Joaquin Miller had dinner with the Pre-Raphaelites and was my grandmother’s friend. This history is being compiled for the grant I am applying for. The history of the Pre-Raphaelites has not been discarded. I will prepare a home in Springfield.
Above is a photograph of my ancestors taken in the Oakland Hills no far from where Miller lived in his Bohemian enclave called ‘The Hights”. These are Turners and Forty-eighters who helped found the Abolitionist Republican Party and elected our Kin, John Fremont, to be the first Presidential candidate. I am going to send this photo to the Smithsonian. There is a rifle and a black wreath hanging in the tree. The wreath may have something to do with the Odd Fellows who allowed Ken Kesey’s mural to be rendered on their wall.
“As a token of her confidence, she told him he need no longer call
her, “Auntie.” The previous year, Bilbo had suggested that Frodo no
longer address him as, “Uncle,” if he wished. Plain, “Bilbo,” would
do. Frodo still called Bilbo, “Uncle,” now and then; it had become
too ingrained a habit. But, following suit, Rosamunda suggested Frodo
might call her, “Rosa,” or, “Rosamunda.” Frodo forgot, and called
her, “Auntie,” many times, but, within the space of an afternoon
tea, “Rosa,” she became.”
Rosamunda Bolger (née Took) was the mother of Fredegar “Fatty” Bolger
and Estella Brandybuck. She was married to Odovacar Bolger and was
known as Rosamunda Took prior to the marriage. They lived in
Budgeford in Bridgefields in the Eastfarthing of the Shire. Rosamunda
and Odovacar both attended the Bilbo’s Farewell Party in 3001 along
with their children.
https://rosamondpress.com/2016/08/16/tigers-in-paper-houses/
https://rosamondpress.com/2016/05/16/joaquin-and-leonie/
https://rosamondpress.com/2014/04/03/to-the-rossettis/
https://rosamondpress.com/2013/08/05/joaquin-miller-and-william-morris/
Christine Rosamond Benton and I were drawn into Tolkien’s Trilogy. The artist known as ‘Rosamond’ could not put these books down, nor could I. This caused our mutual friend, Keith Purvis, a British subject, to comment;
“She doesn’t know these books are real.”
We three were original hippies who took the Lord of the Rings to heart as we modified the modern world, made it over more to our liking, we oblivious to what normal folk were about. This is exactly what William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelite Brother and Sisterhood did. They – returned!
I discovered the Pre-Raphaelites in 1969 and let my hair grow long for the first time. I gave up drugs in 1967 and was looking for a spiritual format. I came under the spell of the Rossetti family who were friendly with Joaquin Miller. We Presco children knew Miller’s daughter as ‘The White Witch’ and we would call her for advice. Miller’s home ‘The Abbye’ was above our home in the Oakland Hills. Our kindred were friends of Miller, who was also a friend of Swineburn, who wrote ‘The Queen-Mother and Rosamund’ and ‘Rosamund Queen of Lombards. Tolkien was inspired by the Lombards.
Filed away in Rosamond’s probate is my plea to the executor to allow me to be my sister’s historian. I mention Miller and Rossetti. I saw myself in the role of Michael Rossetti who had his own publishing company. He published Miller and other famous poets. When I was twelve, my mother read evidence I might become a famous poet.
All my imput has been ruthlessly ignored, because petty un-creative minds have forced our families creative legacy down the tiny holes of their hidden agendas, into the mouths of worms and parasites, because these ignorant people sensed I and the real Art World, did not let them in the door – would never admit them into our circle, our ring of genius!
Jon Presco
Copyright 2011
“TO THE ROSSETTIS”
Yesterday I received in the mail a book I ordered on E-Bay. I quickly scanned it to see if their were any illustrations or photographs. Then, I found it, what amounts to my personal Holy Grail. Joaquin Miller dedicated his book of poems ‘Songs of The Sun-Land’ to the Rossetti family that includes Gariel, Michael, and, Christine. Gabriel was a artist and poet, Michael, a publisher, and Christine, a poet.
“TO THE ROSSETTIS”
There is controversy over this dedication. Michael is against it. He is critical of Miller’s poems that takes the reader to the Holy Land. Joaquin is describing a personal relationship with the Savior that reminds me of how Bohemians and Hippies would view Jesus, he a Nature Boy of sorts.
