THE
BOOK
..........................-
TENDER
BUTTONS
THE
SUBBOOK ...................-
FOOD
THE
SUBPOEM ..................- Roastbeef
WORD
COUNT (Total)……..-
1757
STANZA(S)............................-
37
THE
LEADER........................-
THE STEINY ROAD POET
CO-LLABORATORS.............- MODPO
STUDENTS/THE BUTTONS
Because every word in Tender Buttons can open a universe of
possibilities and the entire subpoem is composed of 1757 words, the challenge for
approaching and discussing “Roastbeef.” is daunting. To the Buttons Collective
(a group studying Tender Buttons with
the ModPo MOOC discussion forum), the Steiny Road Poet served the longest
subpoem of Tender Buttons as a diet
of six portions. Even now after the discussion threads on “Roastbeef.” have sat
dormant for many months, Steiny still feels the hugeness and the difficulty of
how to organize and “make sense” of the commentary. So she will proceed by
making at least seven separate posts (including the post
on the title alone) and she will chew the fat of “Roastbeef.” as she goes.
Most likely Steiny will see things that were not discussed. This is what happens
when anyone rereads Stein’s work but especially Tender Buttons.
Thus we begin with the first three stanzas of “Roastbeef.”,
which has a 395-word count, including the title. Among the topics
addressed in this post are boats, cows, Old Testament and Shakespearean
reverberations, and Stein’s lexicon including dirt and meadow.
ROASTBEEF.
In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is
reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In
the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling
anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is
recognition, in feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is
pinching. All the standards have steamers and all the curtains have bed linen
and all the yellow has discrimination and all the circle has circling. This
makes sand.
Very well. Certainly the length is thinner and the rest,
the round rest has a longer summer. To shine, why not shine, to shine, to
station, to enlarge, to hurry the measure all this means nothing if there is
singing, if there is singing then there is the resumption.
The change the dirt, not to change dirt means that there
is no beefsteak and not to have that is no obstruction, it is so easy to
exchange meaning, it is so easy to see the difference. The difference is that a
plain resource is not entangled with thickness and it does not mean that
thickness shows such cutting, it does mean that a meadow is useful and a cow
absurd. It does not mean that there are tears, it does not mean that exudation
is cumbersome, it means no more than a memory, a choice and a reestablishment,
it means more than any escape from a surrounding extra. All the time that there
is use there is use and any time there is a surface there is a surface, and
every time there is an exception there is an exception and every time there is
a division there is a dividing. Any time there is a surface there is a surface
and every time there is a suggestion there is a suggestion and every time there
is silence there is silence and every time that is languid there is that there
then and not oftener, not always, not particular, tender and changing and
external and central and surrounded and singular and simple and the same and
the surface and the circle and the shine and the succor and the white and the
same and the better and the red and the same and the centre and the yellow and
the tender and the better, and altogether.
“The first thing that strikes me is that there's very
little mention of food in it, little to do with roast beef.” Peter Treanor
WHATEVER
FLOATS YOUR …
Stanza
one could depict a riverboat traveling from night into dawn. Because there is
sleeping on the inside contrasted with reddening on the outside, one gets the
feeling there could be some illicit sex involved. Possibly it could be sex
between Gertrude and Alice. Is
someone like Gertrude embarrassed? Anything
is mounting and pinching
(pinching as in the slang meaning of stealing) also seems to support this idea
of something unlawful going on. All the
standards have steamers may be flags (standards) flying on these riverboats which have
paddlewheels that circle and stir up sand. If the yellow represents the sun,
then in the light of day comes discrimination (against a same sex couple?),
especially as the text moves in stanza three to the land.
In the ModPo discussion forum, Karren
Alenier [a.k.a. Steiny] stated the following:
“So if the last sentences of stanza 1
refer to a riverboat with a paddle wheel. The second stanza resonates with
water (well) and some kind of measurements related to the navigation of the
boat. Those boats were run in the summer and lots of gambling took place on
them as well as entertainment including singing.”
