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
It’s Alice birthday time again and the years certainly do flit by!
It was fifteen years ago that I organized an exhibition at the San Francisco Public Library to commemorate Alice’s 125th and then packed it up to be shown at the American Library in Paris. In the spirit of time marching along at a steady pace and looking back – let’s make “Throw Back Thursday,” “Throw Back Birthday” – here is my Alice birthday post from seven, short years ago. Happy Birthday once again, Alice B.!
Today is the 50th anniversary of the death of Alice B. Toklas in Paris, one event in a memorable 1967.
In a post several years ago, I used the title “That Was The Year That Was,” a variation of the mid- 1960s television show called “That Was The Week That Was.” The program, a predecessor of “Saturday Night Live,” and John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight,” took a humorous, satiric look at the news of the previous week.
To commemorate Alice, I’m looking at “…The Year That Was,” 1967. (She lived without Gertrude for twenty-one years.)
One of my goals when I began this blog was to bring as much recognition to Alice as to Gertrude. Though my use of the term “GertrudeandAlice” implies a symbiotic relationship, which it was, Alice still often plays second fiddle to Gertrude’s first chair violin for some people.
I think I have been able to rectify this disparity of wellknownness over the years and I must think that even Gertrude would not be upset to know that Alice has gotten her due as so much more than chief cook and bottle washer!
In the next few months I propose giving Alice even more due !
March 7, 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of Alice’s death, so I’m declaring the six month period from now until Alice’s 140th birthday on April 30th ALICE B. TIME! And by chance, there are a lot of Alice related things happening during ABT. » Read the rest of this entry «
This year is the 5th anniversary of my book GERTRUDE AND ALICE AND FRITZ AND TOM. I know it’s a cliche, but I must say it anyway – “Where has the time gone?”
The book has found its way to readers around the world and just last week I shipped another five copies to Shakespeare & Company in Paris, which has sold more copies of it than any other bookstore or online retailer, which I find so appropriate and gratifying.
Would I do it again? Yes! Do I have more tales to tell, yes! But for now, here is my post from five years ago, as I awaited the first shipment of books from Singapore:
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!
As we move from one season to another, it’s common to reflect on where the time has gone and can it really be time to exchange one set of clothes in the closet for another? (Those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay area or similar climates, usually have both spring/summer and fall/winter clothes ready year round.)
Come September, it’s also time to look ahead to things happening by the end of the year and those that will inaugurate the coming year. In my GertrudeandAlice world there are a few items in the offing if all goes according to plans.
My anniversary-obsessed mind has pinpointed two in 2016, though as the new year gets closer and closer, I’m sure there may be others.
This coming year marks the 5th anniversary of my picture book GERTRUDE AND ALICE AND FRITZ AND TOM and (drumroll, please!) the 90th anniversary of Gertrude’s famous, Caesar haircut! Since the book is set in 1925, Gertrude still has her woman bun.
Ooops, that’s not The Gert! All Hail, Brando as Mark Antony!
I’m writing this in London a few days after the official beginning of summer on the calendar. (London was a city Gertrude didn’t particularly like though GertrudeandAlice crossed the Channel several times for various visits and lectures.)
For almost 20 years, summer for GertrudeandAlice meant packing up the Paris apartment to head to their country place in Bilignin. The village was in the heart of foodie heaven in one direction, as it was not far from Lyon, one of France’s gastronomic centers, and the grandeur of the Swiss Alps in the other direction.
a birds-eye view of the house and gardens at Bilignin
As mentioned in the previous two posts, it has been eighty years since GertrudeandAlice returned to the U.S. for Gertrude’s headline-getting lecture tour.
The tour wrapped up in April of 1935 and in that final month, GertrudeandAlice returned to California. Gertrude had turned her back on the Golden Gate in 1893 and Alice had last trekked the earthquake-rubble strewn hills of San Francisco in 1907.
At last, 140 characters or less to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Gertrude Stein’s jubilant 1934-35, U. S. lecture tour. But not just any words, but tweets from Alice, based in fact. (All dates are accurate. Twitter address and tweets, liberties taken!)
22. Oct 1934
SS Champlain grande experience. Food wonderful, seas calm and we both a bit nervous about seeing the Old Country again after 30 years.
In November 1954, the first edition of The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book hit bookstores in the U.S. and U.K. Since then it has never been out of print. Here is my tribute to this culinary classic in the online magazine scene4.
