LOVE, JOE

[I'll only be there on video, and my reading includes graphic sex  so be forewarned] 

Love, Joