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Saturday, December 9, 2006
6:36PM
Stein and her brother were among the first collectors of works by the Cubists and other experimental painters of the period, such as Pablo Picasso (who painted her portrait), Henri Matisse, and Georges Braque, several of whom became her friends. At her salon they mingled with expatriate American writers, such as Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway, and other visitors drawn by her literary reputation. Her literary and artistic judgments were revered, and her chance remarks could make or destroy reputations. In her own work, she attempted to parallel the theories of Cubism, specifically in her concentration on the illumination of the present moment and her use of slightly varied repetitions and extreme simplification and fragmentation. The best explanation of her theory of writing is found in the essay Composition and Explanation, which is based on lectures that she gave at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge and was issued as a book in 1926. Among her work that was most thoroughly influenced by Cubism is Tender Buttons (1914), which carries fragmentation and abstraction beyond the borders of intelligibility.
Monday, December 4, 2006
1:55AM
The Mother of Postmodernism? Gertrude Stein On-line.
by Annette Rubery
Gertrude Stein has often been dubbed "The Mother of Modernism," though there is a sense in which she also spawned a great deal of the plurality of postmodern society, not to mention the disembodied eclecticism of the Internet. It is tempting to imagine what she would have made of the information superhighway; one suspects the idea of downloading a Picasso would have appalled her, though she probably would have relished having her own web-site. My analogy is, of course, a playful one, but less absurd when we consider the ways in which the Internet has fulfilled modernist dreams, even turning them, in some cases, into postmodern nightmares.
Indeed, cyberspace is in many ways the logical end to an extensive project which Stein-- amongst others--began at the turn of the century; a project in which a coherent sense of time, memory and history are rejected in favour of non-narrative modes of representation. The early modernists were instrumental in developing an art of the pure sign, or an art in which the concrete materials--words, paint--become the artist's subject matter. Stein famously favoured verbs rather than nouns, because verbs can be 'mistaken', and shifters (linking words), because their meanings change depending on the context in which they are used. In her famous essay Speculations, or Post-Impressionism in Prose, Mabel Dodge praised the intuitive way in which Stein: "[chose] words for their inherent quality, rather than for their accepted meaning," a prescient observation in light of the work of Jacques Derrida, who recently proposed a science of the concrete written sign called grammatology.
Stein's interference with the means by which language communicates owes much to her theories on time, memory, history, and narrative, all of which she considered pleasant human concerns, but ill-suited to the creation of master-pieces. To avoid the corrupting influence of time on her writing, Stein devised the "continuous present"; a state in which each moment has its own emphasis and each word lacks external reference. In retrospect this fragmentation of reality via the destruction of the linear model was the ambition of the modern age, and one which, happily for Stein, also made it impossible to repeat oneself (she preferred the term "insistence"). What I find fascinating about her work is the great extent to which she pushed the boundaries of a-historicism, and in many ways this makes her seem very contemporary, especially given that a rejection of the grand historical narrative is the main tenet of postmodernism.
That the Internet is partly responsible for our so-called 'incredulity of metanarratives' is beyond question. The hall-of-mirrors reality of the information superhighway offers us such a diverse range of cultural experience, that one cannot help but question the validity of a single, overarching notion of history. The on-line environment, often termed VR or Virtual-Reality, does not exist in any physical space; it transcends time and offers no organic, coherent sense of the past. As such it also has something in common with Stein's 'continuous present'. What's more, the VR landscape (cyberia) is populated entirely by computer-generated phenomenon and, while creating the illusion of an interactive parallel universe, has no relation to anything outside itself. There is no set narrative or linear journey through the web because the links allow users (or cybernauts) to choose an infinite number of paths--a method that was in fact modelled on the cognitive processes of the human mind. Stein's philosophical treatise entitled The Geographical History of America (1936) seems prophetic in light of these developments. In it, she describes the human mind using a global metaphor: the land seen from an aeroplane. "The human mind," she says, "has neither identity nor time," it is: "Flat land seen from above." Human nature, on the other hand, is represented by its inability to transcend a single viewpoint; it is the land seen from the ground.
The late twentieth century has since seen the explosion of cyberspace technology, and with it, a phenomenon which makes possible a geographical history of the whole world. Whether or not our current state of what has been termed "zapped-out hyper-modernism" is a good thing, or how much of the Internet can be considered "Useful Knowledge" remains to be seen. For my part, I would like to think that Stein would have embraced the Internet with alacrity. It relies, after all, on a very Steinian tautology: the only unity worth having is a unity of plurality.
Annette Rubery, B.A., M.A., is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Warwick, UK
"to express things seen not as one knows them but as they are when one sees them without remembering having looked at them" (Picasso).
What constitutes the composition, according to Stein's formulation, is a spinning pointillism of many natural fragments, although not all of these are imagistically reflective of the natural world. Carl Van Vechten, Stein's friend and editor, claims she "followed Cezanne's procedure of filling in every inch of space on the canvas with details, each of which is of equal importance" (ix). Stein's details comprise both domestic and natural images, but also include body parts, physical and mechanical objects, baby talk, items from science, history, religion, philosophy and, as the above passages indicate, references to psychology and artistic composition, in addition to bland generalities like "every one," "all," "some of them," as well as semantically empty terms like "this," "that," and "and."
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
4:32AM
drano239: hmm
drano239: what is it like
drano239: spill
suprise weather: haha i found out about it from http://www.afterellen.com/Movies/2005/11/kisses.html cause i'm soo bored and dorky
suprise weather: well its this womans first encounter with another woman and its set in the 50s so its like soooo bad to be doing
drano239: hmm
drano239: jesus christ though, lesbianism has existed as long as anything else
drano239: it still confounds me how some things are more accepted than others
drano239: i dont understand the differences that people seem to see so clearly
suprise weather: its really slow and nervous and wicked intense, yeah its totally true but no ones has been willing to talk about it enough to make it acceptable until now
suprise weather: which is really ridiculously sad that so many women had to suffer
drano239: the bounds of my existence, and what i do, seem to encompass anything
drano239: all that is human is something i am capable of
drano239: it doesn't matter with whom, during what time, what age
drano239: yeah it is sad
drano239: and even now it's not really accepted
drano239: at least with women
drano239: it is so highly sexualized
drano239: im not sure how much of that really is the true lesbian experience
suprise weather: hmm how do you mean?
drano239: i dont know how you feel about that
drano239: well
drano239: the girl on girl stuff is just so in everyones face now
drano239: because it is "hot"
suprise weather: haha what
suprise weather: no its not
drano239: you dont see that?
suprise weather: i think that
drano239: what do you thinkt he L word is about
suprise weather: visibility matters
suprise weather: the l word is written by lesbians
drano239: why is it so highly sexualized then
drano239: are lesbians more sexual than heterosexuals
suprise weather: there are plenty of shows about sex that are heterosexual
suprise weather: SEX AND THE CITY
drano239: yes
drano239: but
drano239: i think that since
drano239: this world has only begun to see lesbianism in the open
drano239: it doesn't help its cause to be portrayed so sexually
drano239: maybe it is really just sexual...
drano239: i dont know
suprise weather: i think that right now visibility matters most
drano239: hm
suprise weather: i mean sure if youre a guy
suprise weather: youre gonna think its wicked hot but i don't think it was made for men
drano239: but even you have spoken of a need for something deeper than the instant sexual stuff
suprise weather: i think the l word portrays both sides
suprise weather: they are saying
suprise weather: girls can make love, but they can also FUCK
suprise weather: its been a really timeless arguement
drano239: yeah
suprise weather: that its impossible to actually have sex with a women
drano239: some would argue that women only claim that they too can FUCK to get on an equal playing field with men
drano239: who are traditionally sexually agressive
suprise weather: and the l word is helping to prove that of course women canfuck
suprise weather: i think you are seeing a lot of this from a heterosexual male perspective
suprise weather: i think
drano239: maybe
suprise weather: thats really wierd
drano239: coming from me?