Gabriel, who had Joaquin over to his house for dinner, where he met several members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood seems to address his brother’s objections in a letter, and gives a tentative go ahead. He talks about Miller sending him a photograph of himself and bids him to say a word or two at the bottom of it, that does not exist. This photo may be the famous one taken by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known as Lewis Carrol the author of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. If Joaquin had glued this portrait to a piece of paper, then we might have seen it on the dedication page.
What is going on here is extremely profound. Miller has exported his vision and lifestyle to the England, where he wrote Song of the Sierras, and now he is importing to America a cultural brand that contains Grail and Arthurian subject matter that was at the epicenter of the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
The Rossettis may not have been too happy with Miller attaching himself to their star because the British are very protective of their culture. I wish I could say the same thing about the University of Oregon that is about to tear down homes that were once in the city limits of Fairmount, the city founded by Joaquin’s brother, George Miller.
The homes the Miller brothers lived in are registered and protected as Monuments. There is a Joaquin Miller State Park near Florence that was founded by George who also promoted the Winnemucca to the Sea Highway. There needs to be a Monument for George. I suggest the homes on Columbia Terrace be spared, and this city block declared a National Monument. I have suggested these homes be used to house homeless Vets going to college, but now I see a Free College on this site due to the student loan crisis.
This college will teach alternatives to prospective students of the UofO, such as having parents of students purchase a home in Eugene. In many cases a mortgage is cheaper than rent. Teaching your children how to get a job rather then attend college, will produce more home ownership that the UofO who promises jobs – that don’t exist!
The Miller Brothers were born on a farm near Coburg. They went into the world and achieved much. They are a cultural icon too Oregon and California. On page ten of the prelude, we read;
“By unnamed rivers of the Oregon north’
That roll dark-heaved into turbulent hills,
I have made my home….The Wild heart thrills
With memories fierce, and world storms forth.”
I once read that many college students didn’t know there was a Oregon, and if they did, they didn’t know where it is. The Rossettis more than likely read these words. Did they go to a globe to see where Joaquin and George live?
How many students at the UofO know who the Miller brothers were, and the Brotherhood.
Jon Presco
Copyright 2014
“When Joaquin Miller left DC, most sources agree that he gave his cabin to a friend, who in turn gave it to the Sierra Club. Then in 1913 the cabin was carefully disassembled at the urging of the California State Association and moved to its current location in Rock Creek Park, near the intersection of Beach Drive and Military Road, where it is now the property of the National Park Service. By and by, another Miller found inspiration in the cabin. From 1931 through the 1950’s, Pherne Miller, Joaquin’s niece, leased the cabin from the Parks Department, and there she gave art classes and sold soft drinks and candy.”
Honoring The Visions of George Miller
I will be going out to Coburg today to plant another flower at the grave of George Miller, the brother of Joaquin Miller, a honorary member of the Bohemian Club that was a place for Bay Area Journalists to gather and compare notes. If Miller lived in the Bay Area, then he too would be a honorary member.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=29810634
Elizabeth Maude “Lischen” or “Lizzie” Cogswell married George Miller. Lizzie was the foremost literary woman in Oregon. On Feb. 6, 1897, Idaho Cogswell, married Feb. 6, 1897, Ira L. Campbell, who was editor, publisher and co-owner (with his brother John) of the Daily Eugene Guard newspaper. The Campbell Center is named after Ira.
The Wedding of John Cogswell to Mary Frances Gay, was the first recorded in Lane County where I registered my newspaper, Royal Rosamond Press. Idaho Campbell was a charter member of the Fortnightly Club that raised funds for the first Eugene Library.
George Melvin Miller was a frequent visitor to ‘The Hights’ his brothers visionary utopia where gathered famous artists and writers in the hills above my great grandfather’s farm. The Miller brothers promoted Arts and Literature, as well as Civic Celebrations. Joaquin’s contact with the Pre-Raphaelites in England, lent credence to the notion that George and Joaquin were Oregon’s Cultural Shamans, verses, he-men with big saw cutting down trees.
A year ago I received in the mail a book I ordered on E-Bay. I quickly scanned it to see if their were any illustrations or photographs. Then, I found it, what amounts to my personal Holy Grail. Joaquin Miller dedicated his book of poems ‘Songs of The Sun-Land’ to the Rossetti family that includes Gabriel, Michael, and, Christine. Gabriel was a artist and poet, Michael, a publisher, and Christine, a poet.
“TO THE ROSSETTIS”
Gabriel, who had Joaquin over to his house for dinner, where he met several members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Miller sends Michael a photograph of himself, and is sent a photo. This photo may be the famous one taken by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known as Lewis Carrol the author of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. If Joaquin had glued this portrait to a piece of paper, then we might have seen it on the dedication page.
What is going on here is extremely profound. Miller has exported his vision and lifestyle to the England, where he wrote Song of the Sierras, and now he is importing to America a cultural brand that contains Grail and Arthurian subject matter that was at the epicenter of the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
Lewis Carrol posed two children as Fair Rosamond and Queen Eleanore. I associate Fairmount with Rosamond. Johnnny Depp is starring in another Alice in Wonderland movie. Eugene can celebrate our Land of Make Believe, our White Rabbit made famous by the Jefferson Airplane. I stood before the Mayor of Eugene and suggested a Newspaper Museum at Kesey Square wherein is a model of Miller’s Fantastic Flying Machine. We could build a parade around this contraptions, a world contest that would bring creative people to our Fair City. Children would love this! They too would be in costume for the White Rabbit Run!
Here is what amounts to MY FANTASTIC MOVIE shot in Eugene. What an Amazing Journey is has been!
https://rosamondpress.com/2015/09/09/finding-fair-venus-the-movie/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Club
https://rosamondpress.com/2014/06/08/master-millers-artist-and-poet-colony/
If Ali Emami had not reacted to the rumor Ken Kesey Square would be sold to a developer, it would be a done deal. The SLEEPS anarchists would have seized the day.
“Ali Emami, owner of the two buildings that have common walls with the plaza, says that when he heard rumors the public space might be sold and developed into apartments, he came before the Eugene City Council last week to again renew his offer to open up the walls of the buildings and make the space more inviting.I am going to make some proposals for what to do with Ken Kesey Square”
How about a Newspaper Museum and Reader’s Sanctuary?
“Ken Kesey is our George Washington,” said Jennifer Barnes, a self-described modern-day Merry Prankster. “He’s our culture, our history.”
Here is a video about my and Michael’s efforts to save the cottage that Ken lived in while attending the UofO.
Augustus John was the inspiration for the artist Gulley Jimson, in ‘The Horses’ Mouth’. Gulley is in search of the perfect wall for his mural. Joaquin Miller is our Washington. He earned an estimated $3,000 working as a Pony Express rider, and used the money to move to Oregon. With the help of his friend, Senator Joseph Lane, he became editor of the Democratic Register in Eugene. a role he held from March 15 to September 20, 1862. Here is Miller’s daughter.
Juanita Miller ‘The White Witch’
George Miller platted the City of Florence and Fairmont. He designed a flying machine. Ali Emami’s plan to knock down walls to save the square is right out of ‘The Horses’ Mouth’. This is high drama already in progress! Above is a photo of Augustus John with James Joyce. Get rid of the One Hook Town to hang your hat. We need a Jimson reader, there, confronting passer-byes! We only got one horse on our merry-go-round. Enough! Here’s Miller with George Sterling the co-founder of the Bohemian Club and Carmel. We can reprint old copies of ‘The Augur’.
http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=JOAQUIN_MILLER
My friends and I in Oakland were doing Miller before we heard of Kesey. You got to get over the idea folks are trying to do Ken – and move on!
https://rosamondpress.com/2016/01/11/the-horses-mouth-and-readers-sanctuary/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bohemian_Club_members
In November 1867, Whymper arrived back in England where his account of his travels, Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska, was published in 1868. In 1869, he went back to the United States, by way of New York to San Francisco and worked on the staff of the newspaper Alta California. City directories describe him as an artist and mining engineer, and in 1871 he was a founding member of the San Francisco Art Association.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Whymper
The Bohemian Club is a private club in two locations: a city clubhouse in the Union Square district of San Francisco,California, and the Bohemian Grove, a retreat north of the city in Sonoma County.[3] Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of journalists, artists and musicians, it soon began to accept businessmen and entrepreneurs as permanent members, as well as offering temporary membership to university presidents and military commanders who were serving in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, the club has a diverse membership of many local and global leaders, ranging from artists and musicians to businessmen.
