then mailed them to l4 or so others.

Let me know
Rochelle

Jan Johnson wrote:
> Rochelle:
>
> I would have loved to met Sharon Spencer. My work screen saver is a
> picture of her, Simone, Bruce, Kazuko, Rupert, Bebe, and Renate (from
> the web site). Such a beautiful lady and an English professor at that !
>
> By all means, we must preserve Sharon's literature. I would be quite
> appalled if a publisher wanted to trash my writings.
>
>
>
> Many thanks.
>
> Jan-Christine
>
> P.S. How is Kazuko ?
>
>
>
> */"Rochelle L.Holt" /* wrote:
>
> Jan, did you know Sharon Spencer? I've taken it upon myeslf to pay
> for
> s/h of 20 boxes of books containing her DANCE OF THE ARIADNES
> which Sky
> Blue Press planned to trash. I have ten people who paid $20.
> apiece for
> a box to be mailed to them with 44 copies within. Some pay $l0 for l0
> copies but I'm interested if you knew Sharon and could disseminate
> this
> novel? Check out my latest entry on Anais site in News section.
> So glad you are writingn to preserve legacy of Rupert and others not
> that well known except in the circle.
> Rochelle
>
> Jan Johnson wrote:
> > Dear Rochelle:
> >
> > I am more than happy to research and write about Rupert Pole and
> his
> > family. I knew Rupert and Kazuko when I invited them to my service
> > "Anais Nin Lives!" at the Throop Memorial Unitarian-Universalist
> > Church in August 1988. Thanks to Lucia Capacchione (author of
> > "Creative Journal") who provided his telephone number to me. I
> would
> > visit with Rupert, Kazuko, and Beatrice Wood a number of times. I
> > assisted typing the ms of "Incest" from 1989-1991.
> >
> > So many memories. Rupert provided so many memories of Anais.
> >
> > Out of my love for Rupert, Anais, and Kazuko, I will publish an
> > article about his interesting family. Perhaps a small magazine or
> > www.anaisnin.com . Meanwhile, I will look
> > for an editor.
> >
> > Did you know that I wrote another non-fiction piece "Discovering
> > George Grossmith in Folkestone" ? /The Gaiety/ magazine
> published it
> > in Spring 2005. Grossmith was one of the original Gilbert and
> > Sullivan performers. Here is the link:
> > http://www.geocities.com/the_gaiety/biblio.html .
> >
> > Always a pleasure hearing from you.
> >
> >
> > Jan-Christine Johnson
> > 3636 Sixteenth Street NW
> > #A916
> > Washington DC 20010
> >
> >
> >

2007-08-26T23:04:00.000-05:00

Sharon Spencer's birthday was August 8th. During this time to honor her August birthday we asked Rochelle Holt to send on these memories from the Memorial Booklet funded by the Anais Nin Estate.

The first is by Donna Ippolito
THE BUILDER
by Donna Ippolito

Rose of Sharon blooms by day. Among petals pink, rose, mauve, and purple, its center is a thick gold pistil, hard and reaching. Rose of Sharon blooms by day, but with falling light, the petals draw shut like shy young hands….

Child of the sun, lover of whirling skirts, she longed to be a dancer, child of the wind. Harsh, the sun stills hot music, the bare dancing feet. It burns, tearing through to the center, and she must create or be consumed.

She lives on the brink. there is in her a fierceness, a love of red cotton dresses and sandals, an urge to bare breasts to sun. But at the moment of abandon comes another fury. Urgent, from deep in the body comes the need to shape. Language is her clay. She loves to work it until words round into one another, fluid as smoke, light as small bells ringing in the wind. Words come first on the pulse, on the heat of breath. Words dance in the blood like a woman among trees, and language is a song….

Rhombus, rebus, sphere, square. Sharon loves puzzles, patterns, and shapes. How does it work? How does it stand? How many sides has it, and what is the relation of one to another? With a builder’s love of space, she pursues the mystery of form, all the while forming herself….

*I wrote this piece years and years ago when I first met Sharon

The second by Anais Nin's Japanese translator and friend. Kazuko Sugisaki

SHARON, A SHAMAN
by Kazuko Sugisaki

Sharon was like white silk, folded into many layers, pure, delicate, lustrous, resilient,
comforting. Sharon was like black iron, firm, stable, strong, sustaining the foundation of many souls. Sharon was like blooming hydrangea, a cluster of small seven-colored flowers forming a perfect sphere, fragrant, abundant. Sharon IS like a Japanese Miko, a shaman woman, who walks freely over that red curved bridge, crossing the boundary between this world and the other, transcending time and space, transmitting messages, feelings, thoughts, unspoken yet understood, penetrating the impenetrable.

Sharon did not die. Sharon is not dead. Sharon simply decided to live…over there, in another part of the garden, across the red curved bridge, that part where ancient music sounding like miniature bells, like a lone bamboo flute, weaves through pine branches that bend and touch the mirror water, where a half moon floats sustaining the balance of day and night. Sharon decided to live there…because the purple mist of jacaranda is too thick here on our shore, she decided, knowing anytime, she can cross again that red curved bridge….

Mother of All, we are dying
of the old laws. Oh, Mother Moon,
give us we pray, a law to live by,
Come Quickly. Come. Come. Come.*

(p.26 WIRE RIMS by Sharon Spencer
Heinemann Ed. Books ’95)

*”Invocation to the Mayan Moon Goddess” first appeared in ’88 in Women on War: Essential Voices for the Nuclear Age ed. by Daniela Gioseffi (American Book Award winner l990)

The third is by Rochelle Holt:

from “Persephone’s Call,” intro by Rochelle Lynn Holt

….We met face to face when Anais invited us with a few others to read with her at the U of California in Berkeley in ’72 which began a deep friendship that lasted thirty years. Sharon was the sister I always wanted and never had….

