February 3rd, 2012 § § permalink
It has often been said that as you get older time seems to pass more quickly, hence birthdays are here each year before we know it!
And today, once again Our Ms. Stein celebrates her 138th birthday. (Just imagine how quickly time must pass once you’ve reached 138?!)
The year past has been most eventful for Steiniacs around the globe and I’m already beginning to hear about new Stein events in the new year: theatrical productions, workshops and literary conferences. Just register with Google Alerts and enter “Gertrude Stein” if you’d like to be kept in the know. Also go to the “Quoting Gertrude Stein” link on the right, and Renate provides her Stein year in review.
The question of what to get for a 138 year old birthday “girl” would stump even the most gifted of personal shoppers. I’m sure she had/has it all. What more could one ask for than a roomful of Picassos and Matisses (and Alice) especially at today’s auction prices? It could put Facebook’s pending IPO to shame – and then maybe not!
So what I offer today as a gift to one and all is a drawing that Tom Hachtman did for me a number of years ago. I think it is very appropriate as it shows GertrudeandAlice at one of their favorite activities – eating.
"Birthday Crockery!" copyright 2001, Tom Hachtman
What the concoction in the Crockpot is…I’ll let you all use your imaginations. But whatever it is, everyone gathered around the table seems to be very pleased and happy! What more can we ask for on any birthday?
Life is too short. Time passes too quickly. Grab that Crockpot from the back shelf of the kitchen cabinet and concoct something that will make you happy too!
Happy Birthday, Gertrude Stein!
January 9th, 2012 § § permalink
One Stein year has ended and in the best tradition of Steinian repetition a new one has begun.
The SEEING GERTRUDE STEIN exhibition will close at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC on January 22nd and anyone who lives nearby or has a few frequent flier miles to burn and hasn’t seen it should still make an effort to go.
National Portrait Gallery aglow with Gertrude a few more weeks!
I had seen it more than 10 times in San Francisco and was still blown away by the installation in DC which gave the show a totally different feel. The various rooms in the NPG lent themselves perfectly to telling Stein’s five stories and the decision to hang some of the paintings salon style was genius as it transported viewers back to the rooms in rue de Fleurus, where art was hung floor to ceiling.
The other Stein exhibition in DC at Stanford University’s art gallery INSIGHT AND IDENTITY: CONTEMPORAY ARTISTS AND GERTRUDE STEIN has been extended until March 18th because of the excellent response. That exhibition features works by Australian artists Gisela Züchner-Mogall and Suzanne Bellamy; U.S. artists Laura Davidson, Tom Hachtman, Sally Schuh, and Katrina Rodabaugh; and German artist Anne Büssow. First editions of the books that inspired the artists are also displayed. Stop by the NPG and then the Stanford gallery and you’ll have a most satisfying day of Gertrude overload!
Installation shot: Katrina Rodabaugh "Dress Project" and Gisela Züchner-Mogall's hand-written MAKING OF AMERICANS!
There will also be a one-day Stein writers’ workshop in the gallery on February 4th, one day after Gertrude’s 137th birthday conducted by Karren Alenier.The 10 am to 5 pm session will take place at the Stanford in Washington Art Gallery,2661 Connecticut Ave NW Washington, DC. The program, which includes an overview of Stein and her work, a tour of the exhibition INSIGHT AND IDENTITY by me, writing time, and an opportunity to share newly created work inspired by the exhibition.
The program is open to writers of all levels and genres. The cost is $50. Participants will be able to buy Tom Hachtman and my book GERTRUDE AND ALICE AND FRITZ AND TOM for 25% off —what a deal! Visit http://wordworksbooks.org.
Also check out Karren’s promo video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqj-DZwWO6g
KARREN LaLONDE ALENIER, poet, librettist and innovator of educational programs, specializes in creative work related to Gertrude Stein. Since 2003, she has been writing The Steiny Road to Operadom, a monthly column on Gertrude Stein and opera for Scene4.com. She is author of five volumes of poetry, with a sixth—On a Bed of Gardenias: Jane & Paul Bowles—forthcoming January 2012. Her opera Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On premiered in New York in 2005 with a good review from the New York Times.
