A2-Sunday News, June 29, 1980

_ strictly personal Disaster plan approved

by Bob Hunter

A strange neighbor

I still have it — my battered and stained copy of
Henry -Miller’s Tropic of Cancer.

Taking it out of the bookshelf, I find that the
blue hard cover, held together with Scotch tape,
has come loose from the binding. The. pages are
warped like an old record from the time the book
went down to the bottom with my boat.

Yet, for all that, it is
remarkably intact. The
water marks give the pages
the quality of ancient scrolls,
which is quite fitting.

In his introduction to the
Grove Press edition, a man
named Karl Shapiro stated

that he thought Henry Milier
was “the greatest living
author.”

“If one had to type bim,”
Shapiro wrote, “one might
call him a Wisdom writer,
Wisdom literature being a
type of literature that lies
between literature and
scripture.”

Vividly, 1 recall pushing
my way through a crowd in a
narrow little bookstore off
Times Square, working my
way past the skin magazines
with pictures of women tn
leather bondage outfits

It was 1961 and Grove
Press, | knew, had just
published the first American
edition of Tropic of Cancer,
which | had been reading
about for years in articles by
vanous famous writers who
said it was one of the best
books ever wntten

eee

Uoatal then, couldn't be
bought in the US) and of
course the chances of getting
woan Canada were close to

NV legion
safe
robbed

Thieves used an acctylene

torch to cut through the sate
mw) the) Reyal Canadian
Legion hall on PSth Street
in North Vancouver in the
carly hours of Sunday

Ihe  thicves whe had
broken into the building
made off with the halls

Saturday night bar takings

absolute zero.

1 had just taken a bus from
Chicago and rented a bug-
infested room on 58th.
Provided I ate nothing but
hot dogs, I had something
like $10 left over with which
to entertain myself for the
week I planned to stay in
New York. I promptly spent
$6 of it on a copy of Tropic
of Cancer.

It did not scem strange to
me that the one book |
thought worth obtaining in
the United States was to be
found in the back shelves of
a sweaty porno shop, with
the dildoes displayed among
the S & M mags. It somehow
figured that the most
spiritual writer America had

produced since Walt
Whitman would be hiddcn
away in just some such

uncxpected corner.

To smuggle the book back
into Canada, I hid it at the
bottom of my duffel bag,
covered with dirty) un-
derwear and socks. I wasn't
much of a smuggiecr, as you
can tell, but, back then, tt
didn't) matter Customs
officers were pretty las

eee

As a
Cancer

book, Tropic of
has no centre, no
recogmizable theme cacepta
celebration of hfe It ta an
autobiographical voyage
through the pecuhar imsanity
of the modern world
Miller's use of language ts 30
caquisite it makes other
writers cry with cnvy af
they are young. with pure
pleasure when they re older

In the reports which were
published weeks ago.
when Henry Miller dicd. at

two

Halr Cut, Style
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for the skin mags

Our Gift to

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trom hare voufe de lille

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88, Tropic of Cancer was
mentioned as the book
which triggered a landmark
U.S. Supreme Court
decision on obscenity.
bursting the censorship dam
which until then had held
back the tide

of por-
nography.
Henry himself often
remarked that he hated

pornography. Writing about
sex, you see, is not
automatically the same
thing. It always amazed him
that he should be famous as
“dirty writer.”

Here is a sample of his
writings, much more typical
than the few sex-related
scenes scattered here and
there among the thousands
of pages of his published
work:

“Man creates nothing of

and by himself. All 1s
created, ali has been
foreseen... Yet there 1s

freedom. Freedom to sing
God's praises. This is the
highest performance man
can enact. when he acts thus
he can take his place by the
side of his Creator. This 1s
his Liberty and salvation,
since it is the way to say Yca
to life. God wrote the score.
God conducts the orchestra
Man's role is to make music
with his own body. Heavenly
music for all clse is
cacophony ~

Elsewhere. he wrotc

“Let cach onc tum his
gaze inward and = regard
himsclf with awe and
wonder, mystery and
reverence Let cach onc as
an individual, assume the
roles of artist. healers.
prophet, pricst, king
warnor. sannt No division of
flabor Lect us recombine the
dispersed clements of
individuality ~

Strange stuff to be sand
wiched in there among che
skin mags

our

Ville

North Vancouver District
faces the possibility of 20
different natural and man-
made emergencies, a
disaster plan revealed to
council last. week. Among
such emergencies are
chemical contamination or
spill, industrial explosion,
earthquake, tidal wave,
plane crasb, pollution,
landslide, ship disaster in the
harbour and epidemic.

Council approved a basic
disaster plan to deal with
such emergencies, although
Alderman Peter Powell who
has worked on the plan
warned: “You can't,
however, pre-think some
disasters.”

All three North Shore
councils are being provided
with the basic plan. which has
slight variations for each
municipalilty. the plan has
been presented by the North
and West Vancouver
Emergency Program.

Alderman Ernie Crist
asked if there will be specific

instructions issued to the
public, outlining to them the

_ best options to take. Powell

said that a manual will be
issued in time.

The new plan supersedes
the emergency plan for the
district published in May
1968, and revised in April,
1974.

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