(Video link here.) In 1975, filmmaker Tom Schiller made a documentary of Henry Miller. A full 35 minutes of it takes place in Miller’s astonishing bathroom after he had woken up. We found all 35 minutes riveting, though the first 3:35 give the big gist: Miller decorated his bathroom in a break-the-mold way that has nothing to do with the usual concerns of style and luxury, that takes you WAY beyond the little room:

People often come in here and get lost as it were…they get fascinated with these pictures. I often myself, to tell you the truth if it, I spend long minutes in here reviewing them all, wondering why did I get them, why did I put them up there. They run a gamut from the Buddhists to the whores to the maniac that made that beautiful castle up there.

In a way, it is very much like a sort of voyage. I look upon it, a voyage of ideas. We’re traveling not around the world but around my bathroom which is a little microcosm like the world…that’s one of the beauties about it, that it can take you anywhere. You let your mind roam. As we way, one thing leads to another. If you sit here and you are relaxed, why you’re free to make free associations.

Miller unique bathroom style allowed his mind to roam…one thing leading to another…

And it is as every good bathroom should be: a place to engage the mind and imagination…

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