Wow, this post is WAY overdue!  My final France Project scrapbook is due tomorrow, so it was now or never!

On Thursday, a small group of us got up early and headed to the Père Lachaise Cemetery.  We had planned to go to the cemetery as a group, but it ended up getting bumped from the schedule.  But I had to see Oscar Wilde’s grave!  The cemetery was HUGE, covering entire blocks.  There was a crematorium in the center of the cemetery, surrounded by two levels of urn repositories.  We followed our guide through the cemetery to make sure we had a chance to see all the famous sites (and to make sure we didn’t get lost!).  It drizzled on and off while we walked, adding to the gloomy and sepulchral feeling of trudging through a cemetery.  One of our first stops was Oscar Wilde’s grave!

It was so cool to see all the lipstick kisses covering the winged statue.  There were a few bits of graffiti as well, many reading, “I love you,” one saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice to be Dorian Gray just for a day,” another that said, “sodomy 4eva.”  It was pretty amazing to be there!  The girls that I was with put on their bright lipstick and found a spot to leave a kiss.  I even paid my respects and gave it a smooch!  I found the epitaph on the tomb to be fitting:

ALIEN TEARS WILL FILL FOR HIM
PITY’S LONG-BROKEN ERN,
FOR HIS MOURNERS WILL BE OUTCAST MEN,
AND OUTCASTS ALWAYS MOURN.

We made our way through the rest of the cemetery, seeing Gertrude Stein’s grave, her lover, Alice B. Toklas’ grave, some World War II memorials, a monument to the Commune Massacre of 1871, Edith Piaf’s grave, Moliere’s grave, Jim Morrison’s grave (one of the girls left him a cigarette!), Chopin’s grave, Heloise and Abelard’s grave (which, unfortunately, was covered in scaffolding), Colette’s grave, Rossini’s grave and the Haussmann family mausoleum.  Lots of people!

After the cemetery, I took off on my own.  I headed to Montparnasse and saw the tower.  I did some more shopping at H&M (oops!) and went to go see the St. Sulpice cathedral.  I never made it for the organ concert, but I wanted to see it anyway.  It was covered in scaffolding on the outside, but the inside was very beautiful.  The famous organ in the back was huge!  I wish I had made a more concerted effort to go to one of the Sunday Mass concerts.  I was able to see the “Rose Line” from The Da Vinci Code book.  Even though it’s not really the Rose Line, it was cool to see something made famous by pop culture and film.  The back of the cathedral had an exhibit about the Shroud of Turin…maybe the church used to house the relic?

That night a large group of us headed to the Arc de Triomphe to see the city all lit up and to hopefully catch the Eiffel Tower light show.  We got there before dusk, climbing hundreds and hundreds of steps to finally reach the top of the Arc.    It was pretty incredible to see the city slowly descend into darkness all around; watching lights pop on, the sky go from blue to navy to black.  Unfortunately, the Arc closed before we could watch the Eiffel Tower light show, but we were able to catch glimpses of it from the ground.

The last day I had several things I had to cram in!  First, I HAD to FINALLY to the Notre Dame tower climb.  I had been meaning to do it the entire trip, but never got around to it (or the line was too long!).  Getting there early (or I thought we were early), Alyssa and I were dismayed to find a VERY long line.  But, I decided to stick it out…it was made even worse by the biting cold wind on the shadowy side of the cathedral…and me in shorts and t-shirt!  After about an hour wait, we finally made it to the tower.  And up we went!  And up…and up…rest…then up…and up and up and up.  Whew…but we were only on the top of the Rose Window!  It was really cool, stepping out onto the walkway between the two towers and seeing everything from the Sacre Coeur to the Eiffel Tower.  Right as we stepped out of the stairwell, the bells started tolling…it was crazy loud, but so cool!

Then we made the last leg of our journey (over 400 stairs! Ah!), to the very tip top of one of the towers.  What a view!  It was so worth the wait!

After we made the dizzying journey back to the ground, Alyssa and I headed back to Shakespeare & Co, for one last look around.  And lucky I did, because I found an old copy of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband!  I had found my book purchase and it was Oscar Wilde…too perfect!  After that, we grabbed some amazing kabob, checked out St. Michel’s Fountain and then stopped by the hotel where Oscar Wilde died.  What a whirlwind day!

Being the last night, a group of us headed to the Eiffel Tower to see the light show.  We sat around, talked, drank wine, smoked…and then when 11pm rolled around, the show began!  It was sparkly and glittery and fun to watch…so fun, in fact, we all stayed for the midnight show too!  What a great way to end a great trip!

P.S. I just need to write a bit about my adventures trying to get home the next day.  Melissa and I had the same flight, so we stuck together.  We ended up getting off at the wrong terminal…no big deal, right?  We just go to the right one.  So we ask someone how to get there…they tell us to get back on the RER line…which means we had to buy new train tickets…which subsequently didn’t work for the line we needed.  So then, we find out that no, we weren’t supposed to take the train to the correct terminal, we were supposed to take the complementary shuttle!  So, we finally make it to our terminal…and the line to check baggage is RIDICULOUS!  We waited for an hour and a half, freaking out that we were going to miss our plane!  We finally got checked in, RAN to our gate and made it, barely, with seconds to spare!  Anyway, just had to document that little adventure!

Thanks for reading and commenting everyone!

Har ni tänkt på vad många bra författare som heter Alice? Vi har Alice Sebold, som skrivit Flickan från ovan om en mördad flicka som snart kommer som film, och även om en fruktansvärt destruktiv mor-dotter-relation där dottern tar livet av sin mor på rad ett. I andra änden av den emotionella skalan har vi Alice Hoffman, som förvisso kan skriva om ångest och olycka och kvinnomisshandel och allt möjligt, men där det alltid finns något hoppfullt, något vackert som gör att man blir glad.
Alice Walker har varit en av mina stora favoriter som jag läste mycket på 1980-talet, hon skrev Purpurfärgen och en rad andra romaner men min favorit är essäsamlingen In search of our mothers gardens. En mer nytillkommen Alice är Alice Bradley Sheldon, som skrev skimrande glimrande intelligent science fiction under pseudonymen James Tiptree jr. Psykologen Alice Miller har skrivit klokt om barndomen. Det självutplånande barnet blev en klassiker i sitt slag, jag tror alla jag kände läste den. Alice Lyttkens har regerat på de svenska biblioteken, och en dag ska jag läsa henne också.

Bland litterära gestalter finns det en rad Alicar med Alice i Underlandet i spetsen. När Curtis Sittenfeld skulle skriva om Laura Bush döpte hon om henne till Alice. Som litterär musa får vi räkna Alice B Toklas, Gertrude Steins mångåriga livskamrat. Fler?

Again Calls The Owl Sketch, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2009, photo © 2009 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Margaret Craven worked as a journalist and didn’t publish her first novel until her late 60’s (something I find strangely hopeful). Born in Helena, Montana in 1901, she grew up in Puget Sound, Washington of meager means, worked hard to be one of the first women to attend Stanford, and graduated in 1924 with honors.

Craven’s novel I Heard the Owl Call My Name was first published in Canada in 1967. Picked up by an American publisher in 1973, the book was on the 1970’s bestseller list. It was made into a film in 1973 and shown as part of the CBS television network’s “GE Theater” series.

Near the end of her life, Craven wrote Again Calls the Owl, an autobiography in response to readers’ questions about how she came to write I Heard the Owl Call My Name. On a recent visit, Liz’s mother bought an old copy of Again Calls the Owl to read on her plane ride from Wyoming to Minnesota. She passed it on to me.

