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

“Grammar does not need a balustrade to be broken” from “Arthur A Grammar” Gertrude Stein

“Have we been impaled by the rouge use of language?” Peter Treanor

“There's that fencing feint with a leading wrist.” Allan Keeton

And finally here are the high culture associations made by The Buttons Collective as noted in Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Leave.", “Suppose An Eyes." Part 1 of 3, As you will note, Dear Reader, popular culture (i.e. low culture) mixes in here as well.

WIDENING THE CIRCUMFERENCE: BLAKE, DICKINSON, HOWE

Allan:

“I love the embodied book becoming present here.

“The white being blackened with text.

Not just any text this-

                                   text.

“The pages being seated in the binding and bound.

This binding is covered with leather, which is cow skin,

as we are bound in skin.

“It reminds me of Blake:”

Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

“The beautiful made beautiful.”

beautiful beautiful,

beautiful beautiful.

“Such fullnessess of beatitudes.”

Eleanor Smagarinsky:

“Allan, I googled that line from Blake (I am terribly ignorant, having never read him) and found that it comes from the book Marriage of Heaven & Hell. Wiki says this:”

Blake's text has been interpreted in many ways. It certainly forms part of the revolutionary culture of the period. The references to the printing-house suggest the underground radical printers producing revolutionary pamphlets at the time. Ink-blackened printworkers were comically referred to as a "printer's devil", and revolutionary publications were regularly denounced from the pulpits as the work of the devil.

“So the blackening is what really happened as the books were printed. Beautiful Beautiful.”

Dave Green responded to the quotation from Blake by quoting Emily Dickinson:

Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy. [William Blake]

Circumference in a poem immediately makes me think of Emily Dickinson, for whom it was a key word:

378

I saw no Way—The Heavens were stitched—

I felt the Columns close—

The Earth reversed her Hemispheres—

I touched the Universe—

And back it slid—and I alone—

A Speck upon a Ball—

Went out upon Circumference—

Beyond the Dip of Bell—

883

The Poets light but Lamps—

Themselves—go out—

The Wicks they stimulate—

If vital Light

Inhere as do the Suns—

Each Age a Lens

Disseminating their

Circumference—

Letter written by Emily Dickinson, to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (July 1862):

...My business is circumference. An ignorance,

not of customs, but if caught with the dawn, or the sunset see me, myself the only kangaroo among

the beauty, sir, if you please, it afflicts me, and I thought that instruction would take it away.

Eleanor advanced the literary touchstones by bringing contemporary poet Susan Howe into this exchange:

CIRCUMFERENCE

: the length of a line that goes around something or that makes a circle or other round shape

: the outer edge of a shape or area

“This is so interesting, as Stein seems to be doing a lot of maneuvering in her language during the last few poems—streaming, pounding, making, shining, going, sighing, leaving, hunting, saying, leading, supposing, opening, closing, needing, blackening, signing, wearing, reading, shutting, going, collapsing, purring, rubbing, selling.

“If you were to somehow chart all of her movements as dots on a map, and then step away from it and get a bigger picture by joining the dots, it may well look like the circumference of her textual world. Seeing the pattern in this (I'm talking theoretically, I do not believe one over-arching pattern exists other than in her very DNA) is our attempt (we are only human!) to see reason/the rational in chaos:

“Blake (thanks, Allan) - Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

“Dickinson (thanks, Dave) - I thought that instruction would take it away

“Now, Susan Howe discusses Dickinson & Stein together in her book, and she uses this phrase:

‘space of time filled with moving.’ 

which I think is apt for our conversation.

Also quite beautiful to see the movements of Dickinson in her own poems:

378

saw

stitched

felt 

close

reversed

touched

slid

Went out 

Dip

883

light

go out

stimulate

Light

Inhere

Disseminating

[What a contrast!]

Here Steiny pauses to quote Robert Pinsky who said of this poem that Dickinson “seems to say that each age widens or disseminates the light of a poem in a different way.” Surely this kind of Dickinsonian dimensionality is what modernist high and low culture, fractured commentary mixed with unstructured, anything-goes postmodern chat that is all part of how The Buttons Collective operates in studying Tender Buttons. Also Eleanor’s commentary speaks to Chaos Theory and how Stein’s verb use insisting on immediacy (newness) keeps us as readers from nailing down absolutes.

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!”

Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Leave.", “Suppose An Eyes." Part 1 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

 “Grammar may not be counted.” from “Arthur A Grammar” Gertrude Stein

 “Stein is such a uniter of objects and ideas!!” Karren Alenier

“Space is a place that lets meaning emerge.” Peter Treanor

A LEAVE.

In the middle of a tiny spot and nearly bare there is a nice thing to say that wrist is leading. Wrist is leading.

SUPPOSE AN EYES.

Suppose it is within a gate which open is open at the hour of closing summer that is to say it is so.

All the seats are needing blackening. A white dress is in sign. A soldier a real soldier has a worn lace a worn lace of different sizes that is to say if he can read, if he can read he is a size to show shutting up twenty-four.

Go red go red, laugh white.

Suppose a collapse in rubbed purr, in rubbed purr get.

Little sales ladies little sales ladies little saddles of mutton.

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

STEIN’S MOVING TARGETS

As a Modernist, Stein works with elements of high and low culture as well as presenting these elements in a fragmented form. However, Stein also exhibits characteristics of the Postmodernist. While a Modernist uses form, purpose, design, hierarchy, the Postmodernist embraces something less identifiable as form (e.g. poetry written in a prose format), play versus purpose (writing that invents without a visible goal in mind), chance versus design (serendipity over structure), anarchy versus hierarchy (for Stein this looks like Chaos Theory). These Postmodern characteristics seem to point at what Stein is doing in Tender Buttons. However, it is hard to nail down Stein’s process and strategies because everything she writes is a moving target, moving because she wants to create the present moment. As it has been said before in these Steiny Road postings, what happens when a contemporary group of readers (e.g. The Buttons Collective) gets together to form impressions about an abstract work like Tender Buttons, is that anything goes with a reach backward and forward in time. So we Buttons construct a democratic bricolage of impressions.

Among the many associations made by the Buttons Collective in this discussion, either generally or specific to one of the two subpoems, are:

Sex and gaming: sexual release and romp, prostitution, parlor games (snooker, life pool, black pool),

Literature and language: the author critiques the critic, cows-leather-books, embodied book, printing, Blake, Dickinson, Leaves of Grass, bookended words, Stein’s poetic movement through gerunds, aubade, homophones, a new way of saying the making of suppositions (Suppose-n-ize),

Clothing, adornments and shopping: boot blacking, finding wearable art within Stein’s words (earrings, necklaces), eyelet fabric, soldier boots with lots of lace through the eyelets, a shopping frenzy, Lady Gaga’s meat dress

Social dictates: leave-taking, what is kosher (meat versus milk, Jewish orthodox permitted days of conjugal sex)

Higher powers: conducting, invoking the sacred power

Art: the sitting of an artist’s model, tree portrait, a gate decorated with eyes

Natural world: agates invoking lines and layers,

Mathematics: counting a variable number (n) of ayes

THE ODD TITULAR GRAMMAR

For the moment, the Steiny Road Poet sets asides the roadmap of associations that tended in this study session to bleed into each other in favor of exploring the titles of these two subpoems. Why? Because these titles stand out with their odd grammar—Stein suggests a breach regarding the rules of declension such that our English-speaking ears perk up, wondering about singular versus plural. Therefore, Steiny will provide a catalog of what The Buttons said about each title as an alternative way into this study session.

A LEAVE: ITS BUTTONS-INSPIRED CATALOG

While Peter said this title could mean taking a leave as in saying good-bye, what captured his imagination was a sexual image:

“A LEAVE becomes ALLEV IATE (all that pent up tension) 


the tiny spot, nearly bare, in the middle, a nice thing. And it's all in the wrist action apparently.”

Karren [a.k.a. Steiny] found a definition of a leave related to such games as pool, billiards, snooker, and croquet. She also wondered about the association of parlor games and sexual activity.

A leave (noun) the position of the balls after a shot.

Dave Green imagined a portrait of a tree, perhaps in fall:

“There's a tree that's bare except for one leaf (leave). The tree looks forlorn but the leaf itself is still a positive thing, a symbol of life, hanging on. Leaves are like the hands of the tree, so the stem is the wrist. The leading edge of the life of the tree is in that wrist. That wrist is also bleeding [(b)leading] as the leaf will shortly fall off and leave.”