I admired and respected Sharon as a scholar, novelist, educator and critic. She became the major critic whose body of non-conventional criticism on Anais Nin remains the most in-depth and primary source available for the past two decades….

All who met or knew Sharon were drawn to her charismatic personality, her keen mind, her deep and genuine concern for all minorities….

Renate Druks in Sharon’s edited essay collection, Anais, Art & Artists in l986 included Anais’ credo, “A Celebration of Life” as part of her memorial tribute on Jan. 5 ’77. “Let’s celebrate the individual struggle to create a world of freedom, beauty and love.” That so fits my dearest friend, my sister, Sharon Spencer, a beautiful and independent writer, a woman who touched me and everyone who met her so deeply.

(Excerpts from the memorial magazine SHARON SPENCER edited by Rochelle Lynn Holt (Rose Shell Press ’77) and funded by the Anais Nin Estate. A few copies are still available for $8. each. Contact RochelleL317@copper.net)

2007-08-26T22:58:00.000-05:00

This Email from Rochelle Holt, please also check out her discussion in our
news and event board.( Our guestbook is having problems. Apologies!)the news and event board seems to be working.

Early August ’07, Sharon’s publisher of Dance of the Ariadnes (Sky Blue Press ’98) informed me that the book would be recycled unless I cared to acquire them. This novel

is a major work in Sharon’s career. I could not allow it to be forgotten forever. That’s

why I enlist any of you who cared about her to contact me to see if you can sell the book

for whatever price you desire. Perhaps you will donate the sales to this wonderful site

that keeps alive the memory of Anais Nin and her Circle as well as myriad friends worldwide. If you would like to purchase one copy, send $l0. + $2. s/h to Rochelle Holt,

15223 Coral Isle Ct., Ft Myers, FL 33919 from November ’07 toMay ’08. Sept/Oct ’07 and June-November ’08, send to R. Holt, 5 Sunshine Ct. Bolingbrook, IL 60490

2007-06-28T16:05:00.000-05:00

Essential Anais Nin CD: Excerpts from her Diary and Comments (Caedmon Essentials) [ABRIDGED] [AUDIOBOOK] (Audio CD Just out. Anais Nin Author/ Anais Nin Narrator.

Order using our Anais Nin Amazon Bookstore Link.

2007-05-23T09:00:00.000-05:00

Gotham City, Superman couldn't save the Gotham. This just in from my friend Adele Aldridge.

"I hope you get this - without the Gotham we would never have met"

Anais is mentioned in this article this morning in the New York Times, on the sad end of Gotham Book Mart.

Here is the permalink to this morning's article. to the article on the non-arrival of Superman with a bookbag.

It is in this revered bookstore that I came with friend, author, anthologist and literary critic William Rossa Cole and learned about the Celebration Weekend, brainchild of Adele and Valerie Harms.

Cole introduced me to Ms. Steloff, and as soon as his back was turned (he disliked Nin and called all of her readers "ninnies") I said breathlessly, as only a young Chicagoan could say after just being taken to lunch at the Algonquin, "Oh Frances, I read about you in the Diaries". At that moment, she waved me into her inner office and gave me a flyer for the weekend which she was part of, with her dear friend Anais.

As readers of her diaries know, when Anais left Paris because of the war, she sent her books to Frances Steloff of the Gotham Book Mart. Valerie has written a portrait of Frances in her book, Stars in My Sky. Although only one star (Nin) is written about in the portrait on our site, if one finds a copy of Valerie's original book the portrait of Frances Steloff is striking. Find a copy at the best kept secret on finding out of print books on the web: Abe Books

Photo used above by Steven Reigns

2007-05-19T09:09:00.000-05:00

Interview with Anais Nin from 1972

Our site's editor, Donna Ippolito
wrote us this email about an interview with Anais from 1972

I found this interview by accident while searching for something to do with D.H. Lawrence.

Have you seen this? If it's unpublished, maybe it's something for the site.

Donna

2007-04-25T09:34:00.000-05:00

Maria Newman house, Malibu CA 1994 (designed by Eric Wright) photo by Maria Newman

Article From the Santa Monica Mirror Vol. 8, Issue 44 April 12 -

Eric Wright: Organic Architecture, Anais Nin And More
David Charles, Special to the Mirror

