Never Mind Gertrude Stein, a collection of aphorisms, was begun in 1982, after an incident in the Owl and Monkey Cafe in San Francisco. I was sitting with Chuck Ferrera, when I said something clever. Chuck suggested I write it down. I said it was just a remark. He said I was a writer, and I should write it down. I said that Gertrude Stein had said, “Remarks aren’t Literature.” Chuck said, “Fuck Gertrude Stein, you’re a writer, write it down.” So, I did, and began to compile that and other aphoristic remarks into a volume, then titled, “The Captain of the Wind.” At the time, I had read only two books of aphorisms in my life, one by La Rochefoucault and the other by someone else, whose name escapes me. I sent the book to Northpoint Press, in Berkeley, and they wrote back that they were “swamped with aphorisms.” The same day, I read, in the New York Times Book Review, new reviews of three books of aphorisms. Over the years, I turned these “remarks” into greeting cards, after doing the drawings that accompany them, and called them, “Small Talk.” I have reverted to nearly the original sense, calling them “Never Mind Gertrude Stein.” I thought of calling them “Fuck Gertrude Stein”, but that was Chuck’s attitude, not mine, and I think Never Mind Gertrude Stein scans better.
Never Mind Gertrude Stein:
