Cooking with Tender Buttons Food: Mutton. Stanzas 1-6. Discussion 1

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           FOOD

THE SUBPOEM ...................-           Mutton

WORD COUNT (Total)……...-           534

STANZA(S)............................-            13

—Stanzas 1-6

THE LEADER........................-           THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS.............-            MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

“Mutton.” is the second subpoem of Tender Buttons section 2 Food. Like “Roastbeef.”, the first subpoem of Food, Stein is choosing a meat as her title and a tough meat at that. While eating mutton isn’t the main through line of this subpoem, the choice is a curious one since Americans do not eat it and Stein bills herself as American writer.

The Buttons Collective begins with the first six stanzas of “Mutton.”, which has a 165-word count, including the title. Among the topics addressed in this post are: Stein as a student; sheep and lambs as saturated symbols; Mutton Quad; mutton as echo of button; printer’s loupe and seeing; ruminating students; students, pupils and dilation; Stein teaching her readers to see; and sexual innuendo.

MUTTON.

A letter which can wither, a learning which can suffer and an outrage which is simultaneous is principal.

Student, students are merciful and recognised they chew something.

Hate rests that is solid and sparse and all in a shape and largely very largely. Interleaved and successive and a sample of smell all this makes a certainty a shade.

Light curls very light curls have no more curliness than soup. This is not a subject.

Change a single stream of denting and change it hurriedly, what does it express, it expresses nausea. Like a very strange likeness and pink, like that and not more like that than the same resemblance and not more like that than no middle space in cutting.

An eye glass, what is an eye glass, it is water. A splendid specimen, what is it when it is little and tender so that there are parts. A centre can place and four are no more and two and two are not middle.

“Mutton is evidently some type of fancy meat—and the piece seems to have little to do with meat.  I am trying to do metapoetics on it.” Judy Meibach

THE LETTER THAT WITHERS, LIGHT THAT FAILS, FOUR NO MORE

The Steiny Road Poet ventures that these six stanzas might address Stein’s last days as a student at Johns Hopkins Medical School. In stanza 2, Stein establishes that students are in this landscape and they seem to be kind and ruminating on what is given to them. However, in stanza 3, Stein addresses hate, which is substantial (solid) though distributed in a scattered way (sparse). This hate stinks (a sample of smell) and casts a shadow (shade). The letter which can wither was commented on in the ModPo discussion forum as follows:

Karren Alenier:

“Stein could have gotten a piece of correspondence that threw her off. Either a letter of reprimand from school or a letter of rejection from her love interest May Bookstaver.” [The withering letter from May would have come while Stein was at Johns Hopkins and this letter is said to have been what pushed her over the edge to the decision to leave medical school without achieving her degree.]

About stanza 4— Light curls very light curls have no more curliness than soup. This is not a subject.—Steiny offers that Stein is seeing a curve (curl) from the light in which case the light might be her education, something that nourishes like soup. However, this curving light or insight is not on the curriculum and therefore not a subject to be studied.

Stanza 5 with words like change, hurriedly, express, nausea, cutting if applied to Stein’s departure from Johns Hopkins indicates upsetting action. Other words in stanza 5—very strange likeness, pink, same resemblance, and the repetition of like four times could be associated with same sex preference relative to female relationships given the word pink, a color typically associated with girls and women.

Stanza 6 could be seen as Stein the scientist with her eye to a microscope examining small things, which have turned out to be tender and in various parts. The four that are no more could be those years at medical school and so what should add up in that formula of two and two doesn’t get to be that safe place (middle) between the extremes.

Now let’s get into the details and hear from others discussing these stanzas.

SHEEP TALK: PHYSICS, PERCEPTION & READING STEIN

Andrew S. Aguinaldo:

“Perhaps students figure in this discourse because they are lambs. Sheep are saturated symbols (Bible, idiomatic expressions), and maybe the idea is to cut into it, find something new through the trademark multiperspectival Steinian take.”