On top of a mountain overlooking the coast from Palos Verdes to Malibu lives one of our creative treasures, architect Eric Lloyd Wright, son of Lloyd Wright, grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright. It is an idyllic setting. There are coastal live oaks and valley oaks all around, a pond surrounded by sycamores, an orchard with citrus, plums, avocados, peaches and apricots. And, of course, an organic vegetable garden. Huge boulders spot the grounds like perfect accents.
We talked in his offices which consist of two trailers connected by a deck and a roof. It's solid and simple with a patio built around two sides. We're sitting in a dining area inside while Mary, his wife, is cooking in the kitchen which is actually one of the trailers —also inside. We are outside the trailer, but inside the structure. It's an interesting situation, one that makes more sense after talking with this lively and engaging man of seventy-seven years. His grandfather had a full blown working career well into his later years and talking with Eric, I sense the same heartiness—his curiosity, vitality and total immersion in life characterize a creative life going strong.
D: What are your inspirations right now?
E: Nature. What goes on around me in nature, that's my biggest inspiration.
D: How do you keep in touch?
E: One of the reasons I moved up here and work the way I do, having my office and my home on my site is that I get to be in tune with it all the time here.
D: Has that been consistent from your first days working, that nature was an inspiration?
E: Yes. That's always been the basis of the architecture that I've worked with through my father and my grandfather. My grandfather took the word organic architecture. He called it organic architecture and that was working with nature, looking at nature, studying it. And, of course, it takes in more than just what we think of as nature. When you do a house, you take in the nature of the person which you're building the house for— their nature, how they want to live, how they want to use the house.
D: Can you give me an example?
E: My brother's house was the first house that I designed and had built. His companion was a very well known writer, Anais Nin. They lived together. They didn't have any children but they loved to entertain. They had four or five parties a week, soirées.
D: This is the 50's? 60's?
E: This is the 50's and 60's. The house was started in 1960. They didn't have a lot of money. The original house was around 1200 sq. ft. and most of it we put into the living room. We made it so that there was just one bedroom and a little study for Anais, a bathroom and living room. The dining area was part of the living room and it wrapped around into a kitchen behind the fireplace. So it was all one big flowing space. Instead of a wall between the master bedroom and the living room we put a folding partition which you could open so that the master bedroom was part of the living room and you could entertain in that whole space. Well, that's taking into account the needs of the client, how they want to live. The dining room, living room and master bedroom could be opened up into one large space. But I told them that if you make the master bedroom part of the living room you have to make your bed. (laughs) You've got to keep the room clean. But it worked out very well, and in fact, once we put the partition in they left it open all the time. It just sat there. Actually, the rollers have broken and you can't close it now.
D: What part of town is that in?
E: Silverlake, right across from the reservoir near Echo Park.
D: So that would be an example of what your grandfather meant when he said, "The reality of the building does not consist in the roof and walls but in the space within."
E: That comes from the idea that architecture is a germ idea. It starts with the idea and it grows out from the center. So, in doing my schematic designs, I usually start with a site plan. I look at the whole site and decide where the best situation for the house will be. I block out a very rough floor plan/idea of sitting on the site. And I start with that floor plan and then I work it until it's in the right situation for that site and it's fitting in. Then from that I start developing the floor plan so that it includes all the things that we need, the various rooms and functions, taking into consideration where the view is, how the sun is, where the wind comes in–all those elements of the natural site. So that I start really with the floor plan—the "interior space" when I begin to develop the house, after I've sited it. Then I'll cut a couple of sections through there and develop sections. I first create a two-dimensional space in the plan, then I start doing the three-dimensional space with these cross sections of the building because I can see relationships of heights. When I do that I like to get different height levels if possible to make an interest in the flow of space. Once I get the sections where I like them and they're working with the plan, then I do the elevations, then I do the final exterior. So the exterior has been shaped by what's going on inside the building. That's organic architecture. When you finally end up with the exterior shell it's an expression of what's inside—just like a seashell. It allows you also to have any number of forms because that's the way seashells and other forms are.
D: Have you seen the properties of organic architecture filter down into middle class houses?
E: Oh, yeah. I think that one of the big influences that organic architecture had was on the ranch house which you'll find in a lot of subdivisions today. It was much more prevalent in the 50's, 60's and 70's, but it had an open floor plan. You go into a lot of these tract homes and they'll have an open plan. They'll have a living room with a dining area offset from it and a kitchen around the wall with no doors. That openness came out of organic architecture. The Victorian was all boxes. You had your own separate dining room, living room, little entry box and so on. You went from box to box to box. Here, this opened it up. It made a flow plan. And that was all based on the interior space. And then, of course, there's the concept of working that interior space to be in conjunction with the outer space. So that you didn't feel a separation, that there was a continuous movement from inside to outside. A lot of that is accomplished with, of course, glass, opening it up. For instance, on my front entry, I have no corner post, the glass is mitered. When you do that, it opens the room up. Where you have a post, your eye goes right to the post. Without it, your eye takes in the whole panorama around to the next post. So, it opens up the corner, it doesn't box it in and the space continues to the outside. Another thing is the materials you have inside Say I have concrete block outside—you bring that inside as well, so there's a continuous flow. You don't just stop at the door and say, I've got plaster here and have stone out there, you wrap that around.
D: What do you see as the obstacles to organic architecture becoming more a part of our daily experience?
E: A couple things. It's not new, it's very old, but people are used to certain styles and forms of architecture. They like the Tudor and the French and so on and go for the style rather than the substance of the thing. It's a lot easier to teach certain forms of architecture in the universities. Organic architecture is rather hard to teach. It's very complex. And there are very many different ways of tackling it. It's basically set up like a fractal system in nature. Nature works on many small parts making up the whole and each part is related to the whole. Well, in our stock housing and so forth, it's easier to make boxes and put them together than it is to make these more complex forms that you see in nature. Synthesizing those forms of nature for human development take more work.
D: Do you get excited about new materials that you see or read about?