What Dave wrote led to Peter parsing a leave into a complex association about words or a missing word that leads to seeing Stein instructing the reader how to use her words for greater appreciation of what she has written:

“Yes I was thinking A Leave as a leaf too

And it made me think of

Leaves of Grass

Leaves of a book

Leaves as words.

A leave as a word

“Sometimes I see these poems as little instruction manuals with the clue to operate them contained in the words themselves. So

In the middle of a tiny spot and nearly bare there is a nice thing to say that wrist is leading. Wrist is leading.

In the middle of tiny spot 

in the middle of tiny spot is a bare place, a blank _. But if you fill the blank with an E, you get tinyespot or tin yes pot. Yes is a nice thing to say.

Now why would you put the e in? I don’t know, but wrist/risk is leeeeading you to do it.”

Here, Steiny screeches to a halt to turn the Leaves of Grass, specifically
“I Sing the Body Electric” in this seminal poetry collection of Walt Whitman:

The expression of the face balks account;
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face;
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists;
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees—dress does not hide him;
The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel;
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more;
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Dog.", “A White Hunter." Part 3 of 3

TOKENS IN THE BUTTONS BOX

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

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

THE SUBPOEM ...................-          A DOG: NUMBER 50

WORD COUNT......................-           30

THE SUBPOEM ...................-          A WHITE HUNTER: NUMBER 51

WORD COUNT......................-           6

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

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.....................................-           JAUNTY BUT CRAZED

“Whistle for your dog and find your weapon of choice.” Karren Alenier

A DOG.

A little monkey goes like a donkey that means to say that means to say that more sighs last goes. Leave with it. A little monkey goes like a donkey.

A WHITE HUNTER.

A white hunter is nearly crazy.

In part 3 of Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Dog.", “A White Hunter.", The Buttons explore fencing as a Steinian approach to writing, the lesbian code of keys, the musical key of a Steinian text, how a pageboy from Shakespeare elicited discussion of the blank page,  Again, note that some of this conversation can be heard in Eleanor Smagarinsky’s sound file “Dog and Hunter Overture.”

PARRY FEINT TOUCHÉ—ANOTHER WAY STEIN WRITES

Liking Peter Treanor’s riff on A Dog è Goad [end of Stepping on Tender Buttons: “A Dog.", “A White Hunter." Part 2 of 3], Eleanor answered:

“GOAD

•    A spiked stick used for driving cattle.

•    A thing that stimulates someone into action:

And Karren said in her introduction to this thread:

‘find your weapon of choice.’

“OK, this is fun...let's see....

"to say that means to say

‘touché that means to say’

“touché—Used to acknowledge a hit in fencing or the success or appropriateness of an argument, an accusation, or a witty point.

“From the "Glossary of fencing":

Feint

An offensive movement resembling an attack in all but its continuance. It is an attack into one line with the intention of switching to another line before the attack is completed. A feint is intended to draw a reaction from an opponent. This is the ‘intention’, and the reaction is generally a parry, which can then be deceived.

“Sums up exactly my experience with reading Tender Buttons. So many keys, none of them properly labelled. And the huge ego of Stein, hurting my own considerable ego as she goads me into thinking I ‘get it’ and then proving that I don't. And I keep coming back for another round.”

Allan Keeton:

“It is an attack into one line with the intention of switching to another line before the attack is completed.

A feint is intended to draw a reaction from an opponent.

This is the ‘intention’, and the reaction is generally a parry, which can then be deceived.

“O it does seem that Stein feints her lines all the time.

“She switches lines before completing the given line.

This is her line of attack.

It is fluid.

It is her intent.

To draw a reaction from the reader.

A bold move that only appears faint if one 

expects to read a line to completion.”

Karren:

 “Allan, That fainting feint is how Stein makes a mater-peace as opposed to a master-piece.”

Within 24 hours, Eleanor had additional thoughts about keys:

“Pete, regarding the keys you found...do you reckon Stein's playing on the French mon and ton?

MON KEY - my key

TON KEY - your key

That's what G & A have in common? Not only sexually, but also linguistically....after all...if these poems are coded love notes from G to A then they'd both have to know what the key was, to break the code. Non?

“Leave with it—you should always make sure that you have your keys before you leave the house. I mean, this really could be as simple as that -- a funny coded message written the day after Alice forgets her keys (when they leave the house to walk the dog?), and they're locked out. A rhyme to remember your keys. Delightful.”