Thank you for pointing to this recent clarification of the code word "cow."
I think that it is important to keep in mind though that it is a code word
and thus uncharacteristic of Stein's usual linguistic procedure. While it
is important to know that Stein drew on her and Toklas's most intimate
dialogue, or, more accurately, wrote much of her work in a form of dialogue,
it is misleading to make too much of such rare metaphors and linguistic
displacements. Stein used outright code words mostly in deference to
Alice's sensibilities. (Toklas was understandably upset that the private
notes accidentally were included in the papers presented to Yale.)
Michaela Giesenkirchen
--From: Brueckl100@aol.com Reply-To: stein-l@ucdavis.edu Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 22:40:18 EST To: stein-l@ucdavis.edu Subject: Cow=bowel movement
A 1999 book called Baby Precious Always Shines: the Selected Love Notes between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, edited by Kay Turner, makes it clear that having a "cow" refers to Toklas having a bowel movement. Evidently viewing this up close was a sexually exciting turn-on for Gertrude. To each his own: I would expect nothing less from a genius.
"More than a third of the notes demonstrate unequivocally that "cows" are Toklas's feces or stools...p. 25
"In the 1970's, writers on Stein and Toklas such as Richard Bridgman and Linda Simon veered toward this understanding, yet they pulled back--out of a sense of propriety, disbelief, or repulsion--from claiming that the loving command for a "cow" from Alice is the command for a bowel movement...pp. 25-6
"Orgasms are not "smelly," nor do they go "splash" or "plop." They are not shaped like a "banana." It is the anus that yields the "cow." p. 27
"Stein's attention to Toklas's bowel movements exemplifies, in a profound sense, the hallmark of married intimacy: one body entrusted to another, singularly known, cared for, loved, and desired in all its intricacies, all its successes--and all its failings. p. 29
"Alice's "movements" seem to fulfill a deeply primal and erotic need in Gertrude. p. 30
"Still, psychology and pleasure do not fully unlock the importance of the "cows." At the deepest level, Stein's scatological interests were artistically and ontologically motivated. The notes ask us to take further account--to take what might best be called a phenomenological account--of the fact that Stein's delight in the prospect and evidence of Alice's "cows" was excessive, even obsessive. pp. 31-32
Quotes from Kay Turner's 37 page introductory essay to Baby Precious Always Shines, published by St. Martin's Press, New York.
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