Barbie Gertrude and Barbie Alice and Basket!

February 4th, 2024 § 0 comments § permalink

And here they are! Why? See the previous post or go to the February 2024 issue, Scene4.com.

February 2024 Fêting Has Begun: Time to Smell the Roses!

February 1st, 2024 § 0 comments § permalink

https://www.scene4.com/0224/hansgallas0224.html

Birthdays Are Very Favorable: Gertrude Stein at 150

January 17th, 2024 § 2 comments § permalink

Let the celebration begin!

Another Year, Another Card !

December 1st, 2021 § 0 comments § permalink

As this year comes to a close and the year-end holidays are here, I send to you my GertrudeandAlice holiday card.

Wishing you only the best of everything in the new year with good health at the top of the list.

And now a smile or two: “Holiday Schlepping with Gertrude and Alice.”

Another Alice (Birthday) Album

April 30th, 2020 § 0 comments § permalink

Question: “What happened on April 30, 1877 in San Francisco, California at 922 O’Farrell Street?”

Answer: “Alice Babette Toklas was born.”

One thing I have enjoyed in this blog is adding photographs of GertrudeandAlice into my posts. Many of them are familiar to GertrudeandAlice fans and are widely featured in books and articles.  These are the ones that show up in most Google Image searches or on Pinterest. When I come across  unfamiliar photographs of them, it’s as if I’ve discovered an old, dusty, leather bound family photo album in the attic. 

Today, on Alice’s 143rd birthday, I’ve compiled an album of pictures of Alice that are less well known. They are taken from a book by L. Arnold Weissberger (1907-1981),  FAMOUS FACES: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ALBUM OF PERSONAL REMINISCENCES (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York , 1973.) The 443 page coffee-table book contains 1477 photographs, almost half of them in color, taken of celebrities at parties and various events between 1946 and 1971. The book ends with a biographical index which does go from “A” to “Z.”

l to rt 1st row: Richard Burton, Pearl Bailey, W.H. Auden
l to rt 2nd row: Marlene Dietrich, Margaret Rutherford, Rock Hudson
l to rt 3rd row: Delores del Rio, Leonard Bernstein, Beatrice Lillie

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In the Worst of Times, the Best of Times: Back Again

April 22nd, 2020 § 2 comments § permalink

A friend was once very diplomatic and supportive when I mentioned to him that I was concerned that I posted to my blog so infrequently. “I like your blog because you only write something when you really have something to say. That’s what makes it enjoyable.” Now, that’s what real friends are for!

It is now almost three years since I posted a blog, filling the intermittent years with photos and holiday greetings. And it took our world pandemic and the requisite sheltering-in-place for me to get it together. Some friends from around the world, who I got to know because of our mutual interest in GertrudeandAlice, have kindly hinted that they missed my posts. Once again, thanks is due to real friends for the gentle prods!

I didn’t stop posting because I no longer had anything to say about GertrudeandAlice or my interest in them had lessened in anyway. I just seemed to stop and when WordPress changed the formatting of their program, I just didn’t have the patience to try to learn it – once I did, in the silence of my shelter in place, I discovered it’s very easy and very user friendly.

Illustration by Maira Kalman from the new edition of “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”

Lots has happened in the last three years in the worlds of GertrudeandAlice. Interest in them has not waned and I believe that it’s even increased based on the notices that I continue to receive through my Google Alerts. Productions of Stein’s plays are produced around the world; new works about them in all media are created; research papers just keep coming; and books, both scholarly ones and ones for young, potentially new fans are being published. (Hard to believe that the picture book I produced with Tom Hachtman will be ten years old next year and we’re still selling copies!)

So, I promise to get this blog on track again. Some posts in the next few weeks will serve as exercises in catching up and some will look ahead to the future, something most of us are doing a lot of right now.

I have no idea of the number of readers of this blog there still are, but once you receive this resurrected effort, I’d really like to hear from you at hansg@gertrudeandalice.com.

So, off we go with more questions and answers with Gertrude in the driver’s seat with Alice navigating and Basket II watching the world go by!

GertrudeandAlice: We’re Still Here With More There There in 2019!

December 19th, 2018 § 0 comments § permalink

GertrudeandAlice: We’re Still Here With More to Come, But For Now……..

July 12th, 2018 § 0 comments § permalink

“It’s a bird, it’s a plane…”

December 1st, 2017 § 0 comments § permalink

Across the skies of Paris with holiday wishes to all and only the best in the new year…

“The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein” by Edward Einhorn

May 20th, 2017 § 0 comments § permalink

Theatrical productions about GertrudeandAlice, whether play, musical or opera, just keep coming! The newest is The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein by New York writer, Edward Einhorn presented at the HERE multi-arts center in New York City through May 28th. Einhorn also directs the show.

The play is a farcical frolic with members of GertrudeandAlice’s charmed circle – you name them, they’re there: Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, T.S. Eliot, Virgil Thomson, Sherwood Anderson, Carl Van Vechten, Alfred Lord Whitehead, Francis Picabia, Henri Matisse, Thornton Wilder and the Steins, Leo, Michael and Sarah. Then there are nods to the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Moses and Solomon and assorted wives and mistresses – it is a farce after all, with some serious moments.

The happy couple: Alyssa Simon as Alice, Mia Katigbak as Gertrude (Photo Richard Termine)

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