E: I get excited about them all. I think they all have possibilities if they're used for their nature. I don't like it when they take plastic and make it look like wood. You can get plastic shingles they make look like wood. Well, if they have it like plastic then that might be interesting, but to imitate a wood shingle, that's something else. I look forward to new materials. One of the problems is you look at something and think this is a great idea, I could use this special block for walls…for instance, cement that has insulation mixed together to make a light-weight block…these things are all interesting, but it turns out that they become expensive because the contractors are not used to working with those materials. They like their old 2x4's, they're used to that. It makes it difficult when you enter with new materials. I think where you have to go with all of this is that there's just going have to be manufactured housing.
D: Manufactured housing?
E: Yes. That's like factory built.
D: A whole prefab house?
E: A whole prefab house, yes. For most people. The costs have just gone out the window.
D: I see you have a geodesic dome in your yard. What's that about?
E: A friend is trying to convince me to work with him on a project with the domes. I don't like just the geodesic dome itself. It's a rather static form because it's symmetrical all they way around. But if you start combining two or three domes and interlocking them so they aren't' just standing separately, but like bubbles, then I think you can do something interesting. So we're sort of looking at that.
D: If someone were to take an architectural tour of Los Angeles what are some sites you'd recommend?
E: Well, one would be my father's building [Lloyd Wright], Wayfarer's Chapel in Palos Verdes. That's a very important building. And there four concrete block houses by my grandfather which are very interesting and unique buildings. Probably right now the best one is the Storer House, it's in the best condition.
D: Is that the one that David Lynch lives in? On Franklin?
E: No, David Lynch lives in my father's house, off of Outpost Drive.
D: The one on Franklin is my grandfather's, the Soden residence. That's a very interesting house. There is a gem of a house of my grandfather's in Brentwood, the Sturges house. You can't get inside, but you can see it from the outside. Marvelous little house. There's the Taggart. There's his own house on Doheny Dr. That's important because it was his studio.
D: Can one visit that?
E: Not easily. These are all private houses. The only one open to the public would be Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Park. There is another FLW building open to the public, but it's not properly taken care of and they've ruined it with signs and things. It's a commercial building on Rodeo Dr. in Beverly Hills. It used to be called the Ardmore Court. I don't know what they call it now. It's quite unique. It's not a flat front. It's three-dimensional set back with a little courtyard right off the sidewalk. It's a three-story building and you go up a hexagonal ramp to service the different levels of stores. It's quite unique. People have a hard time with it, but I think it's because it hasn't been properly used.
D: What about expanding that tour outside of Los Angeles?
E: The Guggenheim in New York.
D: You worked on that, how was that experience?
E: It was very good. I was a working draftsman. I've had better experiences because there were so many of us working on it and I only did a small amount of work on it. Other buildings that I've worked on more completely were the Walker residence in Carmel and the Tonkens residence in Cincinnati.
Other great buildings I'd recommend seeing are the Japanese Palace in Kyoto (Name?). Then there's the Portola in Llhasa where the Dalai Lama lives.
D: How did the Wright Organic Resource Center come about?
E: Well, some friends got together to form an organization to help me build my house. And I felt that was a wonderful gesture, but I said that if I was going to make an organization and spend that time, I'd really like to make a non-profit organization that promoted organic architecture and use the property for events.
D: What kind of activities does the WORC sponsor?
E: We sponsor workshops in sustainable architecture, sustainable materials. We've had workshops on Cobb architecture, on solar energy, the first hybrid cars. We've had bamboo workshops, all kinds of things. Usually, we can take 40-50 people and we always try to have half of them be students from South Central LA. There are kids from Locke, Belvedere and another high school that come up and be part of the workshop and sometimes stay overnight. For some of them it's their first time to be out camping and they're so amazed. We don't have a lot of stars, but you can see more than you can in the city and they're amazed at that. I remember one morning serving breakfast to them and one of the boys said, "God, it's so quiet up here. I can't get over it. No sirens, no gunshots." I thought, my God, what an environment these kids are living in. They need a little taste of what it is to be out in nature, beyond the human nature.
Just then, Mary Wright (who is a wonderful artist) enters:
M: What's going to happen now, is this Summer solstice, there'll be 18 kids who have not had a nature experience and they'll work together with Eve. They'll come up, spend the night and be part of the solstice. Then we'll arrange a come back and touch base, you know it'll be ongoing. We haven't had that in the past.
D: Are you always looking for sponsors?
E: Oh, yeah. The problem is that right now, Kevin and Hannah who are heading up the Wright Way—they're my chief associates and work in the office, so it's pretty hard running the whole thing. That's why we've hooked up with this woman who's very interested in doing these workshops for inner city kids.
D: What advice would you give to new architectural students?
E: Well, I think the best advice is to try and understand the principles of nature—what nature is…looking at nature, looking at how, when you see trees, they have the central stem that comes up and then they have the cantilevered limbs. They're not just coming straight up out of the ground, they have a trunk and then they come out. So, there is this sense of hovering out over the ground. I always feel that's an interesting thing for buildings. And you really want to be true to the nature of the materials that you're going to be using. I think you need to have to have a certain background in structural solutions and how you do structural calculations. That's extremely important and it's not very well covered in the schools. I think one ought to study natural architecture, architecture done by native cultures throughout the world.
D: Because they're more in touch with nature?
E: Yes, especially the Japanese, the Chinese and well, the native Americans. Can't find a better structure than a teepee. Talk about a mobile trailer home. A beautiful, handsome structure, very simple. It's in a circular form which is one of the best forms for people to sit and talk and be together and sit in a circle. I think also that students of architecture should do a lot of drawing and going out in nature and painting, cultivating the artist's sense, the artist's eye. It helps you with form and color. And if you combine that with structural engineering you've got an architect. But they don't do that in schools. They don't study art. It used to be that they taught you how to draw a building and how to draw perspective and do all that, but now you don't even learn that. It's all on the computer. You learn the computer. So everything is with the computer, you don't know how to use a pencil. They come here and they can't draw.
D: What is lost?