Here Steiny will interrupt because the lamb is also a saturated symbol probably best known in Western literature as a sacrifice because of its innocence and purity. In Christianity, Jesus is known as the Lamb of God, a name bestowed by John the Baptist. And the students of “Mutton.” could indeed be sacrificing innocence by what is learned. So maybe students start out as lambs but progress to something tougher. I hesitate to call them sheep since that indicates those that follow instead of thinking on their own so maybe the students eventually become something hard to chew or mutton?

Aguinaldo:

“The line Light curls very light curls have no more curliness than soup could refer to the coat of the living sheep, the smoke of the soup, perhaps the baby curls on very young, impressionable kids. I'm thinking of light too, in the curvature of time-space the subject matter of Einstein. 

“Or light, perhaps, means perspectival lines? Perhaps she is cuing us (again, anew) how best to read her work, another, more intricate way of putting slant-of-light or angle or (much more contemporary) spin.

“The last sentence This is not a subject is nice, approachable and forbidding all at once. Does it mean that we should not take her words academically? That she has some aversion to that? Or could she mean that light is to be seen as (or also as) adjective.

“Or is ‘This’ itself not a subject, esp. a this at that is itself, not taken to refer to anything except its placement?”

Steiny notes here that Andrew raises a lot complex associations dealing with physics, perception, and how to read Stein without settling on any one approach. Certainly this is indicative of the dimensionality Stein brings to the reader.

MUTTON QUAD OR PRINTER’S CODE

Peter Treanor:

“I’ve been looking at different uses of the word mutton, and came up with mutton quad which was a slang word used in printing and type setting. It has to do with the height/width of letters in print setting. It’s related to the em (M) in a way I don’t really understand. But was interested that it was called a mutton quad when there is talk of four (quad) in the poem and two and two, and not being central, and lots of other terms which seems like they could be related to printing and letters/lettering too.”

Treanor quoted from Wikipedia:

Em-quad is also a metal spacer used in printing presses. It is referred to by this name because it is composed of a square one em on each side. In old-fashioned printing presses, this allowed the insertion of an em space ( ) between other type. It is also occasionally referred to as a mutton quad.

Aguinaldo answered:

“I think stanza 1 and the middle part of stanza 3 agrees with you, Peter. Stanza 5 very strongly, I think:”

Change a single stream of denting and change it hurriedly, what does it express, it expresses nausea (space, blankness?)... and not more like that than no middle space in cutting. 



Steiny notes that mutton quad according to dictionary.com is a code term in printing coined to differentiate the pronunciation of em (M) quad from en (N) quad but we might have a problem here since this resource says the term came into use 1935-40. Hold on! Steiny found this in http://findwords.info/term/mutton

1871 Amer. Encycl. Printing (ed. Ringwalt), *Mutton Quad, a slang term, in English printing-offices, for em quad.

OF MUTTON AND BUTTONS

Next, Treanor looked at: A centre can place and four are no more and two and two are not middle. 

“That M in more in the sentence above is in the middle/centre of the sentence. There are 27 letters either side of it!

“I like the code of mutton being a fusion of May and button. May's (not so) tender buttons. And Mutton (dressed up as lamb) is a less than flattering image to evoke for someone who spurned your attempts at romance, so would seem to fit from that perspective.”

Aguinaldo responded:

"May quite possibly, given what Peter says about the ‘Mutton quad’ (also Mutton = May + Button?). I've been looking at the letter M as well, how it places well with the line: A centre can place…

“I wonder if M is (also) the letter that can wither, as W could be its image if it withers (and vice versa). Seeing letters reflected in water now (or dissolving to it, or become liquid Dali-style), thanks to you guys.”