suprise weather: because as a feminist i would think youd believe in a females ability to be just as aggresive, but you know i still don't agree with that, i think women fuck because they want to fuck, i don't think it has anything to do with men'
suprise weather: thats so typical to think of a womans esitence in terms of men
drano239: hha
drano239: well
drano239: i only present this
drano239: because
drano239: i CONSTANTLY fight with my mom about this
drano239: and i usually take the side you are talking of
drano239: that women can be just as sexual
drano239: agressive
drano239: etc
drano239: make their own choices
drano239: and i defend it
drano239: but my mom argues
drano239: why are women so eager to get aggressive with their sexuality, is it in order to be heard? in order to cling to at least some part of the sexual experience
drano239: to claim something for ourselves
drano239: since it has been denied to us for so damn long
drano239: in other words
drano239: do we do it
suprise weather: the sexual experience has been denied from us?
drano239: just to stay afloat
drano239: yes
drano239: to ENJOY it
drano239: at least
suprise weather: wait i don't really know what you mean
drano239: hmm
drano239: i dont know how to explain it
suprise weather: how are we being deinied?
drano239: women have only recently--if that--been allowed to take an active part in the sexual experience, have been free to speak of their enjoyment of it, been able to share their sexual preferences, speak up about what they like
drano239: do you disagree?
suprise weather: i agree
suprise weather: but we dont feel that revolution do we?
suprise weather: i feel like its not a connected
suprise weather: process
drano239: you mean we still feel repressed?
drano239: or no?
suprise weather: no we don't
suprise weather: and never did i don't think
drano239: but maybe we do...and just think we have power but trying to be ultra sexual, to maybe be on an equal playing field with men
suprise weather: i dunno alex
drano239: i dont know about me personally, im talking abou the general experience of women
drano239: over decades
drano239: hmm
suprise weather: i mean have felt repressed?
drano239: have i?
suprise weather: yeah
drano239: in what way?
drano239: sexually? in general?
drano239: and by whom?
suprise weather: sexually yeah i mean do you feel like personally
drano239: well
drano239: maybe repressed isn't the right word
suprise weather: i feel like maybe our mothers were
suprise weather: but
suprise weather: i feel no resonance
drano239: have i been sexuall repressed, no...ive been able to have good sexual experiences and have been able to understand my sexuality little by little, but have i felt discriminated against, and at a disadvantage because of my sex, yes
drano239: do i feel like i live a much different life than men do in this world, yes
drano239: do i feel silenced, yes
suprise weather: silenced how
drano239: in a million different ways
suprise weather: really?
drano239: women aren't supposed to be smart
drano239: they aren't supposed to open their mouth
drano239: i have always been a self-advocate, have always spoken my mind
drano239: i haven't put up with shit
drano239: which is cool
drano239: but then
drano239: i have to learn with people brushing that off, be adverse to it
drano239: ignoring me
drano239: i've had people call me a cunt, make comments about my body
drano239: i am oppressed
drano239: even in the small ways
drano239: yes, it's better
drano239: but it's still there.
suprise weather: well you are only opressed if you let it penetrate you
drano239: that's true to an extent
suprise weather: i'm not trying to belittle it
drano239: but it doesn't mroe the oppression right
drano239: or my feeling oppressed wrong in the first place
drano239: it just comes down to learning to deal with it
drano239: as you say
suprise weather: ive been there too, but i dunno i feel like opression is estabalished by the opressed
drano239: no no i understand it
drano239: maybe
drano239: it's like with black people
drano239: for example
drano239: if they continue to talk about the evils of slavery, and how scarred their past is
drano239: they will never get past it
drano239: in some ways that is what you are saying
drano239: if women do not move beyond it and come into their own, they will never get beyond the oppression
drano239: is that waht you mean?
suprise weather: yes but i think its important to recognize what has happened
suprise weather: but make a distinction
suprise weather: between recognizing it and letting it resonate
drano239: but it's sitll present in our society
drano239: so how can it not resonate
drano239: to a degree?