As opposed to memoir, the book is sparsely written in the autobiographical style of laying down significant chronological events that shaped the author’s life. A highpoint was Craven’s unexpected rendezvous with writer Gertrude Stein. A friend of Margaret’s had grown up in San Francisco with Alice B. Toklas and arranged a meeting when Stein came to town for a hospital visit at Mark Hopkins.

Alice B. Toklas walked Margaret into Gertrude’s room where she sat on her bed writing letters in a red velvet robe (an image not hard to imagine). Stein welcomed the young writer and they had a long chat about writing that ended with Stein’s sadness at her friend Ernest Hemingway and “the change that had come with The Sun Also Rises,” something she termed ”the beginning of his egomania.” 

Again Calls the Owl is a short read, about 120 pages, and includes Craven’s pencil drawings interspersed throughout the book. I wanted to share Stein’s writing advice to Margaret during their three hour visit. She wrote down what Stein had told her on the cable car ride home:

_________________________________________________________________

“Every writer must have common sense. He must be sensitive and serious. But he must not grow solemn. He must not listen to himself. If he does, he might as well be under a tombstone. When he takes himself solemnly, he has no more to say. Yet he must despise nothing, not even solemn people. They are part of life and it’s his job to write about life.”

“Be direct. Indirectness ruins good writing. There is inner confusion in the world today and because of it people are turning back to old standards like children to their mothers. This makes indirect writing.”

“A writer must preserve a balance between sensitivity and vitality. Highbrow writers are sensitive but not vital. Commercial writers are vital but not sensitive. Trying to keep this balance is always hard. It is the whole job of living.”

“When one writes a thing — when you discover and then put it down, which is the essence of discovering it — one is done with it. What people get out of it is none of the writer’s business.”

“Every writer is self-conscious. It’s one reason he is a writer. And he is lonely. If you know three writers in a lifetime, that is a great many.”

“You do not have to write what the editors want. You can write what you want and if you develop sufficient craftsmanship, you can sell it, too. I want you to write for the Saturday Evening Post. It demands the best craftsmanship.”

  -Gertrude Stein from Again Calls the Owl by Margaret Craven, Dell Publishing, 1980

_________________________________________________________________

Though Gertrude asked Margaret to stay in touch, she never contacted Stein again. I recently learned from Bo’s blog Seeded Earth that there is a statue of Gertrude Stein in New York City’s Bryant Park. Much to my amazement, it was the first public statue of an American woman placed in the whole of New York City — it was installed in 1992. (Here’s the link to view Bo’s photograph of Gertrude at Seeded Earth and read more about the sculpture.)

I see Craven’s euphoria about her visit with Stein much the way I feel when I go and hear Nikki Giovanni, Ann Patchett, Patricia Smith, Steve Almond, or Mary Oliver talk about their work and have a chance to shake their hands when they sign my books. Or when our Poetry and Meditation Group receives a card from Billy Collins, Gary Soto, or Robert Bly.

It is the same joy I feel from the privilege of having studied with Natalie Goldberg. The things she has taught me about the practice of writing are immeasurable. There is much to be learned from the wisdom and knowledge of published writers who have already paid their dues.

At the end of Again Calls the Owl, Craven reflects on Walk Gently This Good Earth, her novel about growing up in the Cascades and her father’s life in Montana. One last quote from Craven urges writers to take heed:

A professional writer must be careful what he writes now about the past which could be used to hurt innocent people unmercifully.

I think it’s time my country does what the Indians of Kingcome are doing. We must return to our roots, our own safety and integrity, and I think this is beginning to occur. Our lives depend upon it.

-from Again Calls the Owl by Margaret Craven, Dell Publishing, 1980

_________________________________________________________________
 
Resources:

• Margaret Craven biography at BC Bookworld 
• Reviews of I Heard the Owl Call My Name at Barnes & Noble
• Cover Art of releases of I Heard the Owl Call My Name at Library Thing
• I Heard the Owl Call My Name at Powell’s Books
• Again Calls the Owl at Powell’s Books
• Review & Comparison of Walk Gently This Good Earth to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird — Westcotts & Finches at Mirkwood

-posted on red Ravine, Monday, August 10th, 2009 with gratitude to oliverowl

-related to post: Book Talk – Do You Let Yourself Read?

Denna kvartett ska förstås vara med i regnbågen. Selma, min kära, som jag skrivit om bland annat här och här. Nicola Griffith som jag berättat lite om här, och som också bloggar och finns på twitter. Alice B Toklas självbiografi skriven av Gertrude Stein (Ros är en ros är en ros), jag har skrivit lite här, och så Fyrväktaren av Jeanette Winterson. (Hittar inte Det finns annan frukt än apelsiner just nu.) Winterson skriver i flera tidningar, smakprov finns här, och hon kommer till Sverige i höst. Då ska jag vara där.
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Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Selma Lagerlöf, Jeanette Winterson, Nicola Griffith, Gertrude Stein, Alice B Toklas

A friend recommended I read Hemingway’s A Movable Feast. No one I knew locally had the book, so I ordered it from Amazon.uk. I received it in good order and read it. I enjoyed it very much. It was wonderful.

The book consists of twenty vignettes, later-remembered stories of France where Hemingway was a poor, struggling writer during the years 1921 through 1926 and married to Hadley Richardson, his first wife. Mary Welsh Hemingway, Ernest’s fourth wife, edited the book after his death in 1961. Jonathan Cape Ltd, London, published it in 1964. A copy of the first edition currently sells for $850.

Hadley and “Tatie,” as his wife called him, loved each other very much and had a child during their time together. They named him John, but called him “Mr. Bumby” throughout the book.

This is biography enough to present here. Those interested in more about Hemingway’s life can simply put his name into their Internet search engines to find a wealth of information. Here is a timeline for Hemingway’s life during his Paris years.

Gertrude Stein

Many of the stories are about now famous writers and artists with whom he had varying degrees of friendship and acquaintance. The first writer mentioned in the book is Gertrude Stein.

In the second story, Miss Stein Instructs, wherein he recounts a visit with her, he first tells us of his approach to writing:

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day…I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’ It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started writing elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start the with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.

Gertrude stein and Alice B. Toklas

Gertrude Stein held a popular salon in Paris where those who could tolerate Miss Stein’s imperialism (my word, not Hemingway’s) were offered food and drink and could view the many paintings of contemporary artists in her apartment, which she shared with her “friend” whom Hemingway never names as Alice B. Toklas.

Stein “instructs” Hemingway thus: “You mustn’t write anything that is inaccrochable. There is no point in it. It’s wrong and it’s silly.” As far as I can tell, the word means ‘unpublishable.’

There is much said by “Miss Stein” about the (mostly) faults and (some) good points about other writers and artists in this second story of the twenty in the book. Toward the end of this vignette Hemingway writes: “…there were almost never any pauses in a conversation with Miss Stein.” In the next story, Une Génération Perdue Hemingway continues with another visit to Stein’s apartment:

In the three or four years that we were good friends I cannot remember Gertrude Stein ever speaking well of any writer who had not written favorably about her work or done something to advance her career except for Ronald Firbank and, later, Scott Fitzgerald.

In Ford Maddox Ford and the Devil’s Disciple Hemingway was sitting at a table outside the café Closerie des Lilas of an evening when Ford unexpectedly came up and invited himself to sit and talk.

It was Ford Maddox Ford, as he called himself then, and he was breathing heavily through a heavy, stained mustache and holding himself upright as an ambulatory, well clothed, upended hogshead…I had always avoided looking at Ford when I could and always held my breath when I was near him in a closed room, but this was in the open air and the fallen leaves blew along the sidewalks from my side of the table past his, so I took a good look at him, repented, and looked across the boulevard.

In With Pascin At the Dôme we visit with Hemingway, the painter Jules Pascin (dubbed elsewhere the “Prince of Montparnasse”) and two of Pascin’s models. “He looked more like a Broadway character of the Nineties than the lovely painter that he was, and afterwards, when he had hanged himself, I like to remember him as he was that night at the Dôme.”

Ezra Pound

Although Ezra Pound’s name appears earlier in the book, we don’t meet him directly until the twelfth story, Ezra Pound and His Bel Esprit. The first sentence sums him up well: “Ezra Pound was always a good friend and he was always doing things for people.” Hemingway was in Pound’s studio, teaching him to box, when they were joined by a friend of Pound’s, Wyndham Lewis. Hemingway apparently didn’t like him: “I watched Lewis carefully without seeming to look at him, as you do when you are boxing, and I do not think I had ever seen a nastier-looking man. Some people show evil as a great race horse shows breeding…Lewis did not show evil; he just looked nasty.”

Pound was instrumental in helping T.S. Eliot develop his famous The Waste Land. Through his friendship with Pound, Hemingway, perforce, had some minor hand in this help, but he always referred to Eliot as “Major Eliot” to tease and confuse people. [See my article on The Waste Land, here].

In A Strange Enough Ending Hemingway begins: “The way it ended with Gertrude Stein was strange enough.” Upon her invitation for him to visit before she was to take a trip with a companion, he went to visit Stein and, upon being allowed in by a servant, overheard in another room Stein “pleading and begging” with someone she called “Pussy.” Despite the servant’s suggestion he stay, Hemingway left. After this time, relations between her and her friends began to deteriorate, just as did the quality of the art she hung in her residence. “In the end (everyone) made friends again in order not to be stuffy or righteous. I did too. But I could never make friends again truly, neither in my heart nor in my head. When you cannot make friends any more in your head is the worst. But it was more complicated than that.” [End of vignette].

There are other references to and stories about a number of other well-known people, including some already mentioned, but I will additionally mention only F. Scott Fitzgerald and, necessarily, his wife Zelda, both of whom appear in the three stories before the ending story.

The seventeenth vignette is the longest, about a mad train trip to, and car trip back from Lyon. Zelda was the causative agent for the adventure, although she didn’t directly participate. Fitzgerald proved himself scattered and unreliable in matters of logistics, and Hemingway had a miserable time trying to keep the whole thing together. Eventually the car was delivered to Paris. During this period Fitzgerald was writing the book that would elevate him to the pinnacle of success, The Great Gatsby. This section of Hemingway’s book ends: “If he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure that he could write an even better one. I did not know Zelda yet, and so I did not know the terrible odds that were against him. But we were to find them out soon enough.”

From the next story, Hawks Do Not Share:

Zelda had a hawk’s eyes and a thin mouth and deep-south manners and accent. Watching her face you could see her mind leave the table and go to the [previous] night’s party and return with her eyes blank as a cat’s and then pleased, and the pleasure would show along the thin line of her lips and then be gone…Zelda was jealous of Scott’s work and as we got to know them, this fell into a regular pattern. Scott would resolve not to go on all-night drinking parties and to get some exercise each day and work regularly. He would start to work and as soon as he was working well Zelda would begin complaining about how bored she was and get him off on another drunken party.

The last story in the book, There Is Never Any End to Paris, is very sad and poignant, presaging the reason for Hadley’s divorcing him, an affair with someone he later married, the second of his four wives. Since Hemingway writes rather painfully and elusively about this period, I will allow the reader of these pages to find out the rest of the story from other sources.

It seems rather odd and circular to know that Hemingway’s fourth wife, and widow, edited this book, including this last story, after Hemingway’s death. I wonder if he would have approved?

Martes / “Dos vidas: Gertrude y Alice” por Janet Malcolm

“Janet Malcolm (Praga, 1934), con un estilo ágil y vivo, nunca exento de citas, se propone una curiosa investigación que llega a buen puerto: saber cómo eran Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) y Alice B. Toklas (1877-1967), la más célebre pareja lésbica del período de la modernidad anglosajona. Para ello las lee, hace lo propio con sus estudiosos y se entrevista con ellos: pocos conocieron a Gertrude, pero la mayoría llegó a tratar a la señorita Toklas, que murió con 90 años, siempre defensora de su ex compañera, pero casi arruinada, pues Gertrude le había dejado sus cosas en usufructo, haciendo heredero a un sobrino que murió antes que Toklas, desencadenando la batalla por la herencia.”

Extraído de El Cultural.  

Ver además:

http://www.larazon.es/noticia/quien-protegio-a-gertrude-stein

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Malcolm

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein

Los títulos recomendados están en la Biblioteca del Instituto Internacional. Si te interesa leer ésta recomendación puedes consultar su disponibilidad en el catálogo la biblioteca del IIE.

Dos vidas: Gertrude y Alice / Janet Malcolm; traducción de Catalina Martinez Muñoz. — 1ª ed. — Barcelona: Lumen, 2009. — 177 p. : il. ; 22 cm. — (Ensayo).

D.L. B 3540-2009 — ISBN 978-84-264-1706-0

PS 3537.T323 Z753 2008

Two lives. Español

I know I’m not alone in an addiction to reading cookery books for pleasure. It’s just that I’m not much of a cook. I can produce edible food, and we don’t starve in my house; one or two of my cookery books do have one or two pages covered with gravy or fruit stains, just to show that I have a meagre repertoire of dishes that I can cook. But I’ve got a ludicrously long bookshelf stuffed with cookery books for someone who watches Masterchef or Heston Blumenthal from behind the sofa. Most of my favourites for reading are what you might call vintage, from between the 1930s and the 70s.

One of my favourite characters in fiction is Mildred Lathbury in Barbara Pym’s ‘Excellent Women’. She’s a favourite because I identify with her so strongly – she makes Anne Elliot look like Holly Golightly, as do I – and because by the end of chapter 1 she has established herself as someone who reaches for a cookery book as comfort reading:

“I switched on the light and saw that it was ten minutes to one. I hoped the Napiers were not going to keep late hours and have noisy parties. Perhaps I was getting ‘spinsterish’ and set in my ways, but I was irritated at having been woken. I stretched out my hand towards the bookshelf where I kept cookery and devotional books, the most comforting bedside reading. My hand might have chosen Religio Medici, but I was rather glad that it had picked out Chinese Cookery, and I was soon soothed into drowsiness.”

So, what is it about cookery books that I find so satisfying? For me, they have to be cookery books, not books about food (although there are some brilliant, stylish and elegant food writers, and some very scholarly ones too). There is something delightful about a skilfully written menu or recipe, and, in the best cookery books, it is the local colour and background description combined with the recipe that summon up an atmosphere or a memory. Tucked up under the duvet, bedside lamp shedding a dim but warm light on the page, I could believe I can make these dishes. My cook’s knife is perfectly sharp, and does not skitter off the chopping board and into my thumb. I take my egg yolk mixture off the fire the split second before it is perfect, and not the split second after, by which time it has – um – split. My cold hands signify my warm heart AND my fantasy pastry-making talent. How very unlike the home life of your own dear reviewer, especially in the kitchen. And reading a beautifully described menu is sheer guilt-free, calorie-free GREED.

So, here are a few of my favourites; they’re pretty much the obvious ones on the whole. Those of you who already read cookery books for fun will wonder if I come up with any new discoveries – the answer is, probably, no. My main intention is to tempt readers who prop up the cookbook in the kitchen, fixated solely on the recipe while attempting to make Tripes a la mode de Caen, to take the same book over to the sofa, put the feet up, and just read it for pleasure.

