Bertie Marshall Reads Gertrude Stein at Carol Lipnik Soirée

TWO [Poems} FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

Gertrude Said to Picasso, Napoleon!

And Picasso Said to Gertrude, 

Napoleon

New York, December 27 2015-- Well,

the crystal ball hasn't dropped

yet but if tonight's event at

Pangea, 178 Second Avenue, EV, is 

any indication, ithe New Year will 

be off to a flying start. The bar-

restaurant Pangea has been in 

business for about 30 years, and 

since March 2015 they have been 

regularly hosting alternative

cabaret; Carol Lipnik, a highly

original chanteuse and 

extraordinary vocalist whom I was 

happy to discover, is currently in

residence. What

brought me to tonight's performance was her special

guest, poet Bertie Marshall, featured in this video,

in which he reads Gertrude Stein's 1924 poem "If I

Told Him: A Complete Portrait of Picasso", as well as

one of his own poems, "The 59th Street Bridge". It's 

rare to hear Gertrude Stein read viva voce, but an 

even rarer treat to hear her read with such panache,

wit and distinction.

PS More video of Carol Lipnik on Liza Bear timeline.

PPS Carol Lipnik performs at Pangea every Sunday

evening through January 2016.

Dispatch from the Frontal Lobes

July 5, 1998: self-portrait filmed in John Gotti's old building on Mulberry Street, not with an I-Phone.

HITCH: "THERE'S NO SUSPENSE IN MYSTERY"
nyc 12.15.15-- its yellowed pages swollen with moisture from countless humid New York summers, not from anticipation at being turned and read, the squat little book in profile pic is Langenscheidts' Lilliput woordenboek, nederlands/engels, most likely acquired, along with Alice's Citroen deux chevaux, on a trip to Groningen in 1978. 
[digression: let's see who stops capitalizing which deity now that Bill Bratton has determined that absence of capitalization proves that LA schools threat was a hoax.] the lilliput wordbook is neither a threat nor a hoax, at first a prop and now perhaps a prompt...

Blue Mosque, Istanbul

October 23, 2011, Istanbul. Photo (c) copyright Liza Béar 2011.