Cooking with Tender Buttons Food: Mutton. Stanzas 7-13. Discussion 2

THE BOOK ..........................-      TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-      FOOD

THE SUBPOEM ...................-      Mutton

WORD COUNT (Total)……...-      534

STANZA(S)............................-      13

—Stanzas 1-6

—Stanzas 7-13

THE LEADER........................-      THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS.............-      MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

The second half of “Mutton.” does not seem to elicit much of Gertrude Stein’s biography except in stanza 7 a wider lens on the sadness she experienced at the end of her medical studies when she was dumped and duped by May Bookstaver. Generally speaking, stanzas 7 through 13 seem to rise to mythology—the Jewish creation myth—but then back into an American myth about George Washington as a youth chopping down his father’s cherry tree.

Here are “Mutton.” stanzas 7 through 13 with a 367-word count. Among the topics addressed in this post are: Gertrude Stein as hunter picks through the shards of her failed medical career; creation myths, including the golem and Pandora; food taboos and nourishment; The Word as Seed; in a primitive market with food hanging from the ceiling; cherries evoking virgins and the young George Washington; cake from suet; the moral edge of cake re: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night; Gertrude Stein at Woods Hole and whalebones; and the connection between Tender Buttons and Moby Dick.

Melting and not minding, safety and powder, a particular recollection and a sincere solitude all this makes shunning so thorough and so unrepeated and surely if there is anything left it is a bone. It is not solitary.

Any space is not quiet it is so likely to be shiny. Darkness very dark darkness is sectional. There is a way to see in onion and surely very surely rhubarb and a tomatoe, surely very surely there is that seeding. A little thing in is a little thing.

Mud and water were not present and not any more of either. Silk and stockings were not present and not any more of either. A receptacle and a symbol and no monster were present and no more. This made a piece show and was it a kindness, it can be asked was it a kindness to have it warmer, was it a kindness and does gliding mean more. Does it.

Does it dirty a ceiling. It does not. Is it dainty, it is if prices are sweet. Is it lamentable, it is not if there is no undertaker. Is it curious, it is not when there is youth. All this makes a line, it even makes no more. All this makes cherries. The reason that there is a suggestion in variety is due to this that there is a burst of mixed music.

A temptation any temptation is an exclamation if there are misdeeds and little bones. It is not astonishing that bones mingle as they vary not at all and in any case why is a bone outstanding, it is so because the circumstance that does not make a cake and character is so easily churned and cherished.

Mouse and mountain and a quiver, a quaint statue and pain in an exterior and silence more silence louder shows salmon a mischief intender. A cake, a real salve made of mutton and liquor, a specially retained rinsing and an established cork and blazing, this which resignation influences and restrains, restrains more altogether. A sign is the specimen spoken.

A meal in mutton, mutton, why is lamb cheaper, it is cheaper because so little is more. Lecture, lecture and repeat instruction.

“I see again Gertrude Stein's reaching back to origination, the source of creativity and nourishment, illumination, the tiny glowing seed that will become a tree of wisdom and light.” Mary Armour

AFTER HUNTING FOR THE BIG GAME, LEFT WITH A BONE

Starting at stanza 7, Karren Alenier said:

Melting and not minding, safety and powder, a particular recollection and a sincere solitude all this makes shunning so thorough and so unrepeated and surely if there is anything left it is a bone. It is not solitary.

“The scene set by the words of this stanza (safety, powder) makes me think of hunting which is often done as a solitary sport where the hunter goes into a blind to wait for the prey.

“There in that absolute solitude from people. One has time to recollect. If Gertrude Stein is the hunter, she may be reflecting on her failed medical career, a failing that might have made certain people she knew shun her. 

“Maybe that solitary bone refers to ‘a bone to pick’—does Stein have a beef with someone? Maybe there is more than one bone to pick and that's why she says ‘It is not solitary.’”

Peter Treanor answered,

“Yes, Karren, I can see the safety, powder and solitude having to do with hunting and maybe it’s not solitary as the prey or the thought of the prey is ever present. And maybe melting is melting into the environment, becoming camouflaged, and melting into the moment, not minding, not thinking, just being.

“But when I read it, it seemed to have a really sad, mournful tone. A sense of melting, of loosing of self. A particular recollection, a memory of serious/sincere solitude and loneliness and of being shunned. She was stripped to the bone by this experience, unsure if there was anything left of her by this experience. Could it be her rejection by May that she is recalling? The bone to pick could be with May.”

Alenier added:

“I agree, Pete, about the mournful tone & how the melting might go to just being as opposed to doing.

“This hunting around for survival calls up the white hunter in Objects!”

A WHITE HUNTER.

A white hunter is nearly crazy.

THE SEEDS OF KABALLAH

Stanza 8 is clearly connected to the earth in a way that comments on our existence. Here’s what Alenier had to say:

Any space is not quiet it is so likely to be shiny. Darkness very dark darkness is sectional. There is a way to see in onion and surely very surely rhubarb and a tomatoe, surely very surely there is that seeding. A little thing in is a little thing.

“Perhaps, Stein is reaching into the myths of Kabbalah here and one of the clues might be the medieval spelling of tomato with an 'e' on the end. 

“Also I'm remembering that commentary on Jewish laws including the food laws are contained in Mishnah. This link might be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeraim”

Here Steiny will interrupt to say that seeds and a little thing are important to Stein and point to her creations/babies (books) that Alice will midwife (by typing and packaging them).

Off on a tangent but calling this a news flash, Alenier went deeper into the Mishnah to look at Bikkurim, the first fruits where she discovers related to a group of gender diverse people:

“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikkurim_(Talmud) I'm looking at this webpage which talks about what you do with the first fruits from your garden.”

Bikkurim (Hebrew: ביכורים‎, lit. "First-fruits") is the eleventh tractate of Seder Zeraim ("Order of Seeds") of the Mishnah and of the Talmud.

“The fourth chapter [of Bikkurim}, which is only sometimes included, originates from the Tosefta Bikkurim. It compares the laws relating to men, women, and those of intermediate sex, including the tumtum (one with no genitalia) and the androgynos.

“Big gender discussion here! Surely Stein knew about this.”

FOOD TABOOS & NOURISHMENT

Always an able interpreter of Stein, Mary Armour offered:

“I do think we are touching on food taboos, on forbidden pleasures, on the right and proper and improper uses of food. I think we're looking too at rituals and the deep maternal and childlike needs around nourriture, what nourishes the body and spirit. What melts down and is transmuted or transformed into liquid, what enriches and darkens or rises as a soufflé, what changes when heat is applied.

“The repeated references to bones as well, the charnel house of bone and ash, the shunning of dangerous small bones in fish or quail, the bones as structuring the body and the seed that is planted and dies to become something green and flowering or fruiting. (Thinking of André Gide's Si le grain ne meurt...)

“Let me give this some more thought.”

Alenier responded:

“I heartily agree that Stein is dealing with ritual, taboo, and life-sustaining nourishment!

“That little thing in is a little thing could be a seed. What kind of seed looms large! Vegetable, human—semen, conceptual?”

THE WORD AS SEED

Gaining momentum, Armour added:

“Karren, let me just riff here for a moment because something comes back to me about the seed as spark—Stein is particularly interesting to us as a writer because she has this omnivorous cultural and theoretical absorption, taking in so much from all kinds of cultural and theological influences and, perhaps here, we could reach back to Logos spermatikos, the Word as Seed, the Word as Light from the Gospel of John ('In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ...and the Word became Flesh") a mysterious and potent statement.

“And then of course we have the emanations of the Sephirot and the fragments of light or seeds as sparks (my interpretation here leans to Lurianic, from the Shattering or Shevirah), A key text cited here is Gen 1:11—"And Elohim said, 'Let the Earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth.' And it was so.

“This is too complex a field and I'm not sure how to sustain or follow through on metaphors here at any depth or even sure-footedly, but I see again Gertrude Stein's reaching back to origination, the source of creativity and nourishment, illumination, the tiny glowing seed that will become a tree of wisdom and light.”