Peter Treanor added, “there were passenger steam boats in Paris on the Seine at this time too, although they
were dwindling in popularity as the railways and Metro were replacing them.”
Steiny
finds it interesting that Stein begins the Food section with text that seems to
indicate a boat because her table of contents does not include the subpoem
entitled “Chain-boats.”. A chain boat is a modified paddleboat that ran in
shallow waters and was used on the Seine River to transport such items as food.
STEIN’S
ACTIVE LYRICISM
What
immediately struck Steiny when she read the first stanza was the lyricism that
Stein creates with repetition and the use of ing words. Here’s how Alenier
mapped that:
In the--5X
In feeling --5X (feeling--7X)
there is --28X (in the first 3 stanzas)
ing--19X (first stanza)
sleeping
reddening
morning
meaning
evening
feeling
evening
feeling
feeling
anything
resting
feeling
anything
mounting
feeling
feeling
feeling
pinching
circling
IS
STEIN IMITATING THE BIBLE?
Alenier said that possibly Stein
was “imitating the Bible which uses repetition, particularly the word and. Alenier offered the following
passage from Genesis [King James
version]:
Existence
was a dominant theme for Stein ever since she had learned that she and her
brother Leo were replacement children after the fourth and fifth Stein children
died in their infancy. While the order of the Tender Buttons sections—“Objects”, “Food”,
and “Rooms”—was selected by Stein’s Claire Marie publisher, the power of
beginning Tender Buttons with “A
carafe, that is a blind glass.” and its
many intimations of birth and its shadings that point to a Jewish Biblical
landscape made Steiny rethink how significant the tone of “Roastbeef.”’s stanza
one is relative to the passage of Genesis
as stated above.
This thought made Steiny do some bean
counting through out the entire 37 stanzas of “Roastbeef.” Here is what Steiny
saw:
Words Repeated Number of times
and 107
there is 72
there are 9
With
the repetition of the word feeling,
Stein has expanded the conception of the verb to be—as a baby born or not, considering that Gertrude may not have
been born except for the death of other siblings—making to be bigger than birth with emphasis on union. Union depends heavily on the conjunction a-n-d, where A or a
throughout Tender Buttons stands for [A]lice Toklas. Tender Buttons is thus the sacred covenant or bible of Gertrude
Stein’s clandestine marriage to Alice Babette Toklas.
As Genesis repeats and to make the text flow like the waters
God creates in conjunction with the firmament, stanza one of section two
“Food”/ subpoem one “Roastbeef.” not only creates fluidity by repeating and four times but also by repeating there is nine times and by using ing words 19 times.
In discussing the crossover words with
Judy Meibach, Alenier noted that, in stanza three, words like dirt [The change the dirt, not to
change dirt means that there is no beefsteak] and meadow [it does mean that a meadow is useful and a cow absurd]
might be stand-ins for firmament
while dividing [every time there
is a division there is a dividing] and exudation
[it does not mean that exudation is cumbersome] correlate to birth
(birth of planet Earth and humankind that God eventually creates). Alenier also
referred to this passage of Genesis:
Alenier
continued, “Stein was vocal about procreating. She
said she believed in it though she never thought of herself as a woman who
would bear children. I believe she was vocal about this when she was in medical
school [where she went into the African-American community and assisted with
the delivery of children].”
IN THE RURAL HAVEN WITH THE ABSURD COW
For the moment, Steiny will put Stein’s lyricism on hold to
address the physicality and literalness of these introductory 395 words. Do
these three stanza have anything to do with the food called roast beef?
Here’s what Treanor
observed:
“Reading it, the piece as a whole, standing back and squinting
my eyes a bit, the first thing that strikes me is that there's very little
mention of food in it, little to do with roast beef. There’s the mention of
beefsteak and the absurd cow grazing in the meadow and converting dirt to grass
to meat and maybe milk (a cumbersome exudate from the memory/ mammary, cows
udders get very cumbersome before they are milked). Seems like there is more to
do with producing tender meat on the cow than there is to do with killing,
cooking, and eating it.
