Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Red Hat.”

 HEAD ART FROM THE BUTTONS BOX

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

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

THE SUBPOEM ..................-           A RED HAT: NUMBER 15

STANZAS.............           .....-           1

WORD COUNT.............   .....-           64

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

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

GENRE.............                ....-           VIRTUAL OPERA

LOCATION............           .....-      USA, England, Australia, Philippines, South Africa, Canada..

TIME...............                    ...-           ALL HOURS OF EARTH’S CLOCK

TONE..............                   ....-           PSYCHICALLY ENGAGED

“Poetry is Head Art, so the RED HAT is TENDER BUTTONS.” Allan Keeton

A RED HAT. 

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. If red is in everything it is not necessary. Is that not an argument for any use of it and even so is there any place that is better, is there any place that has so much stretched out. 

RUDE RESETTING—GERTRUDE STEIN

The Steiny Road Poet was awed by Peter Treanor’s anagrammatic ability to see “A Red Hat.” rearranged as head art which led to Steiny finding an anagram aid and looking at Gertrude Stein anagrammatically and seeing phrases like this:

Registered Nut
Deserting True
Edgiest Turner
Guttered Siren
Trendiest Urge
Tender Gutsier
Trued Integers
Trued Gentries
Rude Resetting
Rude Retesting
Turgid Entrees
Nudist Greeter
Greened I Trust
Greened I Strut
Greened Sir Tut

This anagrammatic twist of head art made Nicola Quinn ponder, “And what is the strange name for those exotic hat confections? Fascinators?”

STOP THIS TRAIN

One of the best stories though comes from Gertrude Stein herself as offered by Mary Armour followed by Mary’s commentary:

"And so they took the train to California. The only thing Gertrude Stein remembers of this trip was that she and her sister had beautiful big Austrian red felt hats trimmed each with a beautiful ostrich feather and at some stage of the trip her sister leaning out of the window had her hat blown off. Her father rang the emergency bell, stopped the train, got the hat to the awe and astonishment of the passengers and the conductor." The Autobiography of  Alice B Toklas (Chapter 4)

Mary’s commentary:

“Plumy chevalier hats, Austrian hats of red felt. The loss of the red hat, a sibling's loss. The emergency bell ringing, the train stopped and the father  fetches the red hat, a trophy waved at the astonished passengers and conductor. A red hat must not be lost.”

UNDER THE RED HAT—GREY MATTER

And less showy but inspired nevertheless, Steiny said this subpoem describes the:

“Brain.

“That grey matter of the head with no blood. MARK [Dr. Mark Synder, the head doctor], where are you? Isn't this your territory?

“I mean really is there any place that is better? I mean Is that not an argument for any use of it?  I mean is there any place that has so much stretched out?”

Peter gets the final words here, “Karren [a.k.a. Steiny], now I like the grey as grey matter, the brain, so much, all those convolutions and sulci on the surface of the it, when they are stretched out they would cover a huge area ‘is there any place that is better, is there any place that has so much stretched out.’ Is there any place better than being in the brain, in the mind . And ‘A Red Hat.’ has an anagram of head at its centre - ed ah, that is spilt in two ,there is a gap between ed  Ha, two halves of head, the two hemispheres of the brain. And if you remove the letters of head from "a red hat," you are left with A R T  in that sequence. So maybe it is about  the brain, the mind, which is the place ‘we’ are in the brain, reading, art , the art of reading , and definitely the art of writing.”

Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Long Dress.”

HEAVY BREATHING IN THE BUTTONS BOX

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

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

THE SUBPOEM ..................-           A LONG DRESS: NUMBER 14

STANZAS.............           .....-          3

WORD COUNT.............   .....-           84

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

THE CO-LEADER........... .....-          MARK SNYDER

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..............                   ....-           REFOCUSED AND ENERGIZED

Participating Buttons: Steiny Alenier, Barbara Crary, Eleanor Smagarinsky, Allan Keaton, Claudia Schumann, Peter Treanor, Lillian Alden, Nicola Quinn, Dave Green, T. De Los Reyes, Ellen Dillon, Mary Armour

A LONG DRESS.

What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current.

What is the wind, what is it.

Where is the serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow and green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it. 

I'm Mark Snyder. The discussion opens with an observation by the Steiny Road Poet [a.k.a. Karren Alenier] and Peter Treanor that when divided by punctuation, the supoem contained fourteen parts, which coincides with “A Long Dress.” being the fourteenth subpoem in Tender Buttons. [The idea of dividing “A Long Dress.” by the end-stopping punctuation of commas and periods came to Steiny from Eleanor Smagarinsky.] The question was raised as to whether the number fourteen might have a larger numerological significance to the poem or to Gertrude Stein. The Button Collective leaves this unanswered for now.

Steiny noted the correlation between the number of subparts and subpoems, and suggested examining the connections between each corresponding subpart and subpoem.

“What if we took each end stopped bit here and reread:

--bit #1 (What is the current that makes machinery,) against subpoem 1 (A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS). OH WHY is that comma after CARAFE?,


--bit #2 (that makes it crackle,) against subpoem 2 (GLAZED GLITTER)
,

--bit #3 (what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist.) against subpoem 3 (A SUBSTANCE IN A CUSHION) and so on?

Would we learn something new in this "system to pointing"?”

With this in mind, Steiny correlated the eighth subpoem MILDRED'S UMBRELLA to the eighth subpart of A LONG DRESS (it is there and a dark place is not a dark place):

“If we Buttons were to agree that the 8th subpoem ‘Mildred's Umbrella.’ might be boiled down to the single word vagina, that Mildred's umbrella is her vagina, then that private place, that dark place is not without light in the sexual act.”

Peter noted the significance of the word just in a line distinguishes it/ a line just distinguishes it. He said the word just is what distinguishes this line from the line that precedes it, which puts a spotlight on just. Steiny suggested flipping the word order (e.g., “A just line distinguishes it”). She also noted the influence of Gustave Flaubert on Stein's writing, particularly his principle of le mot juste (the right word; the exact word)—the perfectionistic pursuit of finding the exact word to suit the author's purposes. How do we receive the exact word from Stein? Steiny asked. Well, she is telling us her lines distinguishes these words, these exact words. Steiny also pointed out the association of the word “just' to “justice,” noting the injustice that the love Stein and Toklas shared was unacceptable in the culture of their time, and the injustice of them being unable to have their own children. Tender Buttons was their child, Steiny added, the line carried into the future that we receive here as we midwife every line.

Peter carried this line of thinking further, using Google searches on the words line, current, machinery, waist, and came up with the idea of printing presses. He offered an alternative reading of the subpoem: electricity is the current that runs the machinery of the press; the press prints the flow of current events or news; the press crackles with noise and ideas; the resulting book has long lines of words and sentences and a waist in the binding of the resulting book or pamphlet; the wind (of change) being expressed in the words of the book; the serene length of the wisdom contained in the book; books offer hope and wisdom to those in dark places; paper is read (red, playing on the pun found in the old joke what is black and white and read all over?) So a line does identify the written/ printed word, and a just line distinguishes it even further. And so if justice or the just distinguishes it , is it words, the printed word, the laying down of language and ideas that the it is. That does all these things? Peter concluded his discussion by noting a connection between writing and creating, generating, planting seeds of continuation and pleasure, that both sex, reproduction, words and print.

Citing a lecture from her 1934 American lecture tour in which Stein detailed her dislike for commas, Steiny wondered why LONG DRESS had eight commas versus six periods. (Stein referred to commas as a “poor period” and said she almost never used them.) “No doubt in my mind,” Steiny said, “Stein was up to something with all those commas. But what?”