The first favourite is Elizabeth David – there, you knew I was going to say that. Her books are for reading rather than cooking with in small households, partly because many of her recipes are unattainable. For all that, I do have one or two sticky pages in the copy of French Provincial Cooking my mother gave me for my 21st. She is well worth reading for basic methods and skills. But this book (my most cherished of hers) is more important as a record of a tradition and a generation in a particular time and place (France in the first half of the 20th century). Her writing is elegant, ironic, immensely well-informed, and very entertaining. I was spoilt for choice of portions to illustrate its charms. I was very tempted by the description of a lunch of many, many courses observed in Normandy (menu-reading as greed by proxy), but love the following anecdote from her chapter about omelettes:

L’omelette de la Mere Poulard
As everyone knows, the Hotel Poulard, formerly the Auberge de Saint-Michel Tete d’Or, at Mont St Michel, became famous for the omelettes made by the proprietress. Many writers have attempted to account for the wonderful flavour of la Mere Poulard’s omelettes, explaining that her secret lay in adding this, or that, or the other ingredient. Here is a letter, dated June 6, 1922, which she wrote to M. Robert Viel, a celebrated Paris restaurateur and collector of a famous library of cookery books:

‘Monsieur Viel,
Voici la recette de l’omelette: je casse de bons oeufs dans une terrine, je les bats bien, je mets un bon morceau de beurre dans la poele, j’y jette les oeufs et je remue constamment. Je suis heureuse, monsieur, si cette recette vous fait plaisir.*
‘Annette Poulard’
[*’Here is the recipe for the omelette: I break some good eggs in a dish, I beat them well, I put a good piece of butter in the frying pan, I throw in the eggs, and move them round constantly. I am happy, monsieur, if this recipe gives you pleasure.’]

She then goes on to tell us that at the Hotel Poulard in 1914 2fr 50 would have bought you the set menu of The Omelette, ham, fried sole, pre-sale lamb cutlets with potatoes, a roast chicken with salad, and dessert.

My copy of The Alice B Toklas Cook Book (told you – nothing original or quirky here) is now very floppy, and it happened to fall open at the page where Alice B describes her perfect Austrian cook, Kaspar, who made divine cakes. Here is the lead-in to the recipe for Sacher torte:

‘Gradually Kaspar began to confide in me. Life was not as happy for him as it had been. In the beginning there was only his fiancée Lili, his angel, but now there was a second, a devil, who wanted him to marry her and who was threatening to kill him if he did not. And he told us that he and Hitler had been born in the same village and that everyone in the village was like all the others and that they were all a little strange. This was in 1936 and we already knew Hitler was very strange indeed. Kaspar was not so much strange as weak, loving wine, women and song. But he continued to be a perfect cook. He had been for several years a cook at Frau Sacher’s restaurant, and frequently baked us the well-known Sacher torte.’

I love her distinctive voice, the way she always refers to the love of her life as ‘Gertrude Stein’, and her description of two Jewish women living in France throughout World War II, so close to danger, but with such love and faith in their fellow humans that they believed that no-one would want to harm them. It’s an amazing story – of luck, frankly, and escape through eccentricity.

Florence White: Good Things in England is great fun. Miss White is very brisk and businesslike, verging on the grumpy, as she sets out her collection of recipes, all neatly authenticated with source names and dates where known. Here she is in faintly satirical mode:

‘Cider.
The Ministry of Agriculture sends the following communication: -
“Genuine Cider is probably the healthiest of all fermented drinks and has been brewed in Europe since the dawn of history.

[… deletion by Hilary of lots more high-flown prose] in asking for National Mark Cider, the discerning public will be obtaining a truly national beverage of great attractiveness and will be assisting in a great national development which promises to have far-reaching effects in promoting the advancement of British agriculture and the general well-being of the whole nation.”

[Back to Florence W] No recipe is given because the process is too complicated for home use, and those who wish to make cider can get directions elsewhere.’

So there.

I’ve still got a little heap next to me. It contains Edouard de Pomiane: Cooking in Ten Minutes (‘The moment you come into the kitchen light the gas. Ten-minute cookery is impossible without gas. Put a large saucepan of water on to the fire, slip on the lid and let it boil. What is the use of this water, you will ask? I don’t know. But it is bound to be useful for cooking or washing up or making coffee.’); Fortune Stanley: English Country House Cooking, a book from the 1970s that contains the recipe for British Rail Welsh rabbit* (*By permission); and 35 years away from bedsit-land, I can still read Katherine Whitehorn’s classic Cooking in a Bedsitter with delight and nostalgia.

Dorothy Hartley’s magisterial Food in England well illustrates the point that food books are not necessarily as pleasurable to read as cookery books. This is an essential reference book, a vast mine of information that I often refer to for facts and background. But her writing style is staccato and not restful. Other food writers such as Nigel Slater and Nigella Lawson I dislike because they seek to conscript me into their own hedonistic sensual world, assuming we feel guilt in eating food that might be bad for you, and need therapy and reassurance to get past it – this is a personal view, for me it just does not work, but tends to have the opposite effect of making me feel sternly puritanical. Just tell it like it is, for me. Elizabeth David’s uncoloured descriptions of Mediterranean foods and flavours – lemons, olives, tomatoes, in the post-war rationed world of England were enough to feed the imagination and bring pleasure.

So, to finish, back to Mildred Lathbury. Something subtly terrible has happened to her in her quiet life (heaven help me when I start to review novels here – I am immune to spoilers, and may find it difficult to get out of here alive) and she turns to her usual solace:

‘It must not be poetry that I read that night, but a devotional or even a cookery book. Perhaps the last was best for my mood, and I chose an old one of recipes and miscellaneous household hints. I read about the care of aspidistras and how to wash lace and black woollen stockings, and I learned that a package or envelope sealed with white of egg cannot be steamed open. Though what use that knowledge would ever be to me I could not imagine.’

—o—

Cookery book illustration courtesy of Daniel Flower – danflo on Flickr – and reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Word: cacophony [kuh-kof-uh-nee] n. 1. harsh discordance of sound; dissonance: a cacophony of hoots, crackles and wails 2. a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds: the cacophony produced by city traffic at midday 3. Music. frequent use of discords of a harshness and relationship difficult to understand

Birthday: Alice B. Toklas (1877), Eve Arden (1908), Robert Shaw (1916), Percy Heath (1923), Cloris Leachman (1926), Willie Nelson (1933), Burt Young (1940), Jane Campion (1954), Isaiah Thomas (1961), Akon (1973), Johnny Galecki (1975), Kirsten Dunst (1982)

Occurence: 1993 – The World Wide Web is born at CERN.

Standpoint: It’s Thursday. That must mean time another installment of Annoying Sayings & Misused Words. Let’s have at it.

“This might be a stupid question, but…” – This one was a popular favorite in your suggestions for this post. People usually say this when they are asking a question to which they already know the answer. Really, they should be saying something like, “Just to be clear…” Starting off a statement with, “This might be a stupid question, but…” tends to give the impression to another person that you are, in fact, stupid, and you feel the need to ask because of that stupidity. [Note: I used to work with a guy who started of about 50% of his sentences with, "Stupid question." Due to the fact that he's one of the nicest people I've ever met, I never had the heart to tell him that he shouldn't have said it so much. Don't be like me, people. Tell your friends when they overuse annoying phrases such as this. They may be put-off at first, but they'll thank you one day. Hopefully.]