E: I think what is lost is the sense of the eye coming from right into the hand and the pencil and what you're drawing. You've lost something when you have to hold the mouse and click on and look on the screen. You're not drawing that, you're controlling it and it's not the same. When I draw with a pencil I can change the weight of line and press and I can come quickly in and shape. You can't do that with the computer. It's a process that you have to stop and think, now I have to put in the shape thing and then I have to stretch this and this and this. It actually takes longer to make a rendering, a really good rendering. You can do a very quick mechanical rendering on the computer, but it's rather stiff, cold, whereas when you draw by hand it's more alive. They've lost that sense of feeling of artistic quality and it's made them more mechanical.
D: It's sort of one step away from nature.
E: That's right.
D: An important step.
E: And I think that's why so much modern architecture now looks so mechanical. It looks like expanded factories. Or it's rather cold, mechanistic looking, machine derived.
D: What do you think of Gehry's Disney Hall?
E: Gehry's Disney Hall is not organic architecture, although people say, well that's a wonderful form and shape. Well that shape, the outer shape is not formed from the inner building. If you go into Disney Hall, it's a box basically, rectilinear with rounded corners. And a very nice space—the seating is too tight—but it has somewhat of a good feeling. Wood is wonderful as an acoustic material. But that's completely different from what's outside. I see nothing of the inside space reflected in the outside form. So, really what Frank Gehry is doing is sculpture. He builds a box, a building inside which you work in, usually a box, and then he puts this piece of sculpture on top of it. And that's not the way of organic architecture.
D: Goethe called architecture frozen music. Accepting that for the moment, what music is emanating from your structures?
E: Ah, well, I like to think probably Bach would be the closest. Because it has a geometric structure, at least that's what I sense when I hear it. Of course Beethoven is marvelous. His later music is very abstract, but Bach would be a closer analogy.
D: What are your plans for the future?
E: To press on with the work I'm doing. We're involved in a project making affordable housing in East LA. Also, we're doing a mixed-use project in Altadena. I'm very interested that—the public and it's relation to the commercial sphere and how we relate it and make it more human than it has become, especially here in LA. A pet thing that I'd love to do, would be to design an elementary school that would be completely integrated with the natural environment. So that the kids would be involved with the landscaping. The school would be part of the landscape, the landscape would be part of the school so that they would feel the sense of nature where they're learning. They can have a garden and then they eat the things out of the garden so that they get the fresh natural food that they've grown, so they'll appreciate it. They're always much more willing to eat a salad if they've grown the lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes. Then the idea, too, would be that I would love to have that based—kindergarten and the first two grades—based on the Froebel system.
D: Who is Froebel?
E: He's a German philosopher who actually created kindergarten around 1840 in Germany. He devised this system for children learning to abstract from nature. Klee and Mondrian were both trained in the Froebel system. And my grandfather was trained in it.
D: You're describing building a school so that the system of teaching could be integrated—
E: — in the school itself. And the children would help with taking care of the planting and the landscaping.
D: So, just like your grandfather wanting to integrate the outside with the inside even going so far as to design furniture that goes with it, you've found that influence in your own thinking?
E: Oh, yeah. The problem that we have with the furniture—which is not easy to design—chairs—a good chair is harder to design than a good building... The architect should be able to do the whole thing. Unfortunately, it's very expensive so by the time the people get the building built they haven't got enough money or energy left to get into furniture.
D: They end up at Ikea.
E: Right. Usually, I try, though I'm not always successful, to do the dining room furniture, at least the dining room table and chairs. My grandfather in the early days, labor was cheap and so upper middle class people could afford to have the whole house furnished. He would do the draperies. Once, he had two women clients who had him design their clothes for them to go with the house!
D: Could you share with us a story or two about Frank Lloyd Wright?
E: There is a story about my grandfather that I always thought was very telling about his character. We were working on the drawings for the Guggenheim Museum and everybody involved was working in the drafting room. We had two damns and had made two beautiful ponds below Taliesin with a beautiful rock spillway with earth all around the sides. But the earth had shot out and broken away and a day after the damn had broken my grandfather called for me. I went over there and he said, " I want everybody out there helping you down at the damn." So, I went over there and spoke with grandfather's chief associate (Wes Peters), and I told Wes, Grandfather wants everyone out of the draftroom and down at the damn. And he shouted, "He can't do that! He can't do that! I'll go over and talk to him." So, I waited there and about twenty minutes later Wes came back and said, "Okay, everybody, out, down to the damn." And it took us two or three days. I often wondered about that, I mean, here was his biggest and most important project. But I figured that more important to my grandfather was the space he lived in, the environment he was living in. And he didn't want that muddy hole down there festering under the building. That's what was important to him–the way he lived, how he lived, what his environment was. Was it beautiful? You make it beautiful. If you can't get your own environment in shape, how in the hell can you help anybody else? You've got to be working in this atmosphere of beauty. And, of course, we got the drawings done. As my grandfather always said, "Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves."
I remember another time, again working on the damn a couple of years later. It had a hole in it and there was a stake truck stuck in the mud of the damn. My grandfather was standing there, he always loved that, out working with the equipment. He liked watching over the construction projects. I was getting ready to go over and get the bulldozer. Brandock, who is also a grandson of his, had a couple of Percherons that he'd been raising— they're big work horses. He had two beautiful big ones and he said, "I'll pull it out with the Percherons" And I said, "Brandock, they won't do it, they can't do it. This is too heavy. We have to get the bull dozer." "Well, I think I can do it." And Grandfather says, "Eric, let Brandock get the horses." And I said, "Wait a minute. Are we gonna waste all this time—" "Let Brandock get the horses," insists Grandfather. So, Brandock went and harnessed them up, came over, hooked them up and tried to pull, you know, and couldn't quite do it. I started to say something and Grandfather called me aside and said, "I wanted to do this to help Brandock, you know, give him confidence…and," a flush of emotion rises up in Eric as he finishes his grandfather's words, "…you don't want to destroy that." I understood then what he was about. He had the time. We had the time. Let him [Brandock] try his work for what he could do. People always think of my grandfather as being the egotist, the one who has to just do his thing and we're all there to support it. There was that element. There had to be that element or he couldn't have done what he did. And I think you find this with most great individuals. But there were a lot of sides to my grandfather.