suprise weather: no i mean like
suprise weather: maybe resonate was a bad choice words,
suprise weather: hold on
suprise weather: cay is telling me her theory on gay people
drano239: ok
drano239: do be sure to share that ;-)
suprise weather: gay people are around to curb population
drano239: oh jesus
drano239: that's sure a way to minimize it, to package it up all neatly.
suprise weather: haha sure is
suprise weather: the rise of homosexuality due to overpopulation!
suprise weather: i mean maybe
suprise weather: i dunno
drano239: haha
drano239: jesus, seriously.
suprise weather: so you dont like the l word?
drano239: haha no, no...it's a cute show actually
drano239: that was maybe a bad example
drano239: i see what they are trying to do, and it's a good thing i think
drano239: i think you are probably right about the exposure
drano239: of the visual thing...
drano239: whatever you said
suprise weather: haha
drano239: i mean
drano239: whatever works
drano239: right
drano239: who am i to judge
drano239: if that brings more acceptance
suprise weather: what would you judge?
drano239: than i'm all for it
drano239: whether the l word is doing a good job for lesbianism
suprise weather: yeah
suprise weather: i dunno
suprise weather: i think its not necessarily a feminist
suprise weather: show
drano239: yeah...
drano239: i wish you could see this little book i'm working on
drano239: i'm starting to love it
drano239: which means it's pretty good.
suprise weather: well i mean some elements are maybe
drano239: in my mind
drano239: yeah
suprise weather: oh what is it/>
drano239: no i dont really see it as feminist
drano239: its for this class
drano239: it's supposed to be like a color journal
suprise weather: i have to go!
drano239: where you just explore color
drano239: ok
drano239: ok
drano239: sleep
Friday, November 11, 2005
11:53PM
FnllyIming: aaaanikaaaaa
FnllyIming: Weisst du, wer bin ich?
suprise weather: hhhhhhhhi
suprise weather: oh god um
FnllyIming: KENDRA!
suprise weather: RAWR!
FnllyIming: hehe
FnllyIming: Ich leibe dich
FnllyIming: how are you?
suprise weather: hows the portland treating you ladies this evenin? UM EXCELLENT.
FnllyIming: alexandra and I were talking earlier about how this weekend could do with a good dose of the sabin
suprise weather: haha sounds like cough medicine
FnllyIming: I'm doing very well... a little sexually frustrated but that's a norm
suprise weather: how is the meat market.
suprise weather: ew
suprise weather: hows the...
FnllyIming: we are sitting in alder discussing our year's abroad
suprise weather: fish bowl
suprise weather: ALDER
suprise weather: my home
FnllyIming: hehe...I don't know what you mean about the fish bowl but there is a fish here
FnllyIming: the bon put on a carnival dinner, complete with won fish
suprise weather: haha i mean hows the playing field
suprise weather: the field you know!
FnllyIming: it's nonexistent!
FnllyIming: hehe...if there's grass on the field play ball
suprise weather: what wheres the team spirit!
FnllyIming: which is a nasty tidbit I heard from a jock about 14 year old girls...interpret as you will!
FnllyIming: did you hear that our football team was canceled?
suprise weather: i jeard it in reference to the olsen twins
suprise weather: YES
suprise weather: man
suprise weather: my hopes of being a cheerleader were shattered
suprise weather: it was a dark day in the world of my dreams
FnllyIming: alexandra and I are next door to a REAL life cheerleader
FnllyIming: not of the mtv ilk
FnllyIming: HIIIIIIIIIIII: alexandra
FnllyIming: lauren also wants to say that she is taking your math test tomorrow
suprise weather: my soul weeped as the coyot howled and cooed in slow ballet with the shallow moooon
suprise weather: hah
suprise weather: yeah
suprise weather: coiol
suprise weather: cool
FnllyIming: haha
FnllyIming: Lesley Marmom SIlko!
FnllyIming: Ahhhhhhhoooow!
suprise weather: yip! yip!
