Tuesday, May 05, 2009

any one doing something and standing

New audio. A brief informal introduction to cubist language by way of Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway (the 1920s Hem, to be sure).

Stein: "Any one doing something and standing is one doing something and standing. Some one was doing something and was standing. / Any one doing something and standing is one doing something and standing. Any one doing something and standing is one who is standing and doing something. Some one was doing something and was standing. That one was doing something standing."

Hemingway, from "On the Quai at Smyrna": "The strange thing was, he said, how they screamed every night at midnight. I do not know why they screamed at that time. We were in the harbor and they were all on the pier and at midnight they started screaming. We used to turn the searchlight on them to quiet them. That always did the trick. We'd run the searchlight up and down over them two or three times and they stopped it."

Here is the audio (mp3).

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