Pioneer birthdays Elizabeth Blackwell and Gertrude Stein

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

Gertrude Stein: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Stein

...These stream-of-consciousness experiments, rhythmical essays or "portraits", were designed to evoke "the excitingness of pure being" and can be seen as literature's answer to Cubism, plasticity, and collage. Many of the experimental works such as Tender Buttons have since been interpreted by critics as a feminist reworking of patriarchal language. These works were well received by avant-garde critics but did not initially achieve mainstream success. Despite Stein's work on automatic writing with William James, she did not see her work as automatic, but as an 'excess of consciousness'.

Elizabeth Blackwell: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Blackwell

The idea to pursue medicine was first planted in Blackwell's head by a friend in Cincinnati who was dying of a painful disease (possibly uterine cancer). This friend expressed the opinion that a female physician would have made her treatment much more comfortable. Blackwell also felt that women would be better doctors because of their motherly instincts.

[DreamGypsy]

1. I Love You, Alice B. Toklas ...

... a celebratory song for Gertrude's birthday...a little more excess consciousness than a simple refrain of 'Happy Birthday to you".

Sweet sentimental nut cake shake the farer
Let the Tijuana corner grow
Clean canyons for Sativa, sweet Sativa
Cho-ca-latte mountain snow