Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Eat Your Own Identity

Goodness. GS and GD meld into an imperceptible continuum of words, concepts, and affects sometimes. Take, for instance, the goodness below. Again, I could quote damn near this whole essay because its loaded with tastiness, but I will limit the post to a select few.

From Gertrude Stein's "What Are Master-Pieces And Why Are There So Few Of Them":

"The thing one gradually comes to find out is that one has no identity that is when one is in the act of doing anything. Identity is recognition, you know who you are because you and others remember anything about yourself but essentially you are not that when you are doing anything. I am I because my little dog knows me but, creatively speaking the little dog knowing that you are are you and your recognising that he knows, that is what destroys creation. That is what makes school."

"At any moment when you are you you are you without the memory of yourself because if you remember yourself while you are you you are not for purposes of creating you."

"The painter can no longer say that what he does is as the world looks to him because he cannot look at the world any more, it has been photographed too much and he has to say that he does something else."

"The moment [a creation] is in relation it is common knowledge and anybody can feel and know it and it is not a master-piece."

"Nothing could bother me more than the way a thing goes dead once it has been said."

2 comments:

Future Man said...

I am I..., even this is subject to mischaracterization, since her position seems to be ego creates what I/you/we perceive. So better, We are No...

Joshua Ware said...

Actually, her position is that "I" (or the ego) necessarily does NOT create; it stagnates and dominates (It is not by coincidence she claims "I am I because MY LITTLE DOG knows me."). Master-pieces, in Stein's opinion, spring from unremembering, or destruction of identity.