“But what comes over to me is the sense of being in a sunny
summer day, people sleeping inside and getting suntanned (reddening) outside.
The yellow, circle has circling, and to
shine seem like the sun. There is sand as well.
“All seems very well, there is singing. The dirt is changing to
grass in the meadow, the grass is not entangled, it’s lush meadow, cows are
eating and growing producing meat and milk. The white could be more milk and the better could be butter. It’s a time of plenty—there’s a lot of
dividing and repeating in the text indicating fruitfulness, growth, and the
rhythm of the days. She points to this repeating and dividing having to do
with—surface, suggestion, silence, languid (rest), tender(ness), change, being
external and central. And there’s warmth and support (succor). It all feels
very relaxed and productive, a rural haven, a Forest of Arden.”
DIRT, DIRTIER, DIRTY
The change the dirt, not to change dirt means that there
is no beefsteak and not to have that is no obstruction, it is so easy to
exchange meaning, it is so easy to see the difference. The difference is that a
plain resource is not entangled with thickness and it does not mean that thickness
shows such cutting, it does mean that a meadow is useful and a cow absurd.
Allan Keeton
said, riffing on the passage above from stanza three
“Roastbeef.”:
It is so
easy to exchange meanings—
dirt ->
meadow -> cow -> roastbeef -> human
it is so easy
to see the difference.
Not to
change the dirt means there is no beefsteak.
Without
changing the grammar
there is no
poem
ROASTBEEF.
Steiny
sees this Great Chain of Being interpretation (where everything has its place)
as Stein shaking up the universe with her revolutionary grammar. Keeton equates
dirt to Stein’s grammar revolution.
In Stein’s rules of grammar, she juxtaposes contrasting words as well as
picking them apart. Therefore, in close proximity, Stein gives us change the dirt and exchange meaning.
Alenier also pulled out these
words from stanza three because they seemed to create a dialectic for Stein
about whether she should accept the union between herself and Toklas:
obstruction (vs. exchange)
mean-ing (vs. difference--I am dividing the word to show its
negative behavioral side)
a choice
a reestablishment
escape
exception
a division
tender and changing
altogether
However,
the appearance of dirt would not be complete without a look at how Stein refers
to dirt in various subpoems of section 1 “Objects”. Here’s what Alenier compiled in the ModPo
discussion forum:
“Casting out the net from Food to Objects (dirt)”
“Food”—“Roastbeef.”:
The change the dirt, not to change dirt means that there
is no beefsteak and not to have that is no obstruction, it is so easy to
exchange meaning, it is so easy to see the difference.
“Objects”
Callous is
something that hardening leaves behind what will be soft if there is a genuine
interest in there being present as many girls as men. Does this change. It
shows that dirt is clean when there is a volume.
A PIECE OF COFFEE. (excerpt)
A single
image is not splendor. Dirty is yellow. A sign of more in not mentioned.
A piece of coffee is not a detainer. The resemblance to yellow is dirtier
and distincter. The clean mixture is whiter and not coal color, never more coal
color than altogether.
DIRT AND NOT COPPER. (excerpt)
Dirt and not copper makes a color darker. …
If lilies
are lily white if they exhaust noise and distance and even dust, if they dusty
will dirt a surface that has no extreme grace, if they do this and it is
not necessary it is not at all necessary if they do this they need a
catalogue.
A PIANO. (excerpt)
... If there
is no dirt in a pin and there can be none scarcely, if there is not then
the place is the same as up standing.
A CHAIR. (excerpt)
If the
chance to dirty diminishing is necessary, if it is why is there no
complexion, why is there no rubbing, why is there no special protection.
“Dirt, dirtier, dirty is used in Objects 8 times and 11 times in
Food.
“Dirt pertains to appearance for Stein and it seems to be
fraught with negative connotations but not always as in ‘Dirt and not copper.’
and ‘A red stamp.’, which pertain to natural elements. Probably ‘A
piano.’ is not negative but just a fact.