“A comma lets you stop and take a breath, Steiny quotes Stein. Indeed, the musical notation for a breath is a comma; the moment of breathing is dictated in the score. But Stein felt, on the other hand, you ought to know yourself that you want to take a breath. Here, however, she is dictating the breathing, in quick pulses, for the reader, which suggests strong sexual overtones as in heavy breathing. The sexual connotation is enhanced with references to the “current that makes “ (anatomical) “machinery” [contractions of orgasm?] and a “necessary waist.” Dave Green suggested the image of Stein feeling sexual electricity seeing Alice B. Toklas in a long dress: The focus of desire looks like a line, a simple line, but is so much more to GS. Eleanor looking at the first word or two of each line in DRESS end-stopped by comma or period declared this was the sexiest love poem of all:

what

that

what

what

what

where

it is there

only A

only A

A

A

A

Claudia and Steiny connected “crackle” to the sound of taffeta and organza dresses. Allan and Peter added the sound and imagery of the “crackle” of typewriters, perhaps in a dressmaking factory that led to a connection by Barbara Crary to the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed 146 garment workers (mostly women) and still ranks as one of the worst industrial disasters in the history of the United States. It is noteworthy that this was a current event at the time Tender Buttons was written. Barbara pointed out the image of long lines of garment workers, most of them young Jewish or Italian immigrant women, and Barbara rightly points out that it's difficult to imagine that Gertrude and Alice would have been indifferent to this event and to what it said about the treatment/exploitation of women in a patriarchal society. Of course, the word “crackle” has an obvious connection to fire. She sees only a red and white are black...a pink is scarlet as vivid imagery of the grotesque deaths of those pale, rosy cheeked young girls burned to death or jumping to certain death on the sidewalk below... a dark and dismal factory is not dark if it is lit up by a massive fire. Most poignantly, Barbara added a photograph of victims of the Shirtwaist fire:

a line just distinguishes it.

Peter and Allan added the idea of a “necessary waist” suggesting an hourglass, which makes connections to references to time and pointing to time all the way back to A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.

Peter offered a photo of Gertrude Stein in a Gibson Girl shirtwaist—perhaps the kind of shirtwaist made at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Steiny commented that the hourglass figure was only possible because of constricting corsets and added stories about Alice in Italy during blazing summer heat throwing one of her corsets out a train window.

So while the Buttons had studied “A Long Dress.” within the Coursera Modern Poetry MOOC curriculum, returning to the possible association of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire was magnified by the plight of our own T. De Los Reyes from the Philippines who had been caught up in the relief effort assisting people, including her friends, affected by the devastation of Typhoon Haiyun. We were all relieved to see T. reappear in our discussion.

Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Seltzer Bottle.”

TENDER BUBBLES FROM THE BUTTONS BOX

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

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

THE SUBPOEM ..................-           A SELTZER BOTTLE: NUMBER 13

STANZAS.............           .....-           1

WORD COUNT.............   .....-           160

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

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

GENRE.............                ....-           VIRTUAL OPERA

LOCATION............           .....-      USA, England, Australia, Philippines, South Africa, Canada..

TIME...............                    ...-           ALL HOURS OF EARTH’S CLOCK

TONE..............                   ....-           PASSIONATELY AGITATED

“…I see the poem A SELTZER BOTTLE as a meta poem

concerning the pressure between the containment of the

text & the allusionary bubbles that arise from reading,

the substitution of one thing for another, which is never

final, nor is it sufficient, suppose each one must pop while

many more arise…” Allan Keeton

A SELTZER BOTTLE.

Any neglect of many particles to a cracking, any neglect of this makes around it what is lead in color and certainly discolor in silver. The use of this is manifold. Supposing a certain time selected is assured, suppose it is even necessary, suppose no other extract is permitted and no more handling is needed, suppose the rest of the message is mixed with a very long slender needle and even if it could be any black border, supposing all this altogether made a dress and suppose it was actual, suppose the mean way to state it was occasional, if you suppose this in August and even more melodiously, if you suppose this even in the necessary incident of there certainly being no middle in summer and winter, suppose this and an elegant settlement a very elegant settlement is more than of consequence, it is not final and sufficient and substituted. This which was so kindly a present was constant.

While “A Seltzer Bottle.” has a whiff of the print shop with words like lead in color, discolor, manifold, no other extract is permitted, no more handling is needed, the rest of the message is mixed, a very long slender needle, and black border, the text leans heavily toward linguist and metapoetic reading.

ECHOES FROM OTHER BUTTONS

Tracy Sonafelt provided a comprehensive discussion in which she led with a list of “echoes of other subpoems” that resonated with her experience of Tender Buttons:

“metal (lead, silver): nickel in GLAZED GLITTER., copper in DIRT AND NOT COPPER., silver (metal and color) in A METHOD OF A CLOAK. and A BOX. (#2). We have looked at alchemical and periodic table connections. Stein’s questions across TB Objects: What is X? What are its identifying elemental properties? How can we change or transform or act upon X? What happens when we do?

“black: A SUBSTANCE IN A CUSHION., A METHOD OF A CLOAK. Stein Qs: What color is X? What is color? What is black-ness, red-ness, etc.?

dress: A LONG DRESS. Interest in fashion. Stein Qs: How is X made? How is X constructed?

“altogether: WATER RAINING. Wholeness, completeness. Stein Q s: What is the nature of X when combined with Y, or with Y + Z? What component parts, taken together, constitute X?

“necessary: A RED STAMP., A BOX. (#2), A LONG DRESS. Stein Qs: What is essential to X? What is inherent in X? What conditions must be satisfied to achieve X-ness? What is the essence of X?

“occasional: A PLATE. Interest in parties, gatherings, celebrations. Stein Q: How do occasions ritualize or ceremonial-ize objects?

“elegant: NOTHING ELEGANT. The context of elegant here suggests not so much what is refined or tasteful but what achieves perfection in design ... so an elegant solution, an elegant equation, as much as an elegant gown or elegant decor. Stein Qs: What constitutes elegance in design? What is the elegance inherent in everyday objects?”

Steiny notes that TB MOOSG is working consecutively through Tender Buttons and has not yet address subpoem 31 “Water Raining.”. “A Long Dress.” has been discussed and the results of that discussion will follow this post.

THE ACTIVE STILL LIFE OF THE LUDIC STEIN 

Next Tracy presented her thoughts on the text divided by sound, word play, and the conditional/hypothetical.

“Sound.

The effervescence of seltzer is completely captured by all the “s” sounds in this sub-poem. (The much-repeated word suppose is practically a popping, fizzing, onomatopoeic stand-in for seltzer in and of itself.) Listen to all those bubbling, spitting s’s [N.B. Following a Bernadette Mayer writing experiment, Tracy selects only the words containing an ‘s’ sound:

“Seltzer particles this makes is discolor silver use this is Supposing certain selected is assured suppose is suppose extract is is suppose rest message is mixed slender supposing this dress suppose was suppose state was occasional suppose this August melodiously suppose this necessary incident certainly summer suppose this settlement settlement is consequence is sufficient substituted This was so present was constant.”

The poem is entitled A SELTZER BOTTLE., not A BOTTLE OF SELTZER. Like the text, the bottle has primacy. The sub-poem—the bottle (like the carafe and the box and the cup and the tumbler and the purse and so, so many containers in TB)—contains the seltzer, all of these “s” sounds. This is the essence of what TB Objects is: a still life of objects recast in words ... particularly in wordplay.

Here Steiny pauses to repeat Tracy’s observation: Tender Buttons is a still life of objects recast in words, especially wordplay. Barbara Crary responded to this by citing this tasty tidbit from an article the TB MOOSG had been made aware of some weeks ago:

“I recently re-read the Jacket2 article on The Making of ‘Tender Buttons,’ and thought of the following lines when looking at possible meanings in this poem: ‘Activity in Stein’s Paris apartment/salon often coalesced around a large rectangular wooden table for dinner parties, and later the same table would turn into a desk for Stein’s nightly composition. According to Stein, she set objects on the table to prompt her writing: I used to take objects on a table, like a tumbler or any kind of object and try to get the picture of it clear and separate in my mind and create a word relationship between the word and the things seen.’" 