Alenier responded:

“Yes, Mary! I see hear where you are pointing—origination! Makes perfect sense Stein would start at the beginning to establish her thoughts/study for how to renew the language. Humbly I say it is like us her students digging into the root meanings of the words she chooses.

“This is also why we get glances of Medieval flourishes. Tomatoe vs tomato.”

Greeting Armour warmly, Treanor had this to say:

“Hello Mary nice to see you back again! There is the seed there and the source of creativity and nourishment, but there is also a darker side. A feeling of death, aging, and decay. All those bones, all those not any more's, no more's, lament, darkness and even an undertaker, a ceiling of dirt (nearly- a does it dirty a ceiling). There is something of the grave (both serious and a tomb) here. The whole cycle of life. Death and decay leading to fertilization and regeneration and seeds and regrowth. A feeling that the old (it is not when there is youth) must die, be buried, undertake to have an undertaker, be put in a receptacle, have a ceiling of dirt, and be reduced to bones.

“Melting and not minding

sincere solitude

if there is anything left it is a bone

were not present and not any more of either. (repeated 3 times)

A receptacle and a symbol and no monster were present and no more

Is it lamentable

Darkness very dark darkness

it is not if there is no undertaker

it is not when there is youth

 it even makes no more

“Such somber language and then finished with a strange thought about mutton (?old age) and lamb (?youth) suggesting lamb (youth) is cheaper because it is little but then that little is more. Leaving me wondering does she mean it is more or less valuable than mutton (old age)?

“I’m supposing you have the saying Mutton dressed up as lamb, too. Mutton and lamb used to indicate age.”

Cooking with Tender Buttons Food: Sugar. Stanzas 9-18. Discussion 2

 THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           FOOD

THE SUBPOEM ...................-           Sugar

WORD COUNT (Total)……...-          333

STANZA(S)............................-            18

—Stanzas 1-8                                      170

—Stanzas 9-18                                    163

THE LEADER........................-          THE STEINY ROAD POET

CO-LLABORATORS.............-           MODPO STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS

The second half of “Sugar.” also proved to be a slippery sets of stanzas to discuss and required the Steiny Road Poet to interpret comments and choose how to present what was said. While both stanzas 1 through 8 and stanzas 9 through 18 of “Sugar.” deal with sexual topics, the emphasis in the second half is less judgmental and more matter of fact. Additionally, part 2 stanzas seem more evocative relative to Steinian semantics and visual art while part 1 stanzas seem more narrative.

The last ten stanzas of “Sugar.” has a 163-word count in contrast to the 170 words of the first eight stanzas. Among the topics addressed in this post are: myths, monsters & games; comfort food versus forbidden edibles; ill effects of sugar; the chemistry of sugar; sexual panic; sex as seen through water and fire; sexual abstractions; the art of the gas jet; crosstalk between “Sugar.” & “Roastbeef.”. Here are stanzas 9 through 18:

A puzzle, a monster puzzle, a heavy choking, a neglected Tuesday.

Wet crossing and a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, it has the staggering blindly and a little green, any little green is ordinary.

One, two and one, two, nine, second and five and that.

A blaze, a search in between, a cow, only any wet place, only this tune.

Cut a gas jet uglier and then pierce pierce in between the next and negligence. Choose the rate to pay and pet pet very much. A collection of all around, a signal poison, a lack of languor and more hurts at ease.

A white bird, a colored mine, a mixed orange, a dog.

Cuddling comes in continuing a change.

A piece of separate outstanding rushing is so blind with open delicacy.

A canoe is orderly. A period is solemn. A cow is accepted.

A nice old chain is widening, it is absent, it is laid by.

