Field Notes: Big Sur. Big Paradise.
18/10/2011 § 10 Comments
Big Sur was pristine, remote and breathtakingly beautiful.
If you haven’t yet made the trip along PCH, move it to the top of your list.
Immediately...
Redwood morning.
Big Sur is the California that men dreamed of years ago, this is the Pacific that Balboa looked at from the Peak of Darien, this is the face of the earth as the Creator intended it to look.
Henry Miller
The blue sky adds “Dont call me eternity, call me God if you like, all of you talkers are in paradise: the leaf is paradise, the tree stump is paradise, the paper bag is paradise, the man is paradise, the fog is paradise”
Jack Kerouac, Big Sur
Breakfast at Big Sur Bakery.
Partington Cove.
The sea swirls up but seems subdued — It’s not like being alone down in the vast hell writing the sounds of the sea.
Jack Kerouac, Big Sur
Pacific fury flashing on rocks that rise like gloomy sea shroud towers out of the cove, the bingbang cove with its seas booming inside caves and slapping out, the cities of seaweed floating up and down you can even see their dark leer in the phosphorescent seabeach nightlight
Jack Kerouac, Big Sur
Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.
Bixby Bridge, built in 1932.
A few Allagash Whites at Post Ranch Inn.
Sleep at Deetjens, the original Big Sur roadhouse. Built in the 1930s.
Reading List || LIFE Magazine July 6, 1959: Big Sur, California Story
18/10/2011 § Leave a comment
Henry Miller, second from left, in Big Sur in 1959.
I was pleased to discover that in 1959, LIFE Magazine sent J. R. Eyerman to capture a portrait of the creative colony that called Big Sur home at the time. Shooting in color, Eyerman returned with sun-bleached moments of artists, yogis, writers, families and local businessmen living in the picturesque California mountainside town. And after spending a few days there last week, I am happy to confirm that Big Sur definitely retains some of this same arty, offbeat and bohemian personality.
To read this lovely article, head here.
All images via the LIFE Archive.