In truth, Steiny had not internalized that Tender Buttons was a series of composed portraits until this thread of interaction between Tracy and Barbara. Still Steiny is not convinced that Stein would have liked the term still life applied to her Buttons since creating the present moment was keenly important to her. What is odd about Tender Button portraits is that Stein employed so few active verbs. But especially in “A Seltzer Bottle.”, this is clearly a still life.

Continuing with Tracy’s analysis, here are her thoughts on:

“Word Play.

(1) Words as tangible objects: 'there certainly being no middle in summer and winter.' Here, if we consider summer and winter as graphic objects without regard to meaning, we see they literally have no middle, no letter as a midpoint. The middle of each is blank space.

“(2) Floating meaning and grammatical function. Without traditional semantic (and sometimes syntactic) context, it is often impossible to determine a word’s meaning or grammatical function. This which was so kindly a present was constant: is 'present' a gift or the current time, or is it functioning adjectivally as a-present (like aplenty), so that the sentence suggests 'This which was so kindly here was constant'? There are tons of these. Is 'lead' a metal, or is it playfully suggesting the homophone 'led'? 'A dress' (address) ... 'a cracking' (get 'a-cracking') ... 'altogether' (all together) ... 'around' (a round).

“(3) Meta-metaphors. The poem TB is made of many particles, its sub-poems. The use of this is manifold, many-folded, like an origami creation. The syntax, through repetition and variation, continually folds back onto itself, and often the structure of the poems is almost literally many-folded, meaning we could literally take the paper the text is printed on and fold it to show interconnections. In suppose no other extract is permitted, is there a suggestion that each sub-poem, each extract, is a micro-embodiment of the goals, purposes, and methodology of the whole of TB? Is each sub-poem an extract biopsied from the whole with that very long slender needle so that reading it amounts to reading the composition of the macro-poem in micro?”

Within the TB MOOSG, members of the Button Collective frequently play with words as they investigate and enjoy the words served up by Stein. Here’s Allan free associating with particles and very much tuned into the issue of verb use by Stein:

“…

bits of language-language particles

                                               (participles?) 

That present = pre-sent pulls up the past

& thus past participles …”

MAPPING THE IF & THE SUPPOSE

In the final part of her analysis, Tracy talks about:

"The Conditional/Hypothetical.
The structure of this sub-poem is, as in A RED STAMP., almost entirely conditional or hypothetical. If is the conditional signal there, also appearing here thrice, though suppose/supposing is the primary marker, appearing here ten times in this sub-poem. It is like a geometric proof that takes us from axiom to axiom or a scientific experiment that takes us from hypothesis through experimental steps to conclusion: (1) hypothesis; (2) assurance of universal applicability or practical application; (3-12) experimental suppositions or “steps”; (13) conclusion; (14) note about methodology."

Here Tracy maps out the structure of “A Seltzer Bottle.”:

"(1-hypothesis) Any neglect of many particles to a cracking, any neglect of this makes around it what is lead in color and certainly discolor in silver.

"(2- assurance of universal applicability or practical application) The use of this is manifold."

(3-12) experimental suppositions or “steps”:

"(3) Supposing a certain time selected is assured,

(4) suppose it is even necessary,

(5) suppose no other extract is permitted and no more handling is needed,

(6) suppose the rest of the message is mixed with a very long slender needle and even if it could be any black border,

(7) supposing all this altogether made a dress and (8) suppose it was actual,

(9) suppose the mean way to state it was occasional,

(10) if you suppose this in August and even more melodiously,

(11) if you suppose this even in the necessary incident of there certainly being no middle in summer and winter,

(12) suppose this and

"(13- conclusion) an elegant settlement a very elegant settlement is more than of consequence, it is not final and sufficient and substituted.

"(14- note about methodology) This which was so kindly a present was constant."

