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Friday, May 2, 2014

Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 2 of 2

SPATS & LACE IN THE BUTTONS BOX

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS
THE SUBBOOK ...................-           OBJECTS
THE SUBPOEM ...................-          ALITTLE CALLED PAULINE: NUMBER 46
WORD COUNT......................-           182
STANZA(S)............................-           11
THE LEADER........................-           THE STEINY ROAD POET
CO-LLABORATORS..............-           MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS
GENRE..................................-           VIRTUAL OPERA
LOCATION............................-USA, UK, Australia, Philippines, S. Africa, Canada.
TIME......................................-           ALL HOURS OF EARTH’S CLOCK
TONE.....................................-           FANCIFUL

“Does anyone else see that 'shudders' minus the 'sh' is 'udders'?” Sarah Maitland Parks

“In fairy sea, I heard Pharisee.” The Steiny Road Poet

"Apollinaire sounds like A-Pauline-heir, heir to St. Paul?" Peter Treanor


A LITTLE CALLED PAULINE.

A little called anything shows shudders.

Come and say what prints all day. A whole few water-melon. There is no pope.

No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.

A little lace makes boils. This is not true.

Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top.

If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head.

A peaceful life to arise her, moon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window.

Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning.

I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading, mention nothing.

Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for.

Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.


BABY WITH NO POPE

Connecting to associations about Pauline and Marie Laurencin discussed in Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 1 of 2, came the association of childbirth.

from Eleanor Smagarinsky:

Hmmmm....
“Looking at that list of verbs, above....[see the end of Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 1 of 2]
I can't help but feel that a baby is being born. A little girl or little boy, who receives a name, but has no pope (Papa).

“There's even mention of counting and ten—full cervical dilation. And that tight head. Nearer and further...in sight...and perhaps even an episiotomy (a stitch)? 
[Could this be] The birth of a new artistic age? 

“Birds don't only fly with those feathers, they also feather their nests. Those Roc birds in "Sinbad the Sailor" had an egg. [The mythological Roc bird was mentioned in Apollinaire’s poem “Zone” which was  quoted in Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 1 of 2,] You can't fly around with your egg, you have to sit on it until it hatches.”



from Peter Treanor:

“Yes I can see a birth here too. I have been wondering if "A Little Called Pauline." could refer to something small (a child?) named (called ) by Pauline, so could maybe this could be Marie (Laurencin).

from Eleanor:

"’A little,’ called Pauline.

“Is that what you mean? Gosh, speech in a button-poem. How exciting!

“Makes sense, thematically, what with Genesis describing creation as a product of God's speech:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

“What about taking it a step further...Pauline is declaring the first letter of the alphabet ‘a little’ which is a, as compared to ‘a big’ which is A. And later on Stein writes "A letter a", which pleases me greatly. And of course there's a sea—C. But what does she have against B? B is for boils, oh... if you say boils, boils, boils, quickly it sounds like boys!!

“A little ace makes boys (but it's not true)??” [A little lace makes boils. This is not true.]

from Karren Alenier [a.k.a. The Steiny Road Poet]

“I'm thinking some of the language might be caused by having anesthesia—e.g. the last line. Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.  

“But so much of this is drunk talk. 

“Let me see if I can better explain the drunk talk that might be drugged talk as if one has been drugged to have a baby or maybe the woman is just delirious.
A little baby called anything comes with bloody shows and gives me shudders.
Come and say what imprints (makes a strong impression)  all day—A child, A whole few water-melon (the pregnant mother's stomach). There is no pope (no father).
No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.  (The mother who has to pay her own way is concerned about what the baby will cost her. She only has pennies.)
A little lace makes boils. This is not true. (The mother is confused and contradicts herself.)
Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top. (The mother calls on God--gracious of gracious, to help her.)
If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head. (The mother is trying to push but the weight of the baby's head seems stuck.)
A peaceful life to arise her, moon and moon and moon. A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window. (The mother had a peaceful life but was often awakened by the moon during pregnancy. The father of the child doesn't respond to her letters and gives her the cold shoulder and now she has been prepared for this birth in a room where she can still see the moon.)
Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight, show a stitch of ten. Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning. (The mother's waters breaks, she has counted her breathing—she awaits the episiotomy.)
I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading, mention nothing. (The narrator of the poem hopes all goes well and she has the child--cow. She could not make the wedding happen, she just has to tread these troubled waters and say nothing.)
The poem ends with trying to take some action to speed along the birth and then just babbles.”
Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for.
Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.