PS
And if that’s not enough of a sprint into the new Stein year, THE STEINS COLLECT exhibition returns from its journey to Paris and will be at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY from February 28th till June 3rd.
November 17th, 2011 § § permalink
The book has arrived!
The book has arrived!
The book has arrived!
It has arrived. The book.
The book that is not a chair.
A chair that is not the book.
But the book sitting there.
Chair.
So there.
- Ooops! There is a book chair there!
With my attempt at Steinese, I am so happy to announce that the first shipment of GERTRUDE and ALICE and FRITZ and TOM has reached the U.S. shores from the printer in Singapore. (Actually they arrived by air freight, flying above the shores, with the larger shipment coming by sea and literally reaching our shores in Los Angeles in a few weeks on a ship named England.}
The book is beautifully printed and bound.
Gertrude and Alice and Fritz and Tom by Hans Gallas Illustrations by Tom Hachtman
My previous post told the tale of how the book got to be and now will come the book’s marketing adventures!
If you have any favorite bookstores that should be stocking the book, let me know. I’m also planning events highlighting the book around the country and abroad in the next six months. I’ll keep you posted on those here and on Facebook.
All ideas of people I should contact and places I should go are welcome.
You can order your copy (or copies) by clicking on the book‘s cover in the right column or going to gertrudeandalice.com/fritzandtom and the book will be on its way. Books are $19.99 for the 72 page hard cover edition with a dust jacket and can be paid for through PayPal.
Once the final shipment arrives, I’ll also be setting up purchasing through amazon.com.
One box of books has actually made a return trip across the Pacific to my friend Jane Turner’s book shop, the Gertrude and Alice Café Bookstore in Bondi Beach, Australia.
Gertrude and Alice Cafe Bookstore well-stocked
How fitting that the first bookstore in the world to stock the book is named after Our Ladies of Rue de Fleurus.
Gertrude and Alice and Fritz and Tom would certainly chime in to agree.
September 16th, 2011 § § permalink
Wasn’t it Lady Macbeth who said “What’s done is done,” at some point either before or after that bloody dagger scene? (Just checked, it’s after the dagger scene – that would be logical !)
...the deed is done!
Well, I’ve done it too and feel a bit like a parent dropping off his first child at kindergarten hoping for the best as tears well-up and Miss Crabtree leads the young one away to join the other rascals.
Miss Crabtree in charge
So what is it that’s been done – the children’s picture book which I’ve been working on for…let’s just say many,many years is on its way to a printer in Singapore!
» Read the rest of this entry «
September 5th, 2011 § § permalink
With all due respect to the musical The Sound of Music, one of whose songs contained lyrics bastardized in the title of this post, we must bid adieu to the Summer of Steins in San Francisco. Both exhibitions SEEING GERTRUDE STEIN: FIVE STORIES at the Contemporary Jewish Museum and THE STEINS COLLECT: MATTISE, PICASSO AND THE PARISIAN AVANT-GARDE at SFMOMA end tomorrow, September 6th. And though both of them will be travelling, the first to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC from October 14th – January 22nd, 2012 and the other one to both Paris at the Grand Palais from October 3rd - January 16, 2012 and then the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from February 21 through June 3, 2012, the Summer of Steins in San Francisco will not be able to be replicated as the Fall, Winter or Spring of Steins in any of the other cities – this summer was just too special!
the movie Von Trapps bid their adieus!
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July 27th, 2011 § § permalink
Today on the 65th anniversary of Gertrude Stein’s death pick up a rose or two and let’s remember…
July 20th, 2011 § § permalink
One of the purposes of a blog is commenting on happenings in a timely manner.
Well, this morning before my GoogleAlert for Gertrude Stein even had a chance to send me any alerts, I got an e mail from a friend on the East Coast with this heading:
“Lesbians Booted from Gertrude Stein Exhibit – San Francisco…”
And why did a security guard try to get them to leave the Contemporary Jewish Museum…for defacing a painting? Pressing their noses against one of the Plexiglas vitrines? Relishing an Alice B. Toklas treat while touring the show?