“Often Stein is contrasting dirt with what is clean. This seems
to fall into the Jewish frame of what is kosher and what is trayfe (unclean).
Relative to kosher ritual, one can make a knife kosher by plunging it into
dirt. If a Torah (holy scripture written on a sacred scroll) is retired, it is
buried with the kind of honors given a deceased person.”
Treanor reacted to Alenier’s dirt
study by saying:
“Dirt baffles me. It’s such a strange word to use.
Is it dust, earth/ mud /soil or an uncleanness? Or is it just
dirt?
Is it the same meaning when used each time? It doesn’t seem like
it can be in the contexts it is used.
“Dirt is so brief and curt, and there seems to be a disparaging
moral / judgmental aspect to it also. To be dirty seems to be morally
questionable somehow.”
Alenier responded:
“I agree it's curt, cruel and very judgmental when it is
not just the element of the earth. I think it is tied to being judged for the
same-sex union.
“and look at the root meaning:
[Middle English, variant of drit, excrement, filth, mud, from Old Norse.]
“I think it goes with death, dearth (scarcity, paucity,
inadequate number).
“But still we come from the earth and go back to the earth.”
“Stein loved Shakespeare and so I thought—well could be
a needle in haystack situation but in DC [where Alenier lives], there is a
production of As You Like it and it occurred to me that comedy was the
right category of Shakespeare to search and why not As You Like it?
Hanging on a meathook
Van Reipen Collective's "Food"
“So I went to my book of Shakespearean play summaries and
decided Act III was where to look. Here is what I found:”
TOUCHSTONE
Truly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good
life, but in respect that it is a shepherd's life,
it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I
like it very well; but in respect that it is
private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it
is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in
respect it is not in the court, it is
tedious. As
is it a spare life, look you, it fits my humour well;
but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much
against my stomach. Hast any philosophy in thee,
shepherd?
CORIN
No more but that I know the more one sickens the
worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money,
means and content is without three good friends;
that the property of rain is to wet and fire to
burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep, and that a
great cause of the night is lack of the sun; that
he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art may
complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.
As You Like it, Act III, Scene 1
Alenier
correlated what Touchstone said with his repetitions of in respect to:
In the inside there is sleeping, in the
outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the
evening there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In
feeling anything is resting, in feeling anything is mounting, in
feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in
feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is pinching. Tender
Buttons, section 2 "Food", first subpoem
"Roastbeef."
Then Alenier got into a feeding frenzy and discovered As You Like it
had many correlations to Tender Buttons. So Alenier wrote an introduction and annotated
As You Like for Scene4 Magazine.
NOW
THE ROMP IN THE HAY
Alenier provided this Xplanation
about why she looked at the word meadow:
“Why I pick meadow to look at is probably
esoteric, but the word is tied to coming
upon once again the word meadow in the last subpoem of
"Objects". There is something medieval about a ‘meadowed king.’”
Here
are the details:
Casting out the net from Food to Objects (meadow)
Food. 'Roastbeef.':
The difference is that a plain resource is not entangled
with thickness and it does not mean that thickness shows such cutting, it does
mean that a meadow is useful and a cow absurd.
Objects
Water astonishing and difficult altogether makes a meadow
and a stroke.
THIS IS THIS DRESS, AIDER. (excerpt)
A jack in kill her, a jack in, makes a meadowed king,
makes a to let.
“Meadow is used 3
times in ‘Food’.” [We will address the other uses of meadow later when we get to the subpoems that have that word.]
Alenier continued:
“I just had this weird insight because of the MS-Word instant
spell checking—it divided meadowed as mead owed.
Now those two words—mead (an old alcoholic drink) and owed also
seem medieval. A king who must be served an alcoholic drink.
“At any rate, in ‘Water raining.’, I
associate meadow (where nourishment comes from) with Toklas and stroke (stroke
of the pen) with Stein. Now, what this does for the use of meadow in
‘Roastbeef.’ is up for grabs. So here goes my lame attempt:
“What was learned in close reading ‘Objects’ is that Stein &
Toklas agree to marry and their children will be Stein's published books. There
is an elaborate encoding of sex in Tender Buttons and the pen
represents Stein, who considers herself a male persona. In the encoding, the
words pen is equates to penis.