In New York City and other American metropolises in the late 1850s, groups of young, cultured journalists flourished as self-described “bohemians” until the American Civil War broke them up and sent them out as war correspondents.[4] During the war, reporters began to assume the title “bohemian,” and newspapermen in general took up the moniker. “Bohemian” became synonymous with “newspaper writer”.[4] California journalist Bret Hartefirst wrote as “The Bohemian” in The Golden Era in 1861, with this persona taking part in many satirical doings. Harte described San Francisco as a sort of Bohemia of the West.[5] Mark Twain called himself and poet Charles Warren Stoddard bohemians in 1867.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Club
The Bohemian Club was organized in the Chronicle office by Tommy Newcombe, Sutherland, Dan O’Connell, Harry Dam and others who were members of the staff. The boys wanted a place where they could get together after work, and they took a room on Sacramento street below Kearny. That was the start of the Bohemian Club, and it was not an unmixed blessing for the Chronicle because the boys would go there sometimes when they should have reported at the office. Very often when Dan O’Connell sat down to a good dinner there he would forget that he had a pocketful of notes for an important story.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Through_the_Looking_Glass_(film)
https://rosamondpress.com/2015/12/02/rossettis-fair-ladies-2/
https://rosamondpress.com/2014/04/03/to-the-rossettis/
The Eugene Augur was a local countercultural underground newspaper published inEugene, Oregon, United States, from 1969 to 1974. Starting with its first issue dated October 14, 1969, the Augur, produced by a cooperative of left-wing political activists aligned with the antiwar movement, appeared twice a month, offering up a mix of New Left politics and acid rock counterculture to an audience of students, hippies, radicals and disaffected working class youth in the Eugene area. The paper’s coverage ranged from antiwar demonstrations, exposing local narcotics agents, and rock festivals, to the growth of backwoods communes in Southern Oregon and the annual Oregon Renaissance Faire.[1] In August 1972, the paper cut publication to a monthly schedule. Staffers included Peter Jensen and Jim Redden, son of a prominent Oregon politician and later a reporter for the Portland Tribune.[2][3]
https://rosamondpress.com/2015/08/25/kesey-mural-passes-augurs-test/
“I know a chap, a friend of mine, who used to paint girls for magazine covers. The best class of girls, eleven feet high with eyes as big as eggs. Well one morning he put on his best suit, called a taxi and drove to the Tower Bridge, where he tied his legs together, put ten pounds of lead in each pocket, took a pint of poison, cut his throat, shot himself through the head and jumped over the parapet. They saw through this job at once, picked him out, pumped him out, sewed him up, plugged him up, and had him back to work in six weeks.—Gulley Jimson in “The Horse’s Mouth” by Joyce Cary.
“Ali Emami, owner of the two buildings that have common walls with the plaza, says that when he heard rumors the public space might be sold and developed into apartments, he came before the Eugene City Council last week to again renew his offer to open up the walls of the buildings and make the space more inviting.
The square, also known as Broadway Plaza, is home to food carts, public art and periodic gatherings, but it also garners complaints about the unhoused youth and travelers who hang out there. A frequent criticism of the space is the tall brick walls on the south and east sides of the square that close it in.”
I see the whole square famed in durable glass that can be touched and read on the outside. One can read the job listings, or, search the internet. One pays $2.00 dollars admission and gets a paper. Seniors and the physically disabled get in for free. I see a man dressed like Joaquin pointing to his brothers flying machine suspended from the ceiling. Children are allowed to touch the old printing presses.
Jon Presco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Register-Guard
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=29810727
George J. Buys and A. Eltzroth purchased the paper in December 1869, and six months later bought out Eltzroth.[6] Buys sold the paper eight years later to John R. and Ira Campbell, who would remain owners for 30 years.[6] In 1890, the Eugene Guard became a daily newspaper.[6]
https://rosamondpress.com/2014/12/15/crowdfunding-art-movie/
https://rosamondpress.com/2014/03/20/finding-and-recovering-our-lost-dreams/
George Melvin Miller was titled ‘The Prophet of Lane County’. Lane County was named after Joseph Lane who ran with John Breckenridge for the White House.
https://rosamondpress.com/2015/12/26/john-and-the-gypsy-lore-society/
He is said to have been the model for the bohemian painter depicted in Joyce Cary‘s novelThe Horse’s Mouth, which was later made into a 1958 film of the same name with Alec Guinness in the lead role.
John was known as a colourful personality who adopted an individualistic and bohemian lifestyle. Intrigued by gypsy culture and the Romany language, he spent periods traveling with gypsy caravans over Wales, Ireland, and Dorset. He based much of his work on these experiences, such as the painting Encampment on Dartmoor (1906). John was more modern in his approach to landscape painting, as seen in the bright palette and loose brushwork of paintings such as Llyn Trewereyn (1911–12) and The Little Railway,Martigues (1928).
http://eugeneweekly.com/20151105/news-features/one-flew-over-kesey-square
Rossetti’s Fair Ladies
Fanny Cornforth met Dante Gabriel Rossetti at Cremorne Gardens. This is where young ladies went to meet young men. It was the Filmore of its day. Fanny was a prostitute who took advantage of the lose morals to make a living. She threw peanuts at Rossetti as he danced past her. She had chosen her mark no doubt because this artist had noticed Fanny, the same way I noticed Belle Burch at Ken Kesey Square. When Belle understood my camera was pointed at her, and not the musicians, she made her approach. I have already noted she looks like a Pre-Raphaelite model. Dante hired Fanny to be his housekeeper to get her off the street, and be his model. Did they become lovers?
