Homage to Joe Brainard

Certainly there were people who didn't know about Joe Brainard in the 1970's, but where were they hiding? He seemed to be everywhere. He was writing, painting, making collages, covers, and digging the scene in New York City. 

 

He'd grown up in Oklahoma, went to high school with Ron Padgett, in fact. He was part of a tightly knit group of second generation New York School writers and artists, but he also lived in the Gay world. Joe was moody, but he took his work very seriously. That might seem a contradiction, given the spirit and approach of his subject-matter, which was often spoof-y and satirical. It was superficially two-dimensional, and drew upon cartoons and pop illustration in much the same way Andy Warhol did. But Joe's work--his graphic work--belonged to a different tradition, one that probably included Fairfield Porter, Jane Freilicher, Alex Katz and Lichtenstein. Joe's art was fun, but it was casual and easy-going too, in a way that didn't make you uncomfortably aware of the artist's difficulties. It wore well like an old pair of 501's. 

   

During the 1960's and 1970's, Joe worked on a long list called "I Remember," published in a series of pamphlets by Angel Hair Books, and later collected by Full Court Press. I Remember chronicled a 40's childhood in America, and moved into its adolescence and adulthood like a shrewd undercover agent from another world, observing and cataloguing the stuff and habits of daily life in diary form. 

In emulation of Joe's style, I've composed my own list of I Remembers, presented here unabashedly by an ardent admirer. 

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I remember push-ups, Eskimo pies, fudge bars, and ice cream sandwiches. 

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I remember not wanting to get invited to swimming parties, because everyone would see how skinny and pale I was (these were the “Coppertone” years). 

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I remember “let’s get that real estate from under those fingernails.”

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I remember going to the theatre, and the floor between the seats being so sticky with old candy and crud that your shoes stuck to it. 

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I remember putting unshelled peanuts into the nose holes of the circus elephants (weird). 

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I remember Blue Chip Stamps, Green Stamps, funny coupons, and Filling Station maps with little circle-faced mascot figures at the gateways to vacation land. 

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I remember telephone party-lines, and once in a while, the neighbor walking right into our house to put the receiver back in the carriage (we’d forgotten to replace it, and he could hear us talking).  

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I remember “I Like Ike” buttons. 

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I remember sonic booms, and how—for just a second—everyone would worry that maybe it was an atomic bomb. 

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I remember “killer knobs”, leather dashboards, wooden station-wagons, and white foam dice hanging from rear-view mirrors.

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I remember being “curious” about what girls had hidden up there between their legs.

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I remember Pendleton plaid wool shirts, pegged pants, and black Chuck Taylor Converse tennis-shoes (had to be black).

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I remember the Edsel.

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I remember liver and onions, fish sticks, cube steak, creamed tuna on toast, and Campbell’s tomato soup. 

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I remember being forced to dance with the ugliest girl in class, feeling disgusted that I would get her “cooties” on me (cruel!).

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I remember once reading that everyone on earth has unwittingly swallowed insects, usually in their sleep, and thinking if I was never aware of it, this was probably okay.

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I remember rubber thongs, slinkys, and silly putty.

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I remember full-service gas stations, with attendants (“may I fill’er up, sir”), and watching him spray and squeegee the windshield from inside the car.

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I remember coon-skin caps, Burp Guns, Mouseketeer Ears, and hoola-hoops.

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I remember when parking meters would accept pennies.

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I remember polio shots, castor oil, and merthiolate (hurt like hell). 

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I remember Lionel Train sets on Christmas mornings, and not managing to keep all the wheels on the track at the same time. 

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I remember going to the circus, watching the high-wire trapeze artists doing routines to the music of “Blue Tango” and always having a funny “sexual” feeling whenever I heard that music again.   

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I remember dirt-clod fights, and coming home so dirty your mom wouldn’t let you in the house.

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I remember “don’t ever get in a car with a stranger, no matter how nice they seem.” 

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I remember never locking our doors unless we were going on vacation.

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I remember running cross-country on icy mornings, it was so cold your face would be numb, and you'd get so exhausted your tongue tasted like copper pennies.

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I remember "eenie meenie minee moe" and "allee allee oxen free!"

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I remember sparklers, pin-wheels, and glow-worms, and not wanting to wait until it was really dark to start shooting off my fireworks.

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I remember, in the second grade, trying to get the attention of a girl to whom I was attracted, repeatedly tripping her as she walked by my desk, but just making her really angry.