BURSTING THE IMAGINATION: ANOTHER KIND OF BIRTH

Peter ratcheted up the human birth association to a burst of the imagination.

from Peter:

A LITTLE CALLED PAULINE.  ‘A little’ called Pauline
or (a little a) ‘a’ called Pauline, let there be letters, or ‘a little’ = ‘a title.’ [anagrammatically speaking, except one ‘l’ in ‘little’ was discarded]  A Title called Pauline.”

Here, Peter paused for a definition:
TITLE: Old English titul, reinforced by Old French title, both from Latin titulus 'inscription, title'. The word originally denoted a placard or inscription placed on an object, giving information about it, hence a descriptive heading in a book or other composition.

“Now help needed here, isn’t a title a noun? and doesn’t GS have a mission to not use nouns? Although there are a lot of them flying about here.  

A little called anything shows shudders.  So something called, named, titled, ‘nouned’ anything will make her shudder. Or shows fear, lack of courage in (her) writing terms.
Come and say what prints all day. What prints all day? newspapers, books, mags, printing presses all with titles. Fingers have fingerprints all day. What says what has been printed  all day? words and speech perhaps. Words are in print all day also
.

A whole few water-melon. now there's  honey-dew (wholey few?) melons and watermelons, but why hyphenate? Melons, fleshy and succulent and round like a pregnant  stomach and full of seed (new life) and fluid. But you can also cut them  and make prints on them and use them to print with too , like potato printing. melons and moons do both seem full and fertile. A whole melon looks like the full moon and a slice looks like the moon in its various phases
.
There is no pope. No father, no hope?
No cut in pennies and little dressing So why pennies? She’s American, so cents are her native small coins and she’s in France so centimes are small coins where she is. (Unless it was different at that time) Pennies are so British. I got to say ‘No cut in pennies’ seems like no cut in penises to me, So  is there a non-Jewish boy or perhaps a girl baby here? not cut, no small post circumcision dressing applied (no need if it’s a girl)

. But what, or who, is being born? a child, an alphabet, words, language? All of these? none of these?”
The answer to Peter’s question about Stein’s “mission” against using nouns is in Stein’s Lectures in America "Poetry and Grammar." Stein said that It's because you always have a lot of names for your beloved. So a love poem is going to be populated by a lot of nouns. However looking at that list of words Eleanor collected that appears at the end of Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 1 of 2], we see how she is changing nouns to verbs.

from Claudia Schumann:

“Maybe it's not a baby being born but a poem, a book, or an essay. Writing sometimes can be like giving birth—she may be talking about giving 'birth' to something she wrote that was difficult to write.”

from Eleanor:

“Claudia, suddenly I see Stein writing night after night (I read somewhere that she'd write at night): A peaceful life to arise her, moon and moon and moon

“She writes her lines—pauLINE—un peu......ligne. Her button poems are indeed little.
“She prints, cuts, chooses, shows and stitches words together.
“All while sitting at her desk.
“She frames realities for us with windows, shows us the fairytale seas, dismisses all that is not true, always leaning, leaning, her slanted handwriting, her typewriter stamping, pulling back on the bow of gender, her rows of letters are arrows—let the lance cut through to the pith.
“The birth of a poem (we are the attending midwives).”


FROM THE FAIRY SEA

from Peter:

“I have water on the boil and clean towels on the ready.

“A lien, a lean, ties that bind, blood is thicker than water (melon)
Pauline as peu ligne, a little line. Brilliant! A birth of words, meaning, reality.

“And could a water-melon be a fluid-mélange? A mix, blend, combination ...of styles/ ideas /subjects /objects?

from Eleanor:

“A watery mélange. Oh.my.goodness. That's the poem and the amniotic fluid of creation. It's a fairy sea—that magical body of water, which creates an entirely new and unique living being!! And all inside a woman's body. The juice of the watermelon, that fleshy liquid, a bright pink-red, rich and sweet and sticky.”

from Peter:

“I notice so many rhymes in this one, so many more than I have been aware of in any of the others I think. So why has she taken to rhyming all of a sudden?
And there are so many littles in it, such a lot of little, which seems to be a lovely contradiction somehow.

“Lots of female roundness and sounds too, cow and moos and moon and melons and shudders and udders

“And maleness also, farther (father) and pope, no cut in pennies (uncircumcised penises) shaving house (barbers), thicker and thicker is leaning (it does lean when it gets too thick, that’s all I’m saying) male and female, weddings and orgasms (cow).

“And bidding a wedding , is she referring to marry sounding like  Marie? Is she bidding hello to Marie”

from Eleanor:

“I'm finding myself reciting nursery rhymes and remembering fairytales with this poem; yes, it's odd and compelling and delightful.

Marry -- Marie (Like a crossword puzzle clue.)
How clever of you, Pete.

Makes me think of this little ditty:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

You can make lime from seashells, apparentlyshow white has lime in sight.
Gardens grow with cockle shells, apparently—thicker and thicker is leaning.

SHOW White or SNOW White? She had seven dwarves—little men.

PRINTS or PRINCE?

SPICES—really little spices—a little goes a long way...

What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice
And everything nice,
That's what little girls are made of.


from Sarah Maitland Parks:
A little called anything shows shudders.
I hope she has her cow.
“Does anyone else see that 'shudders' minus the 'sh' is 'udders'?”



from Eleanor:
“Regarding the cows' udders, yep, I too saw them in shudders, and I also see the moo in moon.




FINDING SHAKESPEAREAN RHYTHM

from Eleanor:

A little called anything shows shudders.

Compare this to the famous Shakespearean line from Romeo & Juliet:
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
“We understand Shakespeare’s sentence, and yet Stein’s sentence makes no sense – but wait…look closer…little is an adjective, so is rose (it’s a colour!), called anything = by any other name, now think logically about smell as sweet…surely that’s much more odd than shows shudders, after all…sweet is a taste, not a smell. What does shows shudders mean? You exhibit orgasm by shuddering, and it's the same shuddering whether heterosexual or homosexual. I can’t help but think that Stein’s strong eroticism makes Shakespeare’s words sound like a badly written soap opera.”


WHAT CAME OUT OF THE FAIRY SEA

The longer Steiny sits pondering the subpoems of Tender Buttons, the more she senses. So in reading aloud what various members of the Buttons Collective had offered, Steiny heard this:

Fairy sea è Pharisee

phar·i·see  (făr′ĭ-sē)
n.
1. Pharisee A member of an ancient Jewish sect that emphasized strict interpretation and observance of the Mosaic law in both its oral and written form.
2. A hypocritically self-righteous person.

This also led to Paul of Tarsus, who was a Roman citizen and a Pharisee who converted to Christianity. However, in talking about Pauline Newman [see Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Little Called Pauline.” Part 1 of 2] and how Newman had been labeled the East Side Joan of Arc, Eleanor had made this comment: "Pauline" can also be read in the Catholic sense regarding the teachings of St. Paul, interesting to note here the references to marriage and divorce between man and woman.” Eleanor’s comment referring to Pauline Privilege (as part of Pauline Christianity) completely escaped Steiny until Peter Treanor reminded Steiny about what Eleanor had noted. In fact, Steiny had called out to Eleanor and Peter as well as the Buttons Collective to help sort out the fairy sea/Pharisee connection. Here are some highlights from the discussion:

from Peter:

“…a Pharisee called Pauline? Paul of Tarsus, was a Pharisee before he was converted (zapped and left shuddering) on the road to Damascus, now more commonly known as Paul the Apostle. 

