{"id":670,"date":"2009-11-04T07:03:20","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T15:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/?p=670"},"modified":"2011-11-16T09:44:25","modified_gmt":"2011-11-16T17:44:25","slug":"two-baskets-byron-pepe-and-ollie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/04\/two-baskets-byron-pepe-and-ollie\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Baskets, Byron, P\u00e9p\u00e9, and Ollie"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I began writing this blog, I had no idea how personal some of what I’d write might be. This is an issue that \u00a0bloggers face. \u00a0I assumed that I would write relatively spontaneously about various things that came to mind about GertrudeandAlice and my relationship with them over a period of almost 25 years- personal insights, but not really personal.<\/p>\n

About a week ago, however, we had to put our nine year old English Springer Spaniel Ollie to sleep after a very sudden and unexpected illness. So this post will be quite personal.<\/p>\n

Dogs are family and the sadness and loss felt when they are gone and the tears shed for them are family tears.<\/p>\n

The French poodles, Basket I and II and the two chihuahuas, Byron and P\u00e9p\u00e9 were an integral part of GertrudeandAlice’s family. \u00a0The Springer Spaniel, Oliver, Ollie for short, was an integral part of ours.<\/p>\n

\"Ollie,

Ollie, summer 2009<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

In Bruce Kellner’s amazing, encyclopedic book A GERTRUDE STEIN COMPANION (Greenwood Press, 1988), he includes a chapter titled “Friends and Enemies: A Biographical Dictionary,” in which the lives of key players in GertrudeandAlice’s circle are summarized. \u00a0Pages 151 and 152 are devoted to Baskets I & II and pages 235-236 describe P\u00e9p\u00e9 and Byron.<\/p>\n

\"Basket

Basket I and P\u00e9p\u00e9, 1937<\/p><\/div>\n

Dogs were \u00a0so important in GertrudeandAlice’s life, that Stein included the role of “pretty good vet for dogs” on the final page of THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS among the litany of Alice’s responsibilities.<\/p>\n

The two Standard Poodles, Basket I and Basket II, attained celebrity status while the chihuahuas, Byron and P\u00e9p\u00e9, though present in many photographs and P\u00e9p\u00e9’s appearance as a character in a ballet based on one of Stein’s plays, never really acquired the same fame. \u00a0The poodles posed in photographs by Carl Van Vechten, Horst, Cecil Beaton and LIFE magazine photographers, while the chihuahuas often seemed to perch in their photos whether on Roman ruins, lawn chairs, and ottomans.<\/p>\n

\"Basket

Basket II with P\u00e9p\u00e9 on the ottoman, Paris 1938<\/p><\/div>\n

Basket I had been acquired at a Parisian dog show and had been named by Alice who thought he was so fashionable that one day he would carry a basket of flowers in his mouth – a skill he and his successor never mastered. The dogs’ pedigree did, however, come in useful during World War II when Basket II’s papers permitted additional rations.<\/p>\n

And then there’s Ollie. \u00a0When he would greet you, he would grin exposing his teeth not in anger but in glee. His stoic, sphinx-like poses \u00a0also betrayed a puppyness that he never lost which was endearing to anyone who met him. \u00a0When he really wanted to communicate to ask for a piece of cheese or to let you know that he was very happy about something, he’d “talk” and we would create “sentences” out of what he was saying including “I love you!”<\/p>\n

\""Ollie-Oliver,"

"Ollie-Oliver," drawing by Aashna Taneja, 2002<\/p><\/div>\n

When Basket II \u00a0the last of GertrudeandAlice’s dogs died in 1952, six years after Gertrude’s death, Alice wrote to Carl Van Vechten:<\/p>\n

“…for some time I have realized how much I depended upon him and so it is the beginning of living for the rest of my days without anyone who is dependent upon me for anything.”<\/p>\n

There is still sadness and there are occasional tears for Ollie, especially when he is missed as part of various daily routines. But even more, there continues to be celebration and thanks for the nine years of love and joy that he gave us.<\/p>\n

As Gertrude wrote “I am I because my little dog knows me even if the little dog is a big one.”<\/p>\n

Soon we hope to have \u00a0a ” little dog,” one of Ollie’s great-nephews, who will become “a big one.” He will help us find our new identities as he becomes part of the family, \u00a0just as his great-uncle did so extraordinarily well.<\/p>\n

This new family member will be as dependent on us as we will be on him.\"YellowRose4\"\u00a9 Hans Gallas 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I began writing this blog, I had no idea how personal some of what I’d write might be. This is an issue that \u00a0bloggers face. \u00a0I assumed that I would write relatively spontaneously about various things that came to mind about GertrudeandAlice and my relationship with them over a period of almost 25 years- […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10,29,30,38,102,232],"class_list":["post-670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historic-facts","tag-a-gertrude-stein-companion","tag-basket-i","tag-basket-ii","tag-bruce-kellner","tag-horst","tag-van-vechten"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3465,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670\/revisions\/3465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gertrudeandalice.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}