FnllyIming: god...native american renaissance
suprise weather: are you going to muncih next year?
FnllyIming: yes...and it makes me scared
FnllyIming: and I must ask...is that an ivory billed woodpecker as your icon?
suprise weather: aw ich liebe kendra! i think its a hyprid penguin slash gourd, maybe
FnllyIming: haha
suprise weather: i have to run and do things fast for the next few hours
FnllyIming: well I admire your appreciation of the once extinct
FnllyIming: ok well have fun and I will speak to you later...not as clea
FnllyIming: LOVE!
suprise weather: love!
FnllyIming: bye
Thursday, July 7, 2005
8:09PM
I am writing to appeal the Dorm Damage Charges that were issued to me in June. When I arrived in Alder 122 the second semester posters covered the door. When I signed the initial Room Condition Report I did not see the walls and did not feel it to be appropriate to take down my roommate’s posters for further inspection. On departure day, the walls were revealed, as well as the chips and scuffs that you noted. Furthermore on departure day I left at around 8am. My floor R.A. was still sleeping and so I conducted check out with the upstairs R.A. I also gave her my key in an envelope. Furthermore she agreed that the responsibility of the raised bed was not on my shoulders. When I moved into Alder 122 the bed was already in the raised position; I could not lower it because my roommate’s fridge and excersise equipment was underneath.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
6:11PM
The anti-corporate globalization movement has begun to counteract this institutionalism by applying new techniques to resistance. This movement has quiet a bit of potential and versatility because the concerns of the movement draw in millions of people from environmentalists to workers. Every age group is represented, and thousands of individual organizations make up a solid network. Because this protest movement spreads through so many nations, people, and organizations, the tactics in demonstrating widely vary. By comparing different strategies within one movement, the effectiveness of certain tactics becomes more apparent. The globalization movement has
Friday, April 1, 2005
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
Monday, March 21, 2005
10:20PM
suprise weather: hi andrea
a32flavors: hi
suprise weather: hi andrea
a32flavors: hi
suprise weather: hi andrea
a32flavors: hi
suprise weather: hi andrea
a32flavors: bye
suprise weather: bye andrea
a32flavors: are you in school again?
suprise weather: fuck andrea you fucked everything up
a32flavors: what the fuck?
suprise weather: are you in school again?
a32flavors: i have been always in school
suprise weather: are you
suprise weather: in school
a32flavors: i never win staring contests
suprise weather: i never win carnival contests
a32flavors: i need
a32flavors: to sleep
suprise weather: don't
suprise weather: sleep
a32flavors: i must
a32flavors: save the world
a32flavors: at 9:30
a32flavors: tomorrow morning
a32flavors: need
suprise weather: what?
a32flavors: sleep
suprise weather: save the world?
suprise weather: alexis wrote fuck andrea
a32flavors: oh
a32flavors: hi alexis!
suprise weather: oh hey andrea
a32flavors: you two chickies happy and together?
suprise weather: huh?
a32flavors: what?
suprise weather: huh?
a32flavors: what?
suprise weather: HUH
a32flavors: waiting for godot
a32flavors: what?
suprise weather: exactly
suprise weather: !
a32flavors: okay
a32flavors: i need to hang myself
a32flavors: i mean, sleep
suprise weather: OOO
suprise weather: stay
suprise weather: he is going to come
a32flavors: no he will never come and we will die in loneliness
a32flavors: i learned that
suprise weather: or as homosexual males
a32flavors: okay well anyway i still am really tired
suprise weather: please don't go
suprise weather: i
suprise weather: 'll tie your shoes
a32flavors: lovely talking to you
a32flavors: i'm leaving now...
a32flavors: i hope you both are awesome
a32flavors: bye
a32flavors signed off at 9:54:26 PM.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Thursday, March 3, 2005
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
4:10PM
i fuckin love a good sharpened pencil.
and a naturally lit library.
Tuesday, January 4, 2005
2:30AM
i'm tired, i should be
but in general i shouldn't be
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