Jon Presco
https://rosamondpress.wordpress.com/2012/06/07/elmer-big-bones-remmer/
I met Elmer ‘Big Bones’ Remmer when I was fifteen. He and his wife (or girlfriend) looked like Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus, they both having white hair. They walked into our home on San Sebastian Avenue, our benefactor wanting to meet the children of their employee. Rosemary ( a made woman?) was working for Rucker hydraulics in Emmeryville and met Remmer in the Oaks or Menlo Club located in mob-owned town. She started editing porno movies for Remmer, then starred in them. Many nights Rosemary did not get home till after her four children were asleep. We would find a doggy bag from a restaurant in the fridge. Vicki sees her three older siblings as her real parents.
Remmer was bigger then I thought. He is named along with Mickey Cohen and Frank Sinatra. He ran the Cal-Neva Lodge and took his case to the highest court in regards to his card rooms in Emmeryville and San Francisco. It looks like Remmer was trying to make gambling legal in all of California which would put the Mob out of business in Nevada. However, Remmer was the Mob.
There was a brawl and arrest in LA involving the actress, Vicki Raaf. Here, Hollywod make-believe, meets real reality!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Cornforth
Cremorne Gardens were popular pleasure gardens by the side of the River Thames in Chelsea, London. They lay between Chelsea Harbour and the end of the King’s Road and flourished between 1845 to 1877; today only a vestige survives, on the river at the southern end of Cheyne Walk.
http://fannycornforth.blogspot.com/2011/05/fanny-and-nuts-portrayal-of-fanny.html
Desperate Romantics was not the first time the lives of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had been dramatised for television. In 1967 Ken Russell had directed Dante’s Inferno, and in 1975 there was The Love School – a six-part serial first broadcast in 1975. Whereas Bowker’s drama about the PRB was an adaptation of Franny Moyles’ book, The Love School (scripted by John Hale, Ray Lawler, Robin Chapman and John Prebble) was adapted into a novel published by Macmillan in 1975. The new dramatisation was heavily influenced by the earlier series.[6]
The artist’s fascination with and idealization of these women prompted critics and contemporaries to refer to many of his female studies as his “Fair Ladies.” These Fair Lady depictions certainly reveal influence from the Italian poet and philosopher Dante Alighieri. However, whereas Dante devoted himself and dedicated many works to one upper class, elusive love — Beatrice — whom he met only once, Rossetti committed his work to several imperfect, more accessible women, who doubled as his artistic models and lovers. Far from adversely affecting Rossetti’s work, the individual imperfections of these models and the dynamics of their relationships with the artist enriched his art and literary works. These real characteristics enabled the artist, whether intentionally or not, to present a more authentic portrait of life and love than was offered by the dreamer Dante. This realism, in turn, prompted his PRB contemporaries to paint and describe more natural portraits of life and romance.
http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/dgr/paintings/healey12.html
In both his art and writings, Rossetti exalted Lizzie. In fact, his period of great poetic production began when he met her and ended around the time of her death. (Douchy, 155) His poem, “A Last Confession,” in particular, exemplifies his love for Lizzie, whom he personifies as the heroine with eyes, “as of the sea and sky on a grey day.” In this piece, a man’s affections for a young girl progress from parental to romantic as the girl ages. In addition, Lizzie has traditionally been viewed as the idealized, golden-haired woman who observes her beloved from heaven in his acclaimed poem, “The Blessed Damozel”:
The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary’s gift,
For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.
Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God’s choristers;
This idealized vision of the golden-haired beauty looking down from Heaven truly displays the high regard with which Rossetti viewed Lizzie.
Fanny Cornforth, moved to London from the country and made her living as a prostitute. She took a fancy to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was reputed to have first got his attention by pelting him with peanuts in the Cremhorne Gardens. Larger and louder than life she enjoyed the company of Bohemians, indulging the young artists in return for gifts and favours. With their help she set up a boarding house-cum-brothel and made a good living. She remained Rossetti’s companion and housekeeper into old age.
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I am Gandalf.