Being there, there: April 8-19, 1935

April 8th, 2010 § 0

“My Mesdames began preparing for it months in advance. They placed orders for new dresses, gloves and shoes. Nothing was extravagant, but everything was luxurious, waistcoats embroidered with flowers and several kinds of birds, traveling outfits in handsome tweeds with brown velvet trims and buttons, shoes identical except for the heels and the size.”

– THE BOOK OF SALT (2003) by Monique Truong

Seventy-five years ago today, GertrudeandAlice arrived in San Francisco as part of their 1934-35 U.S. lecture tour.  They drove from Los Angeles in a rental car. (Gertrude had been introduced to the concept of car rentals on a Chicago stop and was fascinated by it.)

Gertrude had not been in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than forty years and Alice returned after leaving for Paris in 1907.

For eleven days they were regaled by the City staying at the Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill and spending the days at luncheons and lectures and visiting some of the places they had known many of which had changed since the 1906 fire and earthquake.

Top of the Mark, San Francisco circa 1930s

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They say it’s my birthday…it is

March 20th, 2010 § 0

“Alphabets and names make games and everybody has a name and all the same they have in a way to have a birthday.

The thing to do is to think of names.

Names will do.

Mildew.

And you have to think of alphabets too, without an alphabet well without names where are you, and birthdays are very favorable too, otherwise who are you.”

So begins Gertrude Stein’s book TO DO: A BOOK OF ALPHABETS AND BIRTHDAYS published by Yale University Press in 1957  as part of the book ALPHABETS AND BIRTHDAYS.  (The book was actually finished in 1940 and was to be a sequel to her children’s book THE WORLD IS ROUND. The manuscript was shuffled from publisher to publisher and  since there were problems completing illustrations for it and “manufacturing difficulties” prompted by WWII, it was not published until it became a part of the 1950′s Yale series.)

I’ve quoted it here as today is my birthday, the first I’ve celebrated since beginning this blog.

a young HG in vest and tie

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To ‘B’ or not to ‘B’: Alice 1877-1967

March 7th, 2010 § 2

In the lives of famous people anniversaries are easy to find. The only decision is whether you limit them to years ending in 0 or 5 and determining whether any number preceding those is fair game.

In Europe, where anniversaries are a really big deal, numbers have gone into the 1,000′s for city anniversaries and into the 100′s for famous writers, artists, composers and major historic events. As you see below, I’m not limiting myself to the ’0 or 5′ anniversary formula.

Another anniversary today – it’s forty-three years since the death of Alice B.  Toklas.  Not just Alice Toklas, but Alice B. Toklas!

And that’s the rub, the ‘B.’ (Sounds a bit Steinian, like something from TENDER BUTTONS or LIFTING BELLY.)

Alice B., early 1960s

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“…my little dog knows me” revisited

February 18th, 2010 § 2

Last November I posted a blog about the sudden death of our English Springer Spaniel Ollie and paralleled the importance of him in our lives with the role that dogs played in the lives of GertrudeandAlice.  I ended the piece anticipating a grand-nephew of Ollie’s, a new little dog who would come to know us.

Well, Fritz arrived last week Priority Parcel on American Airlines from Dallas to San Francisco.  This little fellow has already accumulated a lot of miles considering he was born in Ohio!

So here he is:

Fritz on his 3 month birthday today

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They say it’s your birthday…

February 3rd, 2010 § 0

On this, Gertrude Stein’s 136th birthday, first the facts:

Born: February 3, 1874

Where: Allegheny, Pennsylvania, now a part of Pittsburgh

Parents: Amelia and Daniel Stein

Siblings: Michael, Bertha, Simon and Leo

Then the cake, not an Alice creation, but one I think she would have made and Gertrude would have eaten it and loved it:

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A Stein-Jo Davidson Kind of Week

January 24th, 2010 § 0

This past week I was in New York City (with a stopover first in Baltimore to visit Gertrude’s cousin, Julian Stein, Jr. – more on that later) and as usual stayed at the Bryant Park Hotel not far from the Jo Davidson sculpture of Gertrude Stein in Bryant Park.