“Paul/Saul's writings are referred to as Pauline Christianity. (Eleanor referred to some of them previously.)

“Many of his writings in the New Testament are epistles/ letters. Epistle sounding very much like little. A little Pauline = An epistle Pauline??

Come and say what prints all day. Epistle means letter [correspondence] but letter also refers to letters, as in letters of the alphabet. So what is written all day is letters [characters] that make up all printed material (except those with numbers in I suppose).

No Pope, well I don’t know when popes became part of the catholic church, but traditionally Peter is called the first Pope/leader of the Church, So no pope could refer to no pope at that time, or if it is about Paul to the fact that he wasn’t seen as the movement’s leader, leadish, pope. [If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head.]

“And wide soles (souls) and spats. Paul and Peter reputedly had a spat in Antioch. I can imagine lots of vying for power in an emerging movement of social and cultural change (such as the early Christian Jews were, and perhaps not unlike GS and the Modernists/ Surrealist were or saw themselves as also.)

“Competing ideas, struggles for dominance, strong personalities.....there would be hopes for a marriage of ideas (harmony), treading carefully, treading clumsily, leading and diplomacy (mentioning nothing), as I’m sure GS would have viewed in her socio cultural revolutionary circle too. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading, mention nothing.

“Maybe she was between two (or more ) dominant male characters vying to proclaim themselves leader of the new movement and declare themselves pope of the avant-garde, head of the new church of Modernism in Paris as opposed to Rome or Jerusalem.

“Maybe she would have liked to have her (sacred) cow and declare herself pope/ leaderish/ leadish instead.”

from Eleanor:

“From a modern Jewish perspective (and I'm speaking only from my limited knowledge), the Pharisees were the first ‘Rabbis’...so to speak. How so? Unlike the Sadducees, they believed that God gave the Israelites BOTH a Written & Oral Torah, and this Oral Law was passed down WITHOUT BEING WRITTEN DOWN from Moses to Joshua to the Elders to the Men of the Great Assembly and then to the leaders of the Pharisees. The Rabbis of today are heirs to that knowledge. Rabbi Akiva (40-137CE) was the first to compile this Oral Tradition into a core WRITTEN document (which is basically an interpretation of the Torah which was delivered written). This new written text is now known as the Mishna. As later Rabbis wrote commentaries on the Mishna, this became known as the Talmud.

“So, if Stein is discussion the evolution of literature then it makes perfect sense that she might bring the Pharisees into the conversation:
"Come and SAY what PRINTS all day."
SAY= Oral literature
PRINTS = Written literature

“Every text has a lineage. In the case of Judaism (and probably most religions) these texts were and are written, interpreted and controlled by powerful men.” 

While Eleanor was concerned about whether Stein was “looking at history from a Christian or Jewish perspective,” Steiny was thinking that Stein might be tapping into to the Pharisees as another branch of patriarchal restriction no matter the religious perspective. Certainly Eleanor’s concluding comment about religious text being controlled by powerful men supports this line of thinking.

Steiny had also read something about Paul of Tarsus being a misogynist. However, Peter said the misogyny didn’t pan out because women had an active role in the Church during Paul’s time. Peter did however say that Paul did not support circumcision, which is a major act of faith in the Jewish religion.

One other thing Steiny explored was Apollinaire’s mention in his poem “Zone” of Simon Magus, who was a religious sorcerer who could levitate himself. The Biblical Peter and Paul were involved with putting an end to the flying wizard. Steiny believes that Stein’s line— Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for—in some way glances off the Peter-Paul-Simon link. Perhaps the mention of leather could be the Bible with a leather cover. Of course this is a stretch but reading and being with Tender Buttons requires a broad imagination.

The Steiny Road Poet and the Buttons Collection are not saying the associations made are what Gertrude Stein meant but only what we are experiencing by her combination of words that might turn fairy sea into Pharisee.


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