FINDING SHINE FROM SELTZER

Meanwhile, Steiny had been musing about seltzer (also known as carbonated water) as a cleaner, thinking that Stein was addressing her goal for cleansing the English language but also Steiny was thinking about that very long slender needle as a possible photographic tool (stipple) that Stein might be using to probe image from dots (think seltzer bubbles) into clarity. From this ramble of thought, Barbara took a deeper look at SELZTER’s 120-word sentence:

“…that  the long third sentence changes its hypothetical tone at the point where 'the rest of the message is mixed with a very long slender needle,'  so that everything that comes before that sentence is a restriction ( a certain time is assured, it is even necessary, no other extract is permitted, no more handling is needed), but once mixing is introduced, the if's become more speculative, so that by the end, the settlement is "more than of consequence, it is not final and sufficient and substituted." So perhaps this sentence also refers to the restrictions on the use/meanings of the words prior to her 'mixing,' in which she plays with the meanings to create a dress or a melody, supposing that the mean way ( the commonly accepted way) of stating something was only occasional, and not necessarily the only way. …”

In response, Tracy provided a verb mapping of “A Seltzer Bottle.”:

“(1) is. (2) is. (3) is (4) is (5) is is (6) is [NEEDLE] could be (7) --- (8) was (9) was (10) --- (11) being (12) --- (13) is is. (14) was was.

“Barbara, keeping my numbering system from my initial post (for ease of reference), I isolated the forms of the verb 'to be' and find they perfectly embody your idea that the long third sentence changes its hypothetical tone at the point where 'the rest of the message is mixed with a very long slender needle,' so that everything that comes before that sentence is a restriction ... but once mixing is introduced, the if's become more speculative .... Since in English we use past tense (If she were here ...) or infinitive (If that be the case ...) verb forms to mark the conditional subjunctive, tense shifts ought to illustrate that shift, and they do! To be verbs 1-6a (before needle) are all in the form of the indicative is. Post needle, we find largely the past was or infinitive be, and even in 'there certainly being,' we still have a conditional form ... until we reach the conclusion in (13), stated appropriately in the indicative present with is, followed by the simple indicative past tense in (14) with was. I didn't pay much attention to other verbs and verbals because the bare bones to be verbs largely carry tense and mood in this sub-poem.”

Barbara came back with these thoughts:

“Tracy,  your analysis of the verb tenses of 'to be' blew me away.  I didn't think to look at it that systematically and yet I sensed the change in tone.  I am trying to see how the first sentence sets the stage for the change that is to come (your hypothesis statement, so to speak).  The phrase 'any neglect of many particles to a cracking' sounds to me as though she is referring to the cracking of language, the breaking apart of the language code into many particles or aspects, in which none should be neglected.  But then I get all tangled up in the grammar and syntax of what follows.  What do you think about the end of that sentence and whether it fits with my ideas about language in the beginning?”

Tracy answered:

“B, let's consider that sentence: Any neglect of many particles to a cracking, any neglect of this makes around it what is lead in color and certainly discolor in silver. I see the structure as working basically like this: A, A = B + C. If we replace the pronouns with their normal antecedents (and those antecedents may be floating or ambiguous) and re-arrange the syntax (into more 'normal' word order) just for the time being, we get this logic, I think (fingers crossed): Any neglect of many particles to a cracking, any neglect of many particles to a cracking makes what is lead in color and what is certainly discolor in silver around many particles to a cracking. Substituting your reading for Stein's language, we get: Any neglect of the breaking apart of the language code into particles, any neglect of the breaking apart of the language code into particles makes what is lead in color and what is certainly discolor in silver around the breaking apart of the language code into particles. Simplifying, we get this: Failure to break apart the language code and recast it makes the language code leaden (heavy, dull, sluggish, lacking life and spirit) and tarnished (sullied, soiled, stained). Does this seem to fit your reading?”

Speechless on this high level of intellectual exchange, Steiny leaves the final words to Barbara:

“Standing in the shower, where for some reason I think my best thoughts, I thought about the needle as Gertrude's fountain pen, which she uses to mix the message.  I liked thinking about the would-be/almost-was doctor filling her needle with ink rather than some sort of serum or vaccine.”

Definition: TB MOOSG: Tender Buttons Massive Open Online Study Group