"Everybody gets so much
information all day long
that they lose their common sense"
... Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)
curious people | curious events | curious juxtapositions | iconoclasts | ambiguity | whatever
curious people | curious events | curious juxtapositions | iconoclasts | ambiguity | whatever
Anyone who reads at all diversely during these bizarre 1920s cannot escape the conclusion that a number of crazy men and women are writing stuff which remarkably passes for important composition among certain persons who should know better. Stuart P. Sherman, however, refused to be numbered among those who stand in awe and admiration of one of the most eminent of the idiots, Gertrude Stein. He reviews her Geography and Plays in the August 11 issue of the Literary Review of the New York Evening Post and arrives at the conviction that it is a marvellous and painstaking achievement in setting down approximately 80,000 words which mean nothing at all.
ReplyDeleteNero and Cicero had rose gardens next to each other. The tender of Nero's garden had a mishap and destroyed a whole row of roses. So he sneaked over to Cicero's garden, stole a row from there and replaced the ones missing in his master's garden. However, they were white, while the ones in Nero's garden were pink or "rose-colored". When Nero saw this he wrote a punning note to the gardener: "Our roses are rose. Is a row Cicero's?"
ReplyDeleteOther pithy observations of Gertrude Stein:
ReplyDelete1. A masterpiece... may be unwelcome but it is never dull.
2. A real failure does not need an excuse. It is an end in itself.
3. A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.
4. A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.
5. Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it.
6. Communists are people who fancied that they had an unhappy childhood.
7. Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.
8. Disillusionment in living is finding that no one can really ever be agreeing with you completely, in anything.
9. Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.
10. Everybody knows if you are too careful, you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
12. Everybody thinks that this civilization has lasted a very long time, but it really does take very few grandfathers' granddaughters to take us back to the dark ages.
13. Generally speaking, everyone is more interesting doing nothing than doing anything.
14. I could undertake to be an efficient pupil if it were possible to find an efficient teacher.
15. I do want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich.
16. I have always noticed that in portraits of really great writers, the mouth is always firmly closed.
17. I like a view but I like to sit with my back turned to it.
18. I've been rich and I've been poor. It's better to be rich.
19. If you are looking down while you are walking, it is better to walk up hill; the ground is nearer.
20. Is it worse to be scared than to be bored, that is the question.
21. It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken.
22. It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business.
23. It is funny that men who are supposed to be scientific cannot get themselves to realize the basic principle of physics, that action and reaction are equal and opposite, that when you persecute people you always rouse them to be strong and stronger.
24. It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.
25. It is the soothing thing about history that it does repeat itself.
26. It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.
27. Just before she died she asked, "What is the answer?" No answer came. She laughed and said, "In that case, what is the question?" Then she died.
28. Literature -- creative literature -- unconcerned with sex is inconceivable.
29. Nature is commonplace. Imitation is more interesting.
30. Oh, I wish I were a miser. Being a miser must be so occupying.
31. One does not get better but different and older. And that is always a pleasure.
32. Picasso once remarked, "I do not care who it is that has or does influence me, as long as it is not myself."
34. Silent gratitude isn't very much to anyone.
35. The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.
36. The thing that differentiates man from animals is money.
37. There ain't no answer. There ain't gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.
38. There is a difference between 29 and 30. When you are 29 it can be the beginning of everything. When you are 30 it can be the end of everything.
39. We are always the same age inside.
For Stein, language is to be grasped not as a means of reference to a world of objects which can be dominated, but as a medium of consciousness.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, while I was at work, my cousin stole
ReplyDeletemy iPad and tested to see if it can survive a 40 foot drop, just so
she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed and
she has 83 views. I know this is completely off topic but I had to share it with someone!
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