“And for Stein, food has also to do with taboos, what will make you ill or sinful, what is forbidden. What is coded as sexual: a cow for orgasm, a wet place, a blaze. What has onomatopoeic force of echo and reiteration: a a a a, ca-cu-ca-cu. ‘Cuddling comes in continuing a change.’" Mary Armour

In order to discuss stanzas 9 through 18, the Buttons often drew their impressions from several non-contiguous stanzas, so Steiny is listing stanzas addressed in the subtitles of each section of this post.

MYTHS, MONSTERS & GAMES [9, 10, 16]

Karren Alenier began the discussion with stanza 9 and said:

A puzzle, a monster puzzle, a heavy choking, a neglected Tuesday.

“This stanza seems to be consumed by a perplexing puzzle that has caused the neglect of the Norse war god Tiw or Týr, his victory and his heroic glory.

“I base this on Stein’s use of the word Tuesday which Wikipedia says:”

The English name is derived from Old English Tiwesdægand Middle English Tewesday, meaning "Tīw's Day", the day of Tiw or Týr, the god of single combat, victory and heroic glory in Norse mythology. Tiw was equated with Mars in the interpretatio germanica, and the name of the day is a translation of Latin dies Martis.

“Perhaps this why the sugar is causing so much choking as well as other problems that we saw in the first half of this subpoem.

“I suspect Stein is talking about herself and now sugar is something other than Alice.”

Teri Rife approached stanza 9 by looking at other subpoems of Tender Buttons:

“Here's the monster again, and this time a monster puzzle.  We've had monstrous in 1) ‘A red hat.’ and monster in 2) ‘Mutton.’.

1)A dark grey, a very dark grey, a quite dark grey is monstrous ordinarily, it is so monstrous because there is no red in it. [‘A red hat.’]

      2)Mud and water were not present and not any more of either. Silk and stockings were not present and not any more of either. A receptacle and a symbol and no monster were present and no more. This made a piece show and was it a kindness, it can be asked was it a kindness to have it warmer, was it a kindness and does gliding mean more. Does it. [stanza 9 of ‘Mutton.’]

“Karren's comment in ‘Mutton.’:

I think Stein is doing two things here simultaneously. First of all she is invoking the creation myth with all the mud and water and that monster which is likely to be the golem, a man-like creature created from mud. Except her invocation comes from a negative stance. The actual creation is some kind of sculpture. So Stein is pointing to the making of art.

“So, it would appear that the golem is back in this subpoem.  Consider Stanza #10 of ‘Sugar.’:

Wet crossing and a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, it has the staggering blindly and a little green, any little green is ordinary.

“Sounds golem-like, but for the green.

“Also, consider Stanza #16 of ‘Sugar.’:

A piece of separate outstanding rushing is so blind with open delicacy.

“This seems to echo This made a piece show and was it a kindness.. [excerpt from stanza 9 of ‘Mutton.’]  

So there's kindness in Mutton and blind-ness in ‘Sugar.’.

“A puzzle is a game, and we saw a game in green and, again, a piece in ‘A plate.’:

A kind of green a game in green and nothing flat nothing quite flat and more round, nothing a particular color strangely, nothing breaking the losing of no little piece. [excerpt from stanza 3 of ‘A plate.’]”

Alenier responded:

“The green seems a logical outgrowth from the mud! Brilliant! It does seem we have the golem here with its blisters and teeth!

Alenier also liked Rife’s “blind-kind” association. She said,

“My theory is that wherever Stein mentions kind we are talking gender identity. Blind logically connects to kind and it seems also to connect us to the golem. Maybe something like the elephant in the room? The prohibition on same sex relationships?

To wrap up thoughts about what Rife wrote, Alenier made this observation punctuated with a question:

“So here Teri connects the object—plate—with the food—sugar—which has become this game in green. Not sure where this line of thinking goes. Any thoughts?”

