RE: PEACOCK, BATS AND THE MOSQUITOES

We were to collect the money agreed to by our manager and give it to the band the next night in Dayton, Ohio. We were paid a weekly rate. We never knew the outcome.

GERTRUDE STEIN

A world-renowned poet born in Pennsylvania in 1874, educated at Radcliffe College and Johns Hopkins University and lived in Paris for thirty years – and I can only think of her as writing “a rose is a rose is a rose.” Writing those words, she was making a profound statement. I doubt that she thought 100 years later that people would be debating its meaning and the logic.

She says “things are what they are…a statement of the law of identity.” Simply using the name of a thing. Shakespeare says, “a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” Gertrude Stein said, or implied, that a rose by any other name would be a rose by any other name and might smell just as sweet. A rose is not a rose by any other name – a rose is a rose is a rose. She also said that “a rose” already invokes the image and the emotion associated with it – so I am thoroughly convinced now that Santa will bring me a nice gift this year but if Santa comes under another name, it could be a nice gift or it might be an ugly bright green necktie that I wouldn’t wear in the next 150 years.

Santa is Santa is Santa.

I will sleep well Christmas eve.

Thank you, Santa

Grandpa