“Honestly?” – Often times you’ll ask a friend a question such as, “Where did I put my keys?” A likely response, “Honestly? I have no idea.” Other times, it could be something a little more touchy like, “Dude, did I make a jackass out of myself at that party last night?” Response, “Honestly? Yeah, you did.” The issue here is that there’s no need for, “Honestly?” No one is going to come back and say, “No. I don’t want the truth. If you know where my keys are, please lie to me so it takes me longer to find them. I really enjoy searching around the house,” or “I’d like you to lie to me about last night. That way, I don’t have to feel bad for getting drunk and knocking that cake off the table and into the lap of the woman sitting on the couch behind it.” The rule here is that if someone is asking you a question, assume they want the honest answer. However, if you feel you are being asked a question where the person is hoping you lie, as might be the case of the drunken partygoer, and you want to spare their feelings or sidestep a potentially stressful conversation, feel free to lie in that instance. Otherwise, just answer the question. Honestly.

“There is nothing worse than…” – OK. I’m guity of this one. At times, I can be a bit dramatic. It’s my nature. Be kind and try to move past some of my many flaws. But, even though I’ve started countless sentences with, “There is nothing worse than…,” it still bothers me when people overuse it. For instance, I was listening to a friend of mine talk about a bad traffic jam she was in and, at one point, she offered, “You know, there’s nothing worse than being stuck in traffic.” I replied, “What if, while you were stuck in that traffic jam, a gigantic tree fell onto the hood of your car? Wouldn’t that be worse?” She sighed, “You know what I mean.” I went on, “What if right after the tree fell on your car, someone threw your door open and robbed you? Would that make it worse?” She then told me that I’m often, “a pain-in-the-ass to talk to.” I was satisfied I’d made my point clear.

What about you? Do you constantly hear the same Annoying Sayings & Misused Words? Post a comment and share them with the group.

Quotation: It’s a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word. - Andrew Jackson

Tune: After I first listened to “Carry Around,” I immediately wanted to hang out with the folks in Annuals.

Gallimaufry: Up until a few days ago, I lived right down the street from PA Senator Arlen Spector. Surprisingly, my neighbor didn’t let me know that he was leaving the GOP for the other side. It’s weird because he and I usually talk about everything…Due to my life-long addiction to comic books, many close to me were surprised that I didn’t download X-Men Origins: Wolverine when it was leaked on the internet a few weeks back. Instead, I opted to watch it in the movie theater when it comes out this Friday simply because I don’t really pirate music or movies. Not condemning it. Just ain’t my thing. It looks like the people behind the movie are now doing something to entice those who have already seen it into the theaters…Hey, Billy Corgan, this is getting embarrassing. Please. Cease. And. Desist.

Incoming: Tomorrow: It’ll be Friday and, as always, I’ll give you my 3 Things To Do In Philly When You’re Dead. Also, 7 Songs I’m Having Trouble Admitting Are On My iPod.

Another artist that I have a new interest in after reading Alice b. Toklas is Kees Van Dongen. I didn’t have much inspiration for a post today so I just wanted to share some of his paintings that I loved. I am thinking of using these colors to inspire some jewelry I am working on. I hope to share some of those pieces on here very soon.

Gertrude Stein (1874-1946)

Avant-Garde Author and Poet Wrote Three Lives & Toklas Autobiography

Stein is best known for the phrase “A rose is a rose is a rose” and famous for her books Three Lives and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.

The famous phrase “A rose is a rose is a rose” was written by Stein as part of the 1913 poem “Sacred Emily” meant to be a woman’s name. Later, Stein used variations on the phrase in her other writings, the phrase often being interpreted as “things are what they really are.”

Read more… Gertrude Stein

Works by Gertrude Stein

• Three Lives, 1909
• The Making of Americans, 1925
• Lucy Church Amiably, 1930
• The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933
• Four Saints in Three Acts, 1934
• Lectures in America, 1935
• Wars I have Seen, 1945
• Browsie and Willie, 1946
• The Mother of Us All, 1947 (published after she died)

….Gertrude Steins väninna och käresta. Jag läste  Ninas kommentar till inlägget om mitt födelsedatum… blev nyfiken, gick till Wikepedia .och .. efter att ha läst på kunde jag bekräfta … visst, det var sååå. Hon  hade gett ut en kokbok:

(Fotot är taget av Carl Van Vechten. .. snygg hatt förresten)

“1954 publicerade Toklas Alice B. Toklas kokbok som är en blandning av memoarer och kokbok och som består av närmare 400 recept. Boken ska ha påbörjades under en tremånaders-attack av gulsot då Toklas drömde sig tillbaka till tiden med Stein, god hälsa, goda vänner och god mat”

När jag väl var där blev jag sååå nyfiken och läste vidare. Se bara!

“De recept som hon blivit mest förknippad med är hennes Hasch-kladdkakor som från början var ett recept av Brion Gysin. Kakorna består av en blandning av frukt, nötter, kryddor och torkad cannabis. På grund av detta recept kallas nu ibland liknande kakor för Alice B. Toklas brownies. Det kan tilläggas att detta recept inte finns med i den svenska översättningen från 1982″

Typiskt va… att man tog bort just deet receptet. Men… det kunde ju ha varit svårt att få tag på en av ingredienserna. Det kanske var därför…

Alice föddes inte den 3 februari… men väl den 30 april, Valborgsmässoafton, 1877, och …” dog 1967, 89 år gammal och hon är begravd på kyrkogården Père-Lachaise i Paris. Hon delar grav med Gertrude Stein, men Alices B. Toklas namn finns ingraverat på stenens baksida.”

Är inte deet tragiskt så säg…

Hennes sista år blev också fattiga och hon kämpade mot dålig hälsa. Till på köpet kom Gertrudes giriga  släktningar och beslagtog målningar som Gertrude lämnat efter sig till Alice … hur dom nu kunde göra det hur som helst… men det fanns väl inget skriiivet.

(här associerar jag … knäppt eller hur… till arvet efter författaren Stieg Larsson som gick hans sambos (i över 20 år om jag inte misstar mig) näsa förbi… det fanns inte skriiivet…)

.

The Blue Streak

In college, classmates took me for a precocious high-schooler with early enrollment and bouncers carded me at clubs until I turned 39. I bore a strong resemblance to my Russian grandfather who died in his mid-70s looking like he’d just hit the half-century mark. “Good genes” people said. “Not fair.” I thought and waited for my body to grow into me.

In my 20s and 30s I began to resemble my age group, still adolescence stuck to me like a half-eaten Sugar Daddy and my features never quite matured past the state of awkward.

But on July 4th at age 40, a friend snapped pictures at my cattle dog Caleb’s first bithday party. Caleb was wearing a plastic Elizabethan dog collar decorated with metallic stars: my firecracker. I looked almost beautiful.

I sent photos to my mother in Willoughby and she commented “Oh, you’re going to be one of those women.” “What women?” I asked. “The ones who grow beautiful with age.”

I looked at the photos and believed her. Past suitors had thrown compliments out: “cute,” “pretty,” and sometimes “beautiful” but only when dizzy with love. The tip of my nose ends in a night light-sized bulb and the older I get the more it takes center stage. My eyes, like twins, don’t like to be too far apart and are deeply embedded into my face, creating a chiaroscuro effect beneath my bottom lashes.

But at 40, suddenly everything came into balance – perhaps it was a trick of light or maybe I finally lost the baby fat. The ridge on my nose grew soft, my hair sprouted curls, the bags beneath my eyes grew lighter and I developed a glow that can only come with the wisdom of years and expensive Chanel anit-aging serums.

