R. Nemo Hill presents THIS MONDAY
Active Ingredients at The Stone
9 October, 2006
“I AM I BECAUSE MY LITTLE DOG KNOWS ME”
texts by
GERTRUDE STEIN
1.
PINK MELON JOY
text read by
Jane Ormerod
Paco
Michelle Slater
Pink melon joy! Don’t ask what that is or where or when! Let yourself fall into a huge welter of words words words. They climb, run and scatter all over, never argue, need no footnotes, no explanations. An abundance of words to swim in, dive in, play in and play with, exchange with yourself and others all at the same time. Words to make love with, words to tumble in bed with, even in England at the beginning of World War I. You must find out how to hear these words, how to speak them. You can try it in hundreds of ways. Run with them, throw them into the air and catch them if you can. He may run that reads,* Gertrude Stein said somewhere, quoting a biblical phrase she’d learned as a child and only understood much later.
And now that welter of words, word constructions, topics, vocabularies, sentences or not, spoken gestures, what on earth are you to do with it all (an exclamation, that, not a question)! Throw it in the air!
Pink Melon Joy! Eat pink melon joy, say it, kiss it, sing it in many voices. Invent the pink melons and see what they can do. Here are three readers who’ve tried it and thrown the words in the air. Let them surprise you and join them there.
[*Habakkuk 2, 2: Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables,
that he may run that readeth it.]
From the magnificent splendor of words in PINK MELON JOY with its many worlds, its multiple voices making love with words and in words, you will move to the film of IDENTITY A POEM. Here arise questions with no answers, moments of sad confusion, in shining, small words, often echoing monosyllables, barely sentences, short, simple, visual, memorable.
2.
IDENTITY A POEM
a film by Lei Chou
starring
Bill Rice
Lavinia Co-op
with Florentine Miguel Cabarubias & R. Nemo Hill as the poodle
text read by Ulla Dydo
live accordion music by Rachelle Garniez
You are about to see a film. But why is it called a poem, when it is in fact a play with three characters in it, sort of. Stein did not care about classifications. If a piece she wrote came up as a poem, she did not quarrel with its title.
A puppeteer name Donald Vestal had recognized her on a street in Chicago in 1935 and had asked whether she might be willing to write him a piece to perform. So she did. She sent it to him in 1936, and he responded,
‘ “I am I because my little dog knows me”
is a consummated story in nine words.’
You all know this sentence. You’ve heard it quoted almost as often as that other sentence, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” It is said with a smirk, with contempt, with an awkward laugh. But it has not disappeared. It keeps coming back. Come to think of it, is “I am I because my little dog knows me” a sentence or a question? It’s a matter of how I say it. “I am I because my little dog knows me.” Or “I am I because my little dog knows me?” We’re never quite sure whether the little dog is there or whether he isn’t. And Stein plays with the dog, and with writing this play about his identity and her own.
Never in all the years of working and writing had Stein worried about identity. She wanted readers and wanted to become famous, but for thirty years fame eluded her. Then, in 1933, appeared THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS, a bestseller written in the name of another. She was invited to come to America for a lecture tour, and became a big success. But upon returning to France, she could not write. That’s when she became self-conscious and the worry about identity began. And the little dog—she’d had a little dog since 1929—allowed her to consider the problem. That little dog knows how to play. He never thinks about himself, doesn’t remember and simply lives. Stein learned that as long as she thought about herself and harbored ambitions, she wouldn’t be able to write, for writing was what kept her alive.
NOTES by ULLA DYDO
[This message has been edited by R. Nemo Hill (edited October 08, 2006).]
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