“In the line from ‘Roastbeef.’, a plain resource makes
me think of Plain Editions, the publishing company Stein and Toklas created when
Stein self-published her first book Three Lives.
“In Europe, books were printed with uncut pages. When I was in
college studying French literature, I often had to cut the pages of the books I
read for my courses. God forbid that anyone neglected to read their assignment
because all too often that meant the pages were uncut and not accessible. Can
you imagine how angry the professor would get to hear someone cutting pages in
class?
Alenier also provided some insight on the origins of meadow:
“If you look up the word meadow, you see this:”
Origin
“A couple of thoughts come to mind about grassland and hay.
Maybe this is a stretch, but I'm thinking Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass.
“Sorry to jump ahead but the 26th subpoem of "Food"
reads:”
WAY LAY VEGETABLE. (excerpt & note correction—skin
not skip)
Leaves in grass and mow potatoes, have a
skin, hurry you up flutter. …
“I see Walt Whitman's title (Leaves of Grass versus leaves
in grass) and meadow (grass as in grassland & mow as in
the origin of meadow) in ‘Leaves in grass and mow
potatoes.’
“I'm also thinking of the old proverb, make hay while the sun
shines because there is a heck of a lot of emphasis in stanza two on shine
(3 times in stanza 2 & 1 time in stanza 3).
“What then might a meadow is useful and a cow absurd mean?
“Well, if you make hay while the sun shines, you are earning
your living. That hay stands for money. If you put your cow into your hay
field, there will be trouble. Here is an Xchange between two farmers:”
Farmer A: Do any of you let your cows graze in your hay field
over the winter?
Farmer B:
Lots of good things for the cows.
A couple of bad things for the hayfield:
1. The ground is softer and more grass will be pulled up by the
roots. Hooves will damage some grass roots and soil compaction can result. Less
grass cover can give weeds a head start next spring.
2. Manure that remains in the hayfield will make next season's
hay less palatable.
Bloat can always be a problem whenever the cattle's feed
changes. If you turn them into the hayfield, do it for short intervals and
continue to feed dry hay. Keep some TheraBloat on hand. Maybe put out a
Sweetlix Bloat Block near their water supply.
To cap off the discussion of meadow, Alenier concluded:
“And just for grins, meadow==>grassland seems to have a crass
sexual association. Maybe like a romp or a roll in the hay?”
LOOKING AT THE REPETITION.
Steiny
thinks the last sentence of Stanza 3 could stand some additional attention but
instead of quoting it in sentence form with all the words following closely,
she will break it apart as if it were a lined poem.
Any time there is a surface there is a surface
and every time there is a suggestion there is a suggestion
and every time there is silence there is silence
and every time that is languid there is that there
then and not oftener, not always, not particular,
tender and changing and external and central
and surrounded and singular and simple and the same
and the surface and the circle and the shine and the
succor
and the white and the same and the better and the red
and the same and the centre and the yellow and
the tender and the better, and altogether.
This
105-word sentence repeats there is
seven times making Steiny think the “message” or impression Stein wishes to
impart concerns existence. This existence is accented by an alliterative run—surface, suggestion, and silence
but the element of time which begins as any
time but repeats thrice as every time
has a stopping point in then and not oftener,
not always, not particular. The location of text while it might be changing and
external seems to have a sameness about it that resides in what is central or what might be the centre or the circle. Possibly this center could be the sun as indicated by
words like shine and yellow.
Twice
the word tender is repeated and
because this is Tender Buttons, one
must come to attention. The first repetition is paired—tender and changing, while the second reads the tender and the better, and altogether. Since Tender Buttons is Stein’s covenant with
her partner Alice Toklas, one has to assume this is about their union, their
bettering as altogether.
Participants:
Karren Alenier, Rebekah Copas, Allan Keeton, Judy Meibach, Peter Treanor
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