I imagined that if my facial luck continued I might morph into a dark-haired version of Catherine Deneuve who, irregardless of pounds gained or cigarettes smoked, remains joyously radiant, her skin still firm and stretched tightly across the Gallic facial bones that have carved her image into celluloid as the icon of eternal French beauty.

So I coasted on my newly-found, ripened and aged beauty and delighted in the idea that I would grow more beautiful and lustrous with each passing year.

And then I hit 49 and crashed into a Stop sign shaped like a mirror. Gravity grabbed at my skin and tackled my face pulling it down to the 50 year old yard line. I gained ten pounds which made a loving leap to my cheeks and tummy. As a child, chubby is playful; chubby babies win pageants. Stout middle-aged women don’t pass GO or collect compliments.

Men stopped looking at me in “that way.” They see me now as a mother or aunt and the youngest consider me grandmother material. They don’t avoid my gaze, they simply don’t notice me. I blend in; a middle-aged woman walking down the street, her face gently falling like an overcooked souffle that is slowly losing air.

I think about plastic surgery and am terrified; not of the surgery or results, but of being put to sleep which is one of my lifelong phobias. I study pictures of unlined celebrities in US Weekly and contemplate a little botox in the small furrow between my eyebrows and then remember the articles I’ve read about faces permanently frozen in a state of suspended anticipation.

I gaze into the mirror and pull tight the skin beneath my eyes. I angle my head to the side, placing my right index finger over the offending knob on my nose. I construct ways to convince my insurance company to cover the cost of a nose job; after all I do have a deviated septum so perhaps a repair and quick shave to the bone would be medically recommended for easier breathing and a prettier face.

I thought I could hold this off longer. I thought I could wait ’till 60 before I had to seriously consider invasive techniques to restore me to my less then former glory. But age and gravity have snuck up on me quickly this year and I am unhappy every time I catch my face in the mirror or, worse yet, see a photo of myself standing next to my husband who is a decade younger and looks it.

I secretly support and cheer on the women who have the money and the guts to put themselves under the knife and wonder if that makes me shallow. Why can’t I embrace my age and enjoy the falling chin and misalighed forehead? Do I blame this on fashion magazines, Hollywood or both? Or do I simply thank the universe that normal women like me can go to a surgeon and have things tweaked and turned and come out with a more youthful, fresher face?

I consider myself a feminist yet here I am contemplating having a plastic surgeon cut open my face to cut off my years. Does Gloria Steinham get botox or has she evolved past that point? What would Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir or Virginia Woolf think of my vanity? Would Gertrude Stein quote me the following lines from her famous poem Sacred Emily:

Gertrude & Alice

And would I hear in her words how a rose is nothing more than a flower on a stem that eventualy ages, ages, ages? Would she roast me at one of her Saturday evening salons in Paris at 27, rue de Fleurus surrounded by Picasso, Matisse, Hemmingway and her girlfriend Alice B. Toklas? Would they laugh at my addiction to youth and dismiss me as hopeless and point their attention towards a discussion of the direction of Modernism in art and music?

A friend from my past Sara Halprin wrote a book called “Look at My Ugly Face! Myths, Musings Beauty Other Perilous Obsessions with Women’s Appearance.” I was disturbed when she first shared the title. The words and sentiment were so hard-edged, like the breaking of something antique and china on cold stark cement. And yet, the title summed up perfectly what I and many women I have known believe to be true – that we are ugly, our faces, our bodies

Rossetti's Helen of Troy

It gets worse as we age, as we see whatever beauty we once might have had begin to fade like the darkening shadow of dusk across the petals of a rose made famous by Gertrude Stein in a repetitive poem that that simply ends in the dreaded word “ages.”

We buy our creams, our potions, we melt our Vitamin B-12 pills under our tongues, we visit the plastic surgeon for a consultation, contemplate the evil needle of botox and stop by the naturopath to see if a homeopathic remedy exists to hold back the aging face of Mother Time.

Will I know when it’s time? And by then will there be less invasive techniques so that a nurse can magically waive a laser over my face and make ten years disappear like a rabbit popping back into a magician’s hat?

Will my extreme fear of the long needle and a general anaesthetic force me into old ladyhood with everything sagging away au natural or will I wake up one morning and embrace the wrinkles as hard-won war paint from a live fully lived? Or will I have lived just as fully and perhaps more happily with a nip here and a tuck there and most importantly with a neck lift because I truly cannot stand the idea of losing my fairly well-formed chin?

I watch a TV show on Wednesday nights called Life On Mars, a sci-fi crime series originally set in London and aired on the BBC; the show has been translated for an American audience to New York City and is set in both 2008 and 1973. The program features some great performances not the least of which is the aging Harvey Keitel paying Lieutenant Gene Hunt as the head New York’s 125th precinct in the days of peace, love and lack of understanding.

As a hardcore officer on the edge of retirement he wields his police baton over a band of sideburned detectives dressed in tight polyester suits who consider interrogation to be a contact sport. The show is both absurd and often touching as one of the detectives – who has been transported from 2008 to 1973 – tries to find his way home.

Lt. Gene Hunt

What I find fascinating about Keitel’s performance is how completely he embraces a fully-lined face, sagging body and out-of-shape physique. He often ends his day in his office at the precinct, dressed in a wife beater T-shirt drinking a glass of scotch, fatty underarms pouring out of the arm holes, loose skin hanging off his jaw, and an expanded belly protruding under the white stretched fabric of his cotton T. He looks every inch of his 69 years and yet, as he sits on the grimy, nicotine-stained avocado green couch circa 1970, there is something noble and dare I say sexy about his realistic portrayal of an aging cop contemplating his deeds and misdeeds of the day.

Is it easier for a man to age then a woman? Would we be equally enamored with a 70-year old Julia Roberts sporting sagging boobs, wrinkled skin and liver patches? Is that what Sara Halprin was trying to tell me all those years ago when she wrote a book called Look At My Ugly Face?

I look into the mirror and notice the flaws. I click through facebook and find old friends who have morphed into middle-aged women. Their eyes and smiles flutter and curve in familiar patterns; I am relieved to see moments of the girls that I knew. But now those features are sinking into the quicksand of drooping skin and folds of fat: we are fun house mirror portraits of our former selves.

I look young for my age, even now. Inside I feel old and see each new line that crosses my face and each new silver hair that pops up unbidden from beneath the color and highlights that have hidden the gray for nearly two decades. Inside I feel 15 but outside I am 50 and beginning to show the pregnancy of age which will culminate in the opposite of birth.

I see my future a la Gertrude Stein: A rose is a rose is a rose. . .Page ages page ages page ages ages ages.

Alltså: Om folket, enligt Reinfeldts muf-retorik, sover, så ligger regeringen i koma inför finanskrisens utmaningar. Hela EU-bygget håller på att rasa, världsekonomin har redan gjort det. Ingen konstgjord andning hjälper, börsuppgångarna är bara dödsrosslingar som ger falska rosor på kinderna. Och det enda EU kan komma på verkar vara att planera för storkrig, alternativt “mindre kärnvapenattacker” – vilket handelsavtalet med Israel utan krav på att följa mänskliga rättigheter tyder på att man ligger i startgroparna för, och den nyligen slutna säkerhetspakten med Israel än mer bekräftar. Och blir då Bushs f d allierade i Irakkriget, Tony Blair, från att ha varit ‘kvartetten’ EU-Ryssland-USA-FN:s ‘fredsmäklare’ i Mellanöstern istället EU-president, vilket Financial Times spekulerar om, och Natochefen Jaap de Hoop Scheffer ovanpå det EU:s utrikesminister så kan vi nog sägas ha placerat världskriget som i en liten plutoniskt plutokratisk pandora-ask.