No, no, no…for holding hands!!!
"Semper fidelis," (detail) by Bruce Kellner, 1982
Word about this incident is apparently spreading like wildfire within the community of Stein fans, as well as in newspapers across the country. (One of my friends has proposed a “Hand-Holding, Sit-In” type of day at the museum.)
How can I not comment on this in a timely manner considering that many items from my collection are featured in the exhibition, which I hope this couple was able to view before they were so unconscionably treated!
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June 29th, 2011 § § permalink
From time to time I’ve been asked whether I’ve read all of Gertrude Stein’s works and all of the other Stein-related books that I have in my collection. I must honestly say ‘No’ though I have heard of some Stein collectors who have read all of her works and also of some who supposedly have read none of her writings.
Every so often I pick up one of the books from my currently disarrayed collection to read it. (Too many exhibitions have caused me to shuffle things from here to there and there to here, so to once again overuse Our Miss Stein’s quote: “There is no there there!”)
The other week I selected an almost 50 year old biography of the Cone sisters, Claribel and Etta,called THE COLLECTORS: DR. CLARIBEL AND MISS ETTA CONE by Barbara Pollack.
The Cone sisters with brother---NOT!
The Cones are hot right now because a number of their paintings are both in THE STEINS COLLECT exhibition at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art and also in an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York City through September. The title of this post was inspired by the headline of a review of the Jewish Museum show in the Jewish Daily Forward :
“Coneheads Conquer New York: A First-Rate Collection by Two Baltimore Sisters Goes on Display”
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May 22nd, 2011 § § permalink
In my children’s book Gertrude and Alice and Fritz and Tom, which I hope will soon reach the bookstores of the various museums where the Stein exhibitions are being held, the two young boys who visit rue de Fleurus encounter the atelier’s floor-to-ceiling paintings for the first time:
“Look at this really rambling room!” whispered Tom. “There are masterful modern paintings floor to ceiling! It looks like a museum! I hate museums, everything in a museum is musty and moldy.”
Fritz pressed his nose against one of the paintings. “This person has four flaming eyes and three thick ears and is not musty and moldy!”
Tom Hachtman's Fritz and Tom
I can assure you that there is also nothing musty or moldy at The Steins Collect exhibition which opened last week at SFMOMA !
In the 25+ years that I’ve been obsessed with GertrudeandAlice I have had moments more extraordinary than the proverbial “aha!” moments. I would have to say that they are more like ”ah Stein!” moments!
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May 15th, 2011 § § permalink
Last week I attended the two openings for the Seeing Gertrude Stein exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and this week will attend the opening celebration at SFMOMA’s The Steins Collect (see the previous post for all the details on the shows.)
Seeing Gertrude Stein is a must-see, not only for GertrudeandAlice fans, but also for anyone who wants to get to know them better. As is usually the case at openings, the crowds were too dense to really see the exhibition (600 people had RSVP’d for the 2nd opening), so in the next few weeks I’ll be going back from time to time to get a better look.
During the openings I selected two favorite pieces and I’m sure that on future visits additional items will be joining this list. One of the pieces is a small, framed, poodle made by Picasso out of what looks like either cotton balls or actual bolls of raw cotton. The small figure was to be a “companion” for GertrudeandAlice’s poodle, Basket. The other is a small passport photo of Alice from 1907, the year she traveled to Paris and met Gertrude. I had never seen the photo before. In it Alice is wearing a jaunty black hat proofing once again that Alice really was a “hat person!”
And that brings me to GertrudeandAlice and fashion, One of the themes of the exhibition centers on their sense of sartorial style. Alice was more interested in the fashions of the day than Gertrude, but Gertrude knew how she wanted to present herself when it came to her dress and she did. Once Alice entered her world, she assumed the role of Gertrude’s stylist and many of the photographs in the exhibition show Alice’s touches as a member of the “Fashion Police!”
Dressed for literary success, photo by Cecil Beaton (London, 1936)
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