COMFORT FOOD VERSUS FORBIDDEN EDIBLES [TOC, 10, 12, 15]

Mary Armour responded to what Teri Rife had to say by looking at the big picture. She said:

“I want to look at “Sugar.” from a few different angles. Right at the beginning of the Food section in TB, Stein gives a list of headings or topics:

ROASTBEEF; MUTTON; BREAKFAST; SUGAR; CRANBERRIES; MILK; EGGS; APPLE; TAILS; LUNCH; CUPS; RHUBARB; SINGLE; FISH; CAKE; CUSTARD; POTATOES; ASPARAGUS; BUTTER; END OF SUMMER; SAUSAGES; CELERY; VEAL; VEGETABLE; COOKING; CHICKEN; PASTRY; CREAM; CUCUMBER; DINNER; DINING; EATING; SALAD; SAUCE; SALMON; ORANGE; COCOA; AND CLEAR SOUP AND ORANGES AND OAT-MEAL; SALAD DRESSING AND AN ARTICHOKE; A CENTRE IN A TABLE.

“It's all about comfort food and where food is eaten and at what time of the year and the centrality of food as structuring a togetherness and a work of art. But it is also about more than food and about the dangers or what is hidden behind food, what food stands for. In this, we go back to Stein as an etymologist, separating words from context and having them stand alone, apart, the word in itself, the ding an sich we have seen elsewhere.

“And for Stein, food has also to do with taboos, what will make you ill or sinful, what is forbidden. What is coded as sexual: a cow for orgasm, a wet place, a blaze. What has onomatopoeic force of echo and reiteration: a a a a, ca-cu-ca-cu. ‘Cuddling comes in continuing a change.’"

SEXUAL PANIC [10]

“But when I hear this sentence, my projection perhaps, I hear something akin to sexual panic:

Wet crossing and a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, it has the staggering blindly and a little green, any little green is ordinary.

“A wet crossing as slippery and dangerous? Some kind of treacherous glissade, of loss of meaning, loss of footing, uncertainty?

“a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters—some kind of contagious infection, reflections of selves that dissolve identity? What is separate and what is a piece of and what is merging or spilling over in a mirrored identity? Blisters indicate burns, infection, contagion, some open sores or repulsion in what is reflected

“it has that and teeth—this is chilling for me, as if it recalls what Virginia Woolf describes in The Years, the child Rose exposed to the gibbering man in the street who exposes himself to her kind of allergy. A reflected face that is a likeness but has blisters and teeth, something not quite human, the vagina dentata, the loathsome consequence of the broken taboo

“The same likeness has this too: the staggering blindly and a little green. Which makes me wonder if our Green Fairy absinthe is making a reappearance, the loss of control and disorder of drunkenness. [e.g., the Buttons discussed the Green Fairy absinthe in ‘Glazed glitter.’]

“And then a change, recovery of the everyday, a return to another kind of green: any little green is ordinary. A village green, a green ribbon, a salad green. The green of asparagus, celery, cucumber.”

Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Leave.", “Suppose An Eyes." Part 2 of 3

LACE & EYELETS IN THE BUTTONS BOX

THE BOOK ..........................-           TENDER BUTTONS

THE SUBBOOK ...................-           OBJECTS

THE SUBPOEM ...................-          A LEAVE: NUMBER 52

WORD COUNT......................-           24

STANZA(S)............................-           1

THE SUBPOEM ...................-          SUPPOSE AN EYES: NUMBER 53

WORD COUNT......................-           107

STANZA(S)............................-           6

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.....................................-           HYPER ALERT

“What is the object of Gertrude Stein’s game?” Karren Alenier

“Instantly, this entire poem now morphed into a very highly charged sex romp, open for business, 24/7, shoe-shining, butt-waxing, soldiering, lacy undergarments.” Eleanor Smagarinsky

Now Steiny offers the low-culture highlights from the associations made by The Buttons Collective in Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Leave.", “Suppose An Eyes." Part 1 of 3, starting with the category sex and gaming but blending in other topics, including the politics of publishing.

