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Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard Edited by Daniel Kane Columbia University Press, 2024 I’ve really been looking forward to reading this book. I’m a member of the New York School Network (member, meaning I get their newsletter). There was mention of the book and a launch plus reading in NYC and I zoomed in. It has taken a while for my local library system to get the book. Truthfully, I forgot about it until when browsing the catalogue online, I was nudged: “you might like.” The letters are by no means complete, but the selection gives us such a wonderful window into the life/loves/passion/creative juices of Joe Brainard. It’s hard not to be impressed by such a shy, humble artist. He had an uneasy relationship with art, which doesn’t negate his contribution(s) to the New York School treasure chest of work. One cannot help feeling nostalgic for the simplicity of the times in which he wrote these letters. By the end AIDS and untimely deaths were complicating relationships...
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Dill Pickle Ranch Avocado Chipotle Chips

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 Dill Pickle Ranch Avocado Chipotle Chips   I’m at the grocery store, wandering the aisles. I come here because I know where everything is. It’s always the same—except the prices! They change every day. I am bombarded and in a constant state of hyper-alert. A fight or flight reaction—except I want to burrow into a hole. Sink beneath the sea. Until, I see: a front-facing shiny bag of Dill Pickle Ranch Avocado Chipotle Chips. What does this even mean?! I break down each word, the imagined flavor sensation, and am overwhelmed by the endless possibilities. Each one more fabulous than the next. This is inspirational, aspirational, a reach for the stars, a rocket to Mars! Then, I question: Is this layered or blended, a mishmash like swamp soup, a taboo mixing of all the Play-Doh colors? Or will I, with each flavor, begin an adventure? Travel to the Southwest, south of the border, taste the sweet and sour, the stinging salt and biting bitter. There is so much more to life than co...
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Betty Tsang’s Estate Sale

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 Betty Tsang’s Estate Sale   At Betty Tsang’s estate sale there are slow cookers, Instant Pots, and mandolin graters. On the counter are the everyday cutlery and the formal silverware. There are the special place settings, the weekday dishes, and the various plastic cups picked up from special events and fast-food restaurants.   Lots and lots and lots of empty pill bottles, melatonin yellow, catching and refracting late afternoon sunlight, making willow leaf patterns on the faded kitchen walls. The living room shag carpet is thick, like the rough collar outside the putting circle on a golf course. In the basement are golf clubs, several sets, and croquet mallets and primary color wooden balls. Like new! $20. Pay with cash or check. No credit! In the center of one room is a hospital bed. The shades are drawn. Surrounding the bed are stackers filled with more clean pill bottles, Chux underpads, plastic urinals, and pink water/ice pitchers. A wheel chair, folded, lines o...
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Another flash memory/memoir

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Telephone books. I know, I know. They don’t make them anymore. We used our Dayton and outlying suburbs book for me to sit on at Thanksgiving at the big people table. I remember as I got older checking for the last name of the boy I might have a crush on. Once calling and hanging up when their mom answered the phone. Scanning for names of people I might possibly call if I had the courage to see if they wanted to go sledding or play tennis. Activities where you needed another person. I remember feeling so lonely going through the directory. All these names and there was no one for me. I remember when on vacation the first or else first thing when I was bored, I’d look for a telephone book at the motel we might be staying at. And see if there were any other Feebacks in the area. That was my maiden name. A weird one. There’s a greater than average chance any Feeback in the area was related to us or originated in the Kentucky area where my father came from. From Ancestry: Where is the...
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After the cataract surgery

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I thought after getting my eyes fixed everything would be perfect. But, suddenly, I noticed how old I look. Is this how others see me? Grey, veiny, flabby, crepe-paper skin. Tea-stained teeth. Like an old Twilight Zone episode, the irony of good cancelled out, subsumed by a new revelation. The one thing that completes, now disrupts, throws the wheel out of whack. One step forward, one step back. Pull back the curtain. I can see so much more clearly: What others have known all along: This façade, these bones are sailing away Nothing is as it seems.
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