Eric Lloyd Wright & Associates
Phone: 818.591.8992
Fax: 818.591.0116
Web: http://www.elwright.net/

2007-04-12T17:39:00.000-05:00

How to use a journal for self guidance and expanded creativity. Rainer's The New Diary. This is a book that will inspire even the most seasoned writer.
This classic which has sold over 200,000 copies, has been recently updated with a new preface.

"Diary Writing has become an increasingly popular activity. To answer a need for more knowledge about it I taught a course with my friend Tristine Rainer, who has been studying the diary for many years."
Anais Nin December 1976, Preface to The New Diary

Tristine Rainer Ph.D was a confident, friend and colleague of Anais. Rainer has been often quoted lately in articles on Anais Nin and Rupert Pole. Currently she can be reached through her Center for Autobiographical Studies

"Tristine Rainer, Ph.D, is a pioneer in the fields of contemporary journal writing and narrative autobiography. Her book The New Diary, how to use a journal for self-guidance and expanded creativity has sold over 200,000 copies and has been used as a text in university Psychology and Occupational Therapy courses, although her degree was in English Lit. After a quarter of a century in print The New Diary will see a new, revised edition in 2004. Her book Your Life as Story, Writing the New Autobiography, published in 1997 hit the Los Angeles Times bestseller list and is presently being used as a text in many college writing programs"

2007-03-25T16:17:00.000-05:00

We were just forwarded this article from GadFly Online entitled Anais Nin, Writer or Perfume written by artist Judy Chicago a year after Nin died.

Judy Chicago is an artist, feminist, and writer whose career spans nearly four decades. As an artist she has been highly influential, exploring a varity of media and addressing issues of gender, ethnicity, and power. Her best known work, The Dinner Party, has been exhibited across the world. In addition to her artistic achievements, she was also responsible for pioneering feminist art education, setting up study programs at Fresno State University, the California Institute of the Arts, and the Los Angeles Women's Building. She has published seven books, including two autobiographical texts, Through the Flower and Beyond the Flower. She lives in Belen, New Mexico, with her husband, Donald Woodman, and their seven cats.

2007-03-05T09:16:00.000-06:00

You Tube and Anais Nin
Steven Reigns has suggested a video of the French song, Anais Nin.

2007-02-28T07:53:00.000-06:00

Thanks to Steven Reigns for sending on birthday greetings to us for Anais's birthday on February 21st. Steven's support of the site has been astounding. He has contributed time and energy and his annotating of the Nin Audios has been an invaluable addition to the site. As important as Sharon Spencer's Forever Anais.as well as the introduction of all the missing Swallow Press information. We are deeply appreciative of his continued help. Steven is a rare blend of scholar and activist artist.Our site wouldn't have the new additions we have today, such as the What's new Button or this blog, if it wasn't for his quiet behind the scenes work.

Rebecca also posted to the guestbook and news and message boards with a lovely quote of Anais's.

"When we walked the streets, bodies close together, arm in arm, hands locked, I was in such ecstasy I could not talk. The city disappeared, and so did the people. The acute joy of our walking together through the grey streets of Paris I shall never forget, and I shall never be able to describe it. We were walking above the world, above reality, into pure, pure ecstasy." - Anais Nin

We also appreciate Suzanne Graeber's sending us on a couple of links via Eric Lloyd Wright's assistant Lori on recent articles that have appeared.
The first is a wonderful article from the Malibu Times that we might have missed on Eric Lloyd Wright and his wife, artist Mary Wright. Eric was Rupert Pole's half brother and was the architect who designed Anais and Rupert's House of Light, in Silverlake. Actually the piece is a two fold article, The first - from Malibu Times Magazine -is a dual piece with the separate stories of Mary and Eric, as well as some history on the Wright Land.

Another article that appeared in the New York Times Magazine( the last Sunday of the New Year(12/31/06)entitled, The Lover Who Always Stays by Sara Corbett. If this link does not work, please register with the Times and access it through their site or go to your local library and check in the newspaper archives. The photo is by Jill Krementz, who also did the photo for the Anais Nin Reader. Ms.Krementz graciously allowed us permission to use the photography of Rupert and Anais that appears elsewhere on our site as well as in this New York Times piece. The article leads to a bio of Rupert, chronicling his relationship with Anais Nin, taken from the New York Times Magazine year end edition titled The Lives They Lived.

2007-01-21T17:25:00.000-06:00

Steven Reigns has suggested a video of the French song, Anais Nin.

2007-01-21T16:56:00.000-06:00

Anais Nin & Y Yevtushenko, KQED

May 25, 1972

The sound quality is not high on this recording and the interviewer asks the generalist of questions. It is a joint interview with Nin and post-Stalin Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. It is unclear who is giving the interview and Lawrence Ferlinghetti is thanked at the end.
Nin talks about growth, hers and the growth of women. She reads excerpts selected by John Pierson about personal relationships and intimacy. Nin is then asked to defend her position on political action. she states that we need to "work on the quality of the human being first, and that will effect the system." She says that inner lives are not a luxury. Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko fields questions about his beliefs of poetry. Nin interjects and gives what she believes is the "women's perspective." Yevtushenko jovially replies, "I almost agree with you." The remaining interview is primarily focused on the poet. An interpreter helps Yevtushenko explain the connection between poet and woman. Nin later states how there are conflicts between being a women and a writer. The interviewers are less generous with Nin and seem slightly aggressive in their questions with both writhers. Nin ends with talking about her process of diary writing and why she continues to write in it, "There is a truth you get from the instantaneous impression that memory does change. So, you can come a bit close to what you felt on that day, in that moment."

This "summary" of the Anais Nin Audio Files was written by Steven Reigns.
Steven Reigns (www.stevenreigns.com ) is a poet, artist, and educator living in Los Angeles. A collector of Nin memorabilia and a latent Nin scholar, he has been interested in Nin since 1991.