The sculpture has been in the park since 1992 and was donated by Dr. Maury Leibowitz. This casting is number eight in an edition of ten.  I don’t remember the first time that I saw it and it’s certainly a coincidence that the hotel that I’ve stayed in for years happens to be nearby.  When I’m here, however, I make a point of visiting it.

A picture of the sculpture is deceptive since it looks so much larger in a photo than it really is.  It’s  only a little more than about 2 feet wide and maybe 3 feet high, but is very imposing because of Gertrude’s Buddha-like seated position.

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…1. January 1910

December 29th, 2009 § 0

From the imagined journal of Alice B. Toklas:

“1.January 1910, 27 rue de Fleurus

All the guests have left and Gertrude has retired. What a glorious evening!

And so a new year begins with the most wonderful of news which I will share at the end of today’s entry, saving the best for last.

Paris, 1910

I was asked by Gertrude and Leo to assist in preparing the holiday’s food which I did with pleasure. There are so many recipes that I have collected from my grandmother and mother and many of our cooks that someday I may have to do a cook book.

Assisting with soirées here has become such a pleasurable task as I have become quite familiar with the household as I come daily to transcribe Gertrude’s notebooks on the Smith-Premier typewriter—a marvelous apparatus.

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Happy Holidays with Continuous Presents

December 15th, 2009 § 1

For more than thirty years I’ve been mailing collaged, holiday cards at the end of the year. I would take a postcard and cover it with various stickers or other pictures or text found in magazines and add a catchy phrase linking it to the holidays.

About twenty years ago, these cards took on a GertrudeandAlice twist. The Ladies from rue de Fleurus became the focus of the cards and the annual greeting, with its usual irreverent humor,  seems to have become something that friends looked forward to receiving each December.  (Some of my friends have told me that they’ve kept all of the cards over the years, ready for a retrospective exhibition!)

Card of Holidays Past 2003

Card of Holidays Past 2003

Card of Holidays Past 2004

Card of Holidays Past 2004

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Gertrude Stein in Words and Pictures and Words and Pictures and Words and…

December 6th, 2009 § 0

People often ask me which of Gertrude Stein’s works they should read first.  Sometimes the question comes from someone who knows very little about GertrudeandAlice.  Sometimes it comes from someone who has heard of them and only knows Gertrude through her most famous quotes: “Rose is a…,” or “No there…” and knows Alice because of her cookbook’s most famous recipe the “H–hish Fudge aka ABT Bro-nies.”

Usually I’ve encouraged them to begin with THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS.  The book is very accessible, written in a straight forward narrative style with just enough touches of Gertrude’s stylistic word-play and chronology shuffling to let the reader know that this masterpiece of modernist literature is just that – a masterpiece of modernist literature.

GertrudeandAlice with words (to typeset) in a picture circa 1935

GertrudeandAlice with words (to typeset) in a picture circa 1935

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The Puppies Have Arrived and Thanks Giving

November 19th, 2009 § 0

The puppies were born yesterday and it’s time for thanks giving as the circle of life continues on this round, round world.Hector_day1Juanita_day1Diego_day1Consuela_day1Chuy_day1Alfredo_day1[1]

“…Alice suddenly appeared to announce dinner – I had by that time forgotten that it was Thanksgiving-and Gertrude put us to work setting the table.

I have never known such a Thanksgiving feast in my life. It must, I suppose, have been enhanced by the fact that it was completely unexpected, but the amount and quality of the food amounted to a spectacle. I was very moved when I learned that most of the traditional. American foods-including sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, marshmallows, cranberries, all unheard of in Paris had been specifically ordered from America for this dinner and for us.

In her usual direct, positive way, Gertrude said that she felt that American children needed to have an American Thanksgiving.” Fritz Peters from BOYHOOD WITH GURDJIEFF

Welcome to our world and thank you for coming! We too have never known such a Thanksgiving.

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