PURR PUSSY SADDLES OF MUTTON

While Peter had found the sexual tension of “A Leave.” and how to release it and Karren called attention to the connection between parlor games and sex, Allan Keeton jumped in referencing a phrase from “Suppose An Eyes.”, followed by a definition of pussy taken from a website with The Etymology of Slang Sexual Terms:

“with rubbed purr as rubbed her (& made her purr)”

However, he didn’t stop there but also discovered the Barrison Sisters a vaudeville act performing in the United States and Europe from about 1891 to 1900 which featured a dance where they played the audience by asking if they wanted to see [the sisters’] pussy. Upon raising her skirt, each sister revealed a live kitten secured in her undergarment over the crotch.

 

Allan also added a sexually suggestive image to match Stein’s:

Then there are the sales ladies

& their saddles of mutton.

Eleanor said she was reminded of Lady Gaga’s meat dress.

“Just taking the line by itself:

Little sales ladies little sales ladies little saddles of mutton.  

“I'm tempted to give it a feminist reading, but I can't read the tone...is Stein appreciating the selling of the cuts of meat? Is she buying and consuming?

Little sales of leather and such beautiful beautiful, beautiful beautiful.

“It's creepy. She practically has blood dripping down her face, no? So then I work myself back up the poem as there's a lot of rubbing and purring and then one line up we have:

Go red go red, laugh white.

“Instantly, this entire poem now morphed into a very highly charged sex romp, open for business, 24/7, shoe-shining, butt-waxing, soldiering, lacy undergarments.”

OF MEAT & MILK

Karren replied:

“After having sat with USDA meat inspectors and hearing them talk about the horrors of the meat packing industry, I practically gagged on eating meat for a week and now seeing Gaga in her meat dress…yuk. But somehow none of this quite changes my habits. Even the image Allan has posted above which is mightily unappetizing. Well, it's also rather sexual looking, maybe like the private parts of a woman.

“This makes me think that maybe underneath of ‘Suppose An Eyes.’ might there be some discussion of what is kosher? If you think of the meat being in the black (or blackening) category and the dairy/milk being in the white category... 

“That business about the soldier and his worn lace makes me think of his shoes where maybe a cat is purring about his feet for some milk? Is Stein the soldier and Toklas the cat (Pussy)?

“The red referring, as Eleanor put it, to bloody meat. The laughing cow, white—milk. 

“AND are women who produce milk kosher? Yes, but not when they bleed. They are off-limits to their husbands when they menstruate and considered unclean.”

Allan:

“Yes, the line—

 Little sales ladies little sales ladies little saddles of mutton.

“could be read as prostitution,

especially juxtaposed with that picture of a saddle of mutton.

“Lack of menstrual blood means soon there will be milk.”

READING IN THE RED: A GAME OF SNOOKER

Eleanor:

“Red usually means stop, which is the opposite of go.

“Until now I didn't see the read in red. 

“Karren—you mentioned parlour games earlier in thread, and so now I'm thinking of snooker. I googled it, and it seems to me that the balls are all Stein's colours.”

Peter:

Snooker:

Noun

[Mass Noun]

A game played with cues on a billiard table in which the players use a cue ball (white) to pocket the other balls (fifteen red and six coloured) in a set order: [as modifier]: a snooker hall, a snooker tournament.

More Example Sentences:

[Count Noun] A position in a game of snooker or pool in which a player cannot make a direct shot at any permitted ball: He needed a snooker to have a chance of winning the frame.

More Example Sentences:

Verb [with object]

Subject (oneself or one’s opponent) to a snooker: He potted yellow and green, and then snookered Davis on the brown. Hendry led, but then snookered himself.

British Leave (someone) in a difficult position; thwart:

I managed to lose my flat keys—that was me snookered.

US Trick, entice, or trap:

They were snookered into buying books at prices that were too high.

•    British Leave (someone) in a difficult position; thwart: 


•    US Trick, entice, or trap:

“This is exactly the game Stein is playing with us!”