AnaisNin-YYevtushenkoKQEp3 D.m

2007-01-21T16:52:00.000-06:00

The Creative Woman in America Today, University of Chicago

November 5, 1972 (A Woman Speaks lists this as being published in the Hyde Parker)

After a long welcoming applause, Nin begins by explaining that she is not using her "authentic" voice, that she has had laryngitis and "did not want to fail" the audience by canceling. Nin lectures of how fame helps one connect with a wider world, her awareness of others isolation and the necessity of support and sustenance. She converses about Carl Jung's "second birth" and of her struggles, "What I learned as a woman in the progression of the diary was that trap, in which I was caught, which was living in a traditional marriage in the suburb of Paris—which is just like a suburb of Chicago…this struggle to find yourself and your path is more difficult for women and sometimes more tragic." There are comments on "human handicaps" and how for women, "The arts have given us a source of strength and solace." Nin speaks about her inner journey leading her to others. How her involvement in causes did not consume all of her, that she reserved time and energy for her inner work. Nin then takes audience questions. Nin's reputation for being the darling of the lecture circuit in the early 70s is easily understandable when listening to her interact with the students. Her responses are respectful, thoughtful, and even humorous. "Most people gave the impression that when you start introspection, you're going to stay there and never come out again. I wanted to prove that introspection lead somewhere, it lead outward." She answers a question about the parallels between the women's liberation and black people in America. Her response is refreshingly open for 1972, especially for a woman at age 69. She relates her own experience as a foreigner. She then fields a question about women's eroticism in literature and her own past of writing erotica. The questioner says that she would like Nin to publish the erotic writings. Nin responds "Well, I'm thinking about that. I wrote about a thousand pages at the time. I'm still working on editing the diaries and I haven't been able to think about much else." These writings were later published to become Delta of Venus, Little Birds, and White Stains. The talk then moves to relationships and the male/female dynamic, "The romantic thinks we can find the perfect relationship at first sight, but I found that a permanent relationship requited as much care and creation as others. I think somehow man, because of the cultural demands put on him and the stress put on him, has looked at the development of woman more as a threat and as a rivalry than as an enrichment to his own life." She talks about exclusion and the concept of too much introspection, "we don't need to be impersonal to create." She ends with discussing the illusion of connection due to media, her feelings on America, and how her writing has allowed her a center of strength.

This "summary" of the Anais Nin Audio Files was written by Steven Reigns.
Steven Reigns (www.stevenreigns.com ) is a poet, artist, and educator living in Los Angeles. A collector of Nin memorabilia and a latent Nin scholar, he has been interested in Nin since 1991.

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AnaisNin-The Creative Woman In America Today.mp3

2007-01-21T16:50:00.000-06:00

Women & Writing

January 24, 1972-Northwestern University

This lecture opens up with Nin describing a Furrawn, "a kind of talk that leads to intimacy." She reads a well known passage about her, Miller, and Durrell in Paris and how at the moment described she knew she had to go another way, "the woman's way." Nin then reports about the importance of relating and intimacy, logic and the nature of emotions. Nin discusses the first diary, Sei Shōnagon's The Pillow Book. The lecure continues about the public's unwillingness to accept the same quality in women's writings that they accept from men. Nin states "The personal world of women, to some extent, saved her from this plague of alienation." Nin lectures about women's books that have come "too soon" and how the public was not ready for such books. She gives the names of authors and explains the books they have written. She tells of how DH Lawrence read his girlfriend's diary to know her better and to discover the language of women's feelings, emotions, and intuition. Nin expresses the need of language for women and how the diary shows the more she wrote the clearer she thought. "That finally by writing, I taught myself how to talk with others." Nin stays focused on the topic of women and writing but also uses her speech to encourage women to write their inner lives. She relays a story about Zelda Fitzgerald and how Zelda relinquished the publication of her own diary after F. Scott stated he needed her diary for his writing material. Nin sees Zelda as giving up something (writing) that could have saved her. She asks the audience if they would like to ask questions now, to approach her afterward, or for her to read another passage. She ends by reading a passage about Cities of the Interior and the evolution of women finding her own language

This "summary" of the Anais Nin Audio Files was written by Steven Reigns.
Steven Reigns (www.stevenreigns.com ) is a poet, artist, and educator living in Los Angeles. A collector of Nin memorabilia and a latent Nin scholar, he has been interested in Nin since 1991.

AnaisNin-Women&Writing.mp3

2007-01-21T16:48:00.000-06:00

Studs Terkel Interview January 1972, Northwestern University

A musical intro is interrupted with Nin reading from her fourth Diary. This passage could have been written today as she talks about technology and how it has a potential to create greater distances, not bridge them.

"We have reached a hastier and superficial rhythm, now that we believe we are in touch with a greater amount of people, more people, more countries. This is the allusions which might cheat us of being in touch deeply with the one breathing right next to us. It is a dangerous time when mechanical voices, radios, telephone, take the place of human intimacies, and the concept of being in touch with millions brings a greater, and greater poverty in intimacy and human vision."

Terkel talks about the young's attraction to her work. Nin talks about her relationship with them, about Edmund Wilson not remaining open as he aged and how all of her other artist friends have remained open. Nin talks about Under a Glass Bell "This book which seems to be all fantasy and actually every one of those stories is based on a real persons, on a real situation, they begin in reality and take their roots in reality….then I embroider on that." They discuss Nin's houseboat, the story and themes of displacement. They discuss DH Lawrence and his relationship with feminism. Nin quotes him and says how she is not as harsh on Lawrence as others. Terkel prompts Nin to read a passage about woman and her conflicts to find her own language and discove her own feelings. Nin mentions her personal issue from growing up, "I had a sense of guilt about creating and being successful before my brothers were." Nin is pleased the diary gives her a way to examine her own growth, "The mystery of growth was always terribly interesting to me as a child."

Nin remains steadfast in her appreciate of men and what they had given her, "I used man's knowledge and that is why I am grateful for him, whether it was psychology…I took what was useful and left the rest. I learned from them, I learned freedom from Miller and converted it into feminine terms. I don't think we need to let certain things stand in the way, we need to convert them." Nin then discusses her feelings on analysis, "analysis is only for when we get troubled." They talk about the press and Nin reads a passage about Gonzalo. Terkel is familiar with Nin's work and seems charmed with her. He is highly familiar with her writings and prompts her numerous times to read passages. His analysis of the work is astute and Nin even comments on his reading of her work, "You seem compassionate in your reading of these characters." One of Nin's final comments, "I do not like dogma and will not wage war on man." The end the interview discussing how the conversation could easily continue and they discuss the origins and pronunciation of her name.

This "summary" of the Anais Nin Audio Files was written by Steven Reigns.
Steven Reigns (www.stevenreigns.com ) is a poet, artist, and educator living in Los Angeles. A collector of Nin memorabilia and a latent Nin scholar, he has been interested in Nin since 1991.

AnaisNin-StudsTerkel Jan1972.mp3

2007-01-21T16:46:00.000-06:00

Bookbeat:

Host: Robert Cromie, March 1, 1972

( A Woman Speaks lists this interview on January 22, 1972.)

Nin talks about the diary and its origins as a letter to her father, stating even that it should really be called a "journal" and not a "diary." She describes the difficulty of publishing the Diaries and the reasons for editing people out of the published version. She explores her connection to the young, calling Gore "arrogant" and talks of how he had changed from when she first met him. She loves the young and "what they might become." The conversation moves into war, politics, and her involvement in the feminist movement. Nin converses about converting her "anger into action" and how she self-published her books on her own press, the first book edition of 300, and her mistake of dividing the word "love." Gonzales is not mentioned but there is talk of Edmund Wilson and her relationship with him. She also discusses the evolution of her friendship with Henry Miller. Nin reports about Maya Deren's direction and how she now has a greater understanding of Deren's going against actor's safety and wishes, "The film was more important than ourselves." Nin states how she doesn't drink and how it might have interfered with her relationships with American authors who bonded over drinking. She reflects, "I'm in harmony with my life now." Cromie is a kind and skilled interviewer who is clearly familiar with Nin's work. This interview was after the publication of Diary 4.

This "summary" of the Anais Nin Audio Files was written by Steven Reigns.
Steven Reigns (www.stevenreigns.com ) is a poet, artist, and educator living in Los Angeles. A collector of Nin memorabilia and a latent Nin scholar, he has been interested in Nin since 1991.

AnaisNin-Bookbeat3-1-72.mp3

2007-01-21T16:44:00.000-06:00

Anais Nin Audio Files:

We will be officially posting these summaries on our what's new page
when our web site is updated by Anais Nin's birthday February 21st. We are
posting individual "snippets" of the summaries Steven Reigns wrote, with immediate links to the audio files he has summarized because everyone who has read them has responded so enthusiastically to his words.

I'm so pleased to help with this project for the site. I quoted Nin as much as possible. I didn't want to review the work as much as I wanted to summarize it. My desire was to create a guide for scholars and fans. If one wants to hear about her feelings on Vidal, they can quickly skim the summaries to determine which recording would be of interest.

After listening to the audio several times, I had a feeling that I had read what she was saying. I went to A Woman Speaks to discover Hinz used several of the recordings in her collection. I did spot an inconsistency with the date of the Cromie interview, and I added the specific day to the Women & Writing lecture.

Since these were all recorded around the same time, Nin repeated herself often. I've tried to highlight the non-repetitive comments.

--Steven Reigns

Steven Reigns (www.stevenreigns.com ) is a poet, artist, and educator living in Los Angeles. A collector of Nin memorabilia and a latent Nin scholar, he has been interested in Nin since 1991.

2006-12-31T17:11:00.000-06:00

Today we received, via our web hosting friend who has hosted our site for many years
an email from Paul Herron, who has let us know that a photo we have up on the site
was done by Jill Krementz and has asked that we put the appropriate copyright words under the photo. Until our web maintence master for our site can post the appropriate correction, we wish to note it on this blog. Below is the email and the gracious permission that Ms. Krementz has granted the site despite our inappropriate use of her photo.

Dear Moira (Anaisnin.com):
>
>First of all I want to wish you a happy new year.
>

>I am writing on the behalf of New York photographer Jill Krementz that one of the photographs you have of Rupert Pole and Anais Nin on your tribute page to Rupert, specifically http://www.anaisnin.com/scholarship/index.html, the closeup on the right, which has been attached to this e-mail, was taken by her and she wishes to be credited in the following manner: "Photo by Jill Krementz, (c) 2006. All rights reserved."
>
>Apparently Rupert made copies of said photograph and sent it to dear friends without realizing he was breaking the contract between photographer and subject (in other words, he should have put the photo credit on the back of the photo as was required)...

>
>Thank you,
>Paul Herron
>Member, the Anais Nin Trust Committee
>

2006-12-12T05:09:00.000-06:00

Rupert Pole gave the site a manila folder, filled with photos of Anais, labeled Internet This photo is taken of the two of them on the edge of their pool, beside the willow in their home in Silverlake. You can read about this storied home in a 1984 copy of Architectural Record that has a beautiful spread of photos as well as an article by Barbara Kraft,on the history of Anais's House of Light.

The home also appeared in a 1999 Architectural Record, Houses of the Century issue, Rupert and Anais's home was chosen as one of the houses of the "sixties" although only a small photo and a little drawing of Anais appeared (about a half page)

After Rupert's death this summer, Janet Eastman, Lifestyle editor of the LA Times, did a story on the home that Rupert built for Anais by EricLloyd Wright grandson of architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Eric Lloyd Wright helped with the story of his half brother, Rupert. Eric is the grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright. His father, also an architect, was Frank Lloyd Wright Jr. who was known as Lloyd.

This story can be ordered from the Times. The photos that were taken for the article might still be working as a link on our site where we post the direct link to the LA Times archives. Click on the link: Nin Scholarship and the In Memoriam Link for Rupert Pole (Feb 18, 1919 to July 15, 2006)from there, just scroll down to:
Storied past, uncertain future with photo slideshow - LA Times