Do you recall the famous story of Gertrude Stein taking a final exam during her years at Radcliffe?

It was a very lovely spring day, Gertrude Stein had been going to the opera every night and also going to the opera in the afternoon and had been otherwise engrossed and it was the period of the final examinations, and there was the examination in William James' course. She sat down with the examination paper before her and she just could not. "Dear Professor James, she wrote at the top of her paper. I am so sorry but really I do not feel a bit like an examination paper in philosophy today," and left. The next day she had a postal card from William James saying," Dear Miss Stein, I understand perfectly how you feel I often feel like that myself. And underneath it he gave her work the highest mark in his course."

~Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933) reprinted in Collected
Writings of Gertrude Stein, Carl Van Vechten, ed. (1945; rpt New York: Vintage, 1990), 74-5.

This is to say that, at the moment, I am thinking a lot more about music that about history. My task at hand, of course, is to write about history. Laurie Anderson said that "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” To what is writing about history akin? If I had the courage of my convictions, what would I do? No matter. Having been known to occasionally dance about architecture, I will certainly peservere with this history degree even though it turns out not to be my jones at all. There seem to be other worthwhile things to learn in the process.

Today, however, I will indulge myself and write about what is on my mind. Since this is only a blog entry and not meant to be the epitome of serious academic writing (whew!), this will probably just sound like what it is: me trying to jot down my morning musings. Today, I woke up thinking about Milo and his watchdog, Tock from The Phantom Tollbooth, one of my favorite children's books, about composer John Cage and some of the people and things that influenced him and about the role of the will (can I will myself to write this thesis ~ or maybe it should be "where there's no will, there's a way?!). Anyway, while waiting for my wily alarm clock to go off this a.m., I was thinking of a talk I gave (maybe 12 years ago?) about all this and only really thought about again today. Funny, that. Now, I'm sipping some lovely, home-made iced Turkish coffee with cardamom, (which should have been featured in The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook next to her famous brownie recipe!). If I can write off the caffeine cuff about music, maybe the same is possible for history?

( The longest post of my life )

Tags: alice b. toklas, arnold schoenberg, chance, dada, dt suzuki, gertrude stein, john cage, laurie anderson, marcel duchamp, merce cunningham, milo, silence, tock, turkish coffee
Current Mood: stressed
Current Music: Schoenberg: