Be Mostly Ends

Be Mostly Ends

For me there is no end to Stein’s, ‘Geographical History of America,’ it is ever changing, ever being, and maybe even a being. She plays with time just as she plays with word. It is non linear with no beginning, no middle, and no end, as she described scenery or a play or both. Her ongoing questions of human nature vs. the human mind, are they the same? What is the difference between them? We will come to this later. The most important of all is what is ‘be’ and how she uses it. Now let’s get lost and wander around her piece together. Stein asks, “Oblige me by not beginning. Also by not ending.”(456)

To solve this book and her all inspiring question of human nature and the human mind, you must believe. Just as stein believe in herself, I think she believe in you, the reader. She expects you to know because she believes this is true. She explains, “this is why superstation is so sweet./ Of course it is sweet./ It is just as sweet as sweet as it can be./ I believe what I know although nobody tells me so, because I know that I believe what I know. But in doing so, there is no time in me and no identity.”(p452) Rather believing in your own identity, the truth, love, or a higher power, example God, that is what makes you, you. It is sweet to believe and maybe even to dream. All this talk about believing, bring up so much this time of year. Christmas is coming and so is that big man with the white beard. Do you believe? It makes Christmas so much sweeter if you do. In the movie the Santa Claus 1994, little Judy elf said it the best, “Seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing.” And that is exactly what you need to do to figure Stein out.

Even Gertrude Stein states to, “Not solve it but be in it, that is what one can say of the problem of the relation of human nature to the human mind, which does not exist because there is none there is no relation, because when you are in the human mind you are in it, and when you are in human nature you are of it.” There is no end, no beginning, no right or wrong. There are no questions, there are no answers. There is only belief, the belief of what there reader will make of it. To not only read it, maybe not even to remember it, but to be in it, submerge the ‘I’ that is reading this flat non-linear body, be intimate with the words it produces. Did you notice the ‘be’ yet?

            Well here more and this is where the ‘be’ come in to play. (And that does not mean bitch, but maybe the female dog, maybe Steins’ female dog, “I am I because my little dog knows me”)

“Become Because./ Beware of be./ Be is not what no one can be what no one can see and certainly not what no one can say./ Anybody can say be./ Be is for biography.” (p454)

 “Do you see it is to be./ but there is be as well see.”(p479)

 “Play for be and its thorn.”(p460)

“Avoid be in begun./It is so easy to be right” (Stein p457)

I think ‘be’ is scary but sweet. It is a choice to ‘be’ and this choice can only be made by the individual. As shown in the Stein quote above ‘be’ is not just a word, a letter, a prefix, it so much more important and maybe even dangerous. In the third quote, ‘be’ has thorns; it has sharp points and might cause distress or irritation. Which some people would agree is what Stein is doing in this text. She even states, “beware of be”. And her last quote posted above, “Avoid be in Begun.” If we are to avoid be than that would leave Gun. And Guns are dangerous. Guns start thing and end them. Maybe Stein wants a gun in the pages, killing time, killing thing off and evolving them, making them better each time it is used and used again. Using this Gun to start the race to nowhere. A race to wander. A race to be lost. What do wanders do? They get lost and roam around the land to unknown places they have never be, maybe to America, they are trying to find something whether it be faith, truth, trust, and possibly who they are, really, what they believe in.

This point blank text is different for everyone that reads it. Each time the same reader reads it with fresh eye, new information comes forward and the text will continue to grow and build upon itself. As does the reader that reads this text will change through life, when different thing and beliefs are important.

Just how many bees are in this text filled with flowers? Be at the beginning and the end is be.

About 65 ‘Be’s