Så löser kapitalismen arbetslöshetsproblemen. Riv ner och börja från scratch, efter demografisk utrensning av överflödiga. Blir det i Afghanistan, som nu USA och Obama vill ha hjälp av Europa med, så lär man stöta på klassiskt motstånd av svårartat slag, vilket är anledningen till att landet även går under benämningen “the graveyard of empires“. Enligt rapporter står 30 000 stridslystna gerillatalibaner redo ifall Väst skulle få för sig att fullfölja den futila hybristanken och intensifiera sin krigföring – talibaner vars lojalitetsband är invävda i klanstrukturer som stått oberörda av förändringens vindar i tusentals år, lika outgrundligt snåriga som mangroveträskets sega sammantvinningar.

Och blir det mot Iran - under en eller annan mer eller mindre grundad förevändning, då slutar det knappast med mindre än att löpelden blir till Sista Världskriget som utplånar oss alla. För som någon sa, kärnvapenarsenaler byggs inte upp och upprätthålls utan att vara tänkta att någon gång användas.

Den som vill förhindra att sådana scenarier blir verklighet har all anledning att påbörja intensifieringen av opinionsbildningsarbetet nu. Någon?

Se tidigare bloggposter: Svar på tal till Per Schlingmann på Newsmill, Tjäle i hjärta, tjäle i sinne, Tysklands domare gör ett bättre jobb än Lagrådet, Det pyramidala spelmissbruket, Vintergata, , Toppen av ett isberg, En papegoja som imiterar så gott han har förstånd,
En Folkrörelse, En Konst, Ett Folkparti!, Tänk analogt, Dr Strangelove med sitt ougrundliga leende, Knuff

Finanskrisen, bonusar, höjda SEB-pensioner – SVD: “Det är moraliskt oförsvarbart“, “Var finns omdömet, SEB?”, “Östros: En bonusfest“, “Bjuder på lyxresa till Alperna“, “Tung kritik från stora SEB-ägare“, “Wallenberg göder sina chefer“, “Höjda SEB-löner stoppar bankstöd“, (fast ändå lite oklart), “DN: Oppositionen ser passiv regering“, “Var fjärde sökande nekas lägenhet i allmännyttan“, “Inkomstreglerna ändrades för sent“, “Läsarna: Nu lämnar vi SEB“, Aftonbladet: “SEB-chefens pensionsbomb” “SEB hyr lyxhotell i Gstaad“

Bloggar Badlands hyena: Bankchef värd hög lön, Kent Persson (m) blogg: Gott omdöme, Röda Malmö: Cyniskt klassamhälle, Åsikter om allt: Visa konsumentmakt och lämna SEB, Kommunisternas blogg: Fattigpensionärerna betalar, de bemedlade får höjda pensioner!, Alf Norberg: Girighetens ansikten, adventskalendern: Bankdirektörer i ett gränslöst samhälle,
Aftonbladet Lena Melin: Provocerande korkat sätt att hantera läget

Om folket, enligt Reinfeldts muf-retorik, sover, så ligger regeringen i koma inför finanskrisens utmaningar. Hela EU-bygget håller på att rasa, världsekonomin har redan gjort det. Ingen konstgjord andning hjälper, börsuppgångarna är bara dödsrosslingar som ger falska rosor på kinderna. Och det enda EU kan komma på verkar vara att planera för storkrig, alternativt “mindre kärnvapenattacker” – vilket handelsavtalet med Israel utan krav på att följa mänskliga rättigheter tyder på att man ligger i startgroparna för, och den nyligen slutna säkerhetspakten med Israel än mer bekräftar, särskilt då det nu står klart att Likud skall samregera med ultranationalisterna. Och blir då Bushs f d allierade i Irakkriget, Tony Blair, från att ha varit ‘kvartetten’ EU-Ryssland-USA-FN:s ‘fredsmäklare’ i Mellanöstern istället EU-president, vilket Financial Times spekulerar om, och Natochefen Jaap de Hoop Scheffer ovanpå det EU:s utrikesminister så kan vi nog sägas ha placerat världskriget som i en liten plutoniskt plutokratisk pandora-ask.

Så löser kapitalismen arbetslöshetsproblemen. Riv ner och börja från scratch, efter demografisk utrensning av överflödiga. Blir det i Afghanistan, som nu USA och Obama vill ha hjälp av Europa med, så lär man stöta på klassiskt motstånd av svårartat slag, vilket är anledningen till att landet även går under benämningen “the graveyard of empires“. Enligt rapporter står 30 000 stridslystna gerillatalibaner redo ifall Väst skulle få för sig att fullfölja den futila hybristanken och intensifiera sin krigföring – talibaner vars lojalitetsband är invävda i klanstrukturer som stått oberörda av förändringens vindar i tusentals år, lika outgrundligt snåriga som mangroveträskets sega sammantvinningar.

Och blir det mot Iran - under en eller annan mer eller mindre grundad förevändning, då slutar det knappast med mindre än att löpelden blir till Sista Världskriget som utplånar oss alla. För som någon sa, kärnvapenarsenaler byggs inte upp och upprätthålls utan att vara tänkta att någon gång användas.

Den som vill förhindra att sådana scenarier blir verklighet har all anledning att påbörja intensifieringen av opinionsbildningsarbetet nu. Någon?

Se tidigare bloggposter: Svar på tal till Per Schlingmann på Newsmill, Tjäle i hjärta, tjäle i sinne, Tysklands domare gör ett bättre jobb än Lagrådet, Det pyramidala spelmissbruket, Vintergata, , Toppen av ett isberg, En papegoja som imiterar så gott han har förstånd,
En Folkrörelse, En Konst, Ett Folkparti!, Tänk analogt, Dr Strangelove med sitt ougrundliga leende, Knuff

Finanskrisen, bonusar, höjda SEB-pensioner – SVD: “Det är moraliskt oförsvarbart“, “Var finns omdömet, SEB?”, “Östros: En bonusfest“, “Bjuder på lyxresa till Alperna“, “Tung kritik från stora SEB-ägare“, “Wallenberg göder sina chefer“, “Höjda SEB-löner stoppar bankstöd“, (fast ändå lite oklart), “DN: Oppositionen ser passiv regering“, “Var fjärde sökande nekas lägenhet i allmännyttan“, “Inkomstreglerna ändrades för sent“, “Läsarna: Nu lämnar vi SEB“, Aftonbladet: “SEB-chefens pensionsbomb” “SEB hyr lyxhotell i Gstaad“

Bloggar Badlands hyena: Bankchef värd hög lön, Kent Persson (m) blogg: Gott omdöme, Röda Malmö: Cyniskt klassamhälle, Åsikter om allt: Visa konsumentmakt och lämna SEB, Kommunisternas blogg: Fattigpensionärerna betalar, de bemedlade får höjda pensioner!, Alf Norberg: Girighetens ansikten, adventskalendern: Bankdirektörer i ett gränslöst samhälle,
Aftonbladet Lena Melin: Provocerande korkat sätt att hantera läget

I took the “If You Were a Poet…“ quiz on gURL.com
		I am… Gertrude Stein Do you have a thing for words? You’re in good company. Gertrude Stein did too. Who else could write a line like, “A rose is a rose is a rose,” and call it poetry? Read more… Which poet are you?

Margaretha Krook spelade Gertrude Stein en gång, på 1990-talet. Jag såg pjäsen på Idun i Umeå. Hon var ensam på scenen och ägde den totalt. Suveränt!
Ska man läsa Stein är det bra att börja med den mest lättillgängliga: Alice B Toklas självbiografi. Alice B Toklas var Steins livskamrat, de bodde ihop i många år i vad som idag kanske skulle beskrivas som ett butch/femme-förhållande. Alice var den som lagade maten och fixade grejer, medan Gertrude hade fullt upp med att vara ett geni. När Picasso och andra manliga konstutövare kom på besök umgicks de med Gertrude och Alice med fruarna. Och det är alltså Gertrude som skrivit Alices självbiografi, så ni förstår att den handlar rätt mycket om GS herself. Det är mycket rolig & informativ läsning, får ni fatt i den nånstans så hugg den.

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Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Gertrude Stein, Alice B Toklas, Margaretha Krook, böcker, självbiografi, pjäs

…er fortsatt Alice B. Toklas kokebok! Den går ikke av moten.

Kun noen få bøker igjen av 2. opplag, men ikke mange, – så ikke nøl! Du kan kjøpe Alice B. Toklas kokebok på ekte julemarked nå i helgen (6. og 7. desember fra kl. 12-18 hver dag) utenfor delikatessebutikken Vespa på Grünerløkka (Københavngata 2).  Forleggeren signerer mer enn gjerne!

Den viktige og inspirerende lille, men store bokhandelen Torpedo, som feirer 3-års jubileum nå, anbefaler Alice B. Toklas kokebok til jul i sitt siste nyhetsbrev!

Men Torpedo er ikke alene om å anbefale:

Boka er uforglemmelig
*Andreas Viestad, Magasinet Dagbladet*

Det hender at kokebøker gir vann i munn, denne er såpass at man risikerer å få gåsehud i tillegg
*Yngve Ekern, Aftenposten*

Rett og slett en kulturbegivenhet
*Magne Johannessen, Appetitt*

En interessant og morsom bok å lese!
Selv 50 år etter utgivelsen i 1954 byr boka på god underholdning
*Turid Larsen, Dagsavisen*

Mer enn ei kokebok er dette kulturhistorie
*Hege Duckert anbefaler bok i Magasinet Dagbladet*

I sofaen er boka vanskelig å legge vekk. Her er det historie, reiseskildringer og svært dekadent mat og ditto mennesker i lange baner
*Per Borgli, aperitif.no*

Alice B. Toklas holdt gjestebud for Gertrude Stein og deres kunstner- og forfattervenner i 1920-tallets Paris. Nå kommer endelig kokeboken hennes på norsk!
*Thomas Berg, Morgenbladet*

En kokebok du virkelig kan lese på senga!
*Hanne Buxrud, VG*

Kokeboka du må ha!
*Anne-Line Henriksen, Det gode liv*

Oppskriftene kan nytes lesende såvel som praktiserende.
Kos deg med Alice B. Toklas kokebok.
*Cecilie Molvær Jørgensen, Elle Interiør*

En underholdene og interessant bok med mat for både kropp & sjel!
*Lillian Reif , Elle*

Bokens historier er like smakfulle som de inspirerende oppskriftene.
En kulinarisk reise i fransk kulturhistorie. Klarer du deg uten?
*Lene Aarnes Westerhaug, Kvinner & Klær*

Grapefrukt forlag ønsker alle GOD GOD JUL med Alice B. Toklas og Prinsesse D. De Rohan’s:

VARME TODDY FOR KALDE NETTER
2 drammer Calvados, 4,5 cl hver.
1 dram, 4,5 cl, aprikoslikør
Varm over ild. Hell sakte i 4,5 cl fløte. Ikke rør.

Dette er en oppskrift fra 1700-tallet og finnes på side 271i kapittelet Oppskrifter fra venner, og som garantert varmer opp kalde netter.

Review

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein is a one-character play commissioned by actress Pat Carroll for playwright Marty Martin as an homage to the late writer and patron of the arts. It is written as a recounting of her life in “the studio at twenty-seven rue de Fleurus in Paris in 1938″ (1), where she lived with her brother Leo and, later, her lover Alice B. Toklas. The flat served as one of the many central locations for the avant-garde, modernist, fauvist, and cubist movements, and played host to expatriat Americans of the Lost Generation such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Martin does not skimp on name-dropping the broad range of artists, writers, dancers, and other creative types that Stein touched with her open personality and generous patronage during her lifetime. Though a one-woman play, readers do get a genuine feel for Stein’s genuine love of people, conversation, and the pursuit of portraying their attempts to make sense of existence.

In his introduction, Robert A. Wilson states that in the first performance, both Martin’s play and Carroll’s acting was “so lifelike…that some persons who actually knew Stein have wept unabashedly and uncontrollably on seeing this play”* (vii). Truth be told, I got the impression that Gertrude Stein³ was at its best witnessed rather than read. Though one could make that argument about drama in general, few deny that there are certainly plays out there who stand on their own as works of literary achievement. I found the play’s greatest strength its only obstacle to being read as literature rather than solely as a script.

Martin does an excellent job of emulating Gertrude Stein’s unique, almost staccato writing style. So well, in fact, that readers may as well pick up one of Stein’s own novels instead! That is not to say that the play was not enjoyable in its own right, but there were moments when I would have preferred to reach over to my bookshelf and pluck The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas from its resting place and start reading that. If Gertrude Stein³ were to be performed where I was living or visiting, I would likely go see it performed. It sometimes seems as if the play is meant to be experienced visually far more than read when compared with others in the genre.

*Full Quote: “So lifelike it is that some persons who actually knew Stein have wept unabashedly and uncontrollably on seeing this play.” Edited to better incorporate into the sentence.

Bibliographical Information

Martin, Marty. Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein. New York: Random House, 1980.

Further Reading

As I mentioned previously, Marty Martin’s near-flawless mimicry of Gertrude Stein’s writing style drove me more to want to read her oeuvre rather than complete his play. Her memoirs, cheekily titled The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, were unquestionably the inspiration behind Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein. Like the play penned in her honor, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas reflects her extensive and influential social circle and the prominant role she played in the lives of many timeless painters, writers, dancers, and other visual and performance artists. Those interested in her ficticious works may want to pick up Three Lives, a strikingly realist novel which Martin frequently mentions as well. Gertrude Stein’s repetitive, clipped writing style takes some getting used to, but those willing to give it a chance will be rewarded in the end.

~Riot

Camilla Litteraturforening har lagt høstmøtet sitt til nydelige Villa Lilleborg på Ormøya, her blir det Alice B. Toklas middag, kåseri om damene ved Brit Bildøen og forleggeren forteller historien om den legendariske kokeboken.

Denne begivenheten er kun for foreningens medlemmer, MEN Brit Bildøens fantastiske kåseri kan dere, som ikke er medlem i Camillas Litteraturforening, få med dere på Biblioteklønsj i Kafé Deichman onsdag 17. desember kl. 13.00. Kafé Deichman holder til i 3.etg. på Hovedbiblioteket, Arne Garborgs plass 4, i Oslo. Gratis kaffe!

I RadiOrakel’s Kulturråd på onsdag 12.11 ca kl. 16.10 kan du også få høre mer om Gertrude og Alice og Paris og Kokeboken etc etc:-)

Gertrude og Alice har blitt med i to av årets utgivelser: I “Nifse Nella og nattskolen” lar Unni Lindell Gertrude trå hjelpende til som et ekte veggteppe skal gjøre, mens Alice følger med drapert som en sort silkegardin, og Mads Mikkelsen plukker ut “Alice B. Toklas kokebok” fra bokhyllen i den lille bokhandelen til Hedda H. Robertson “Skutt i filler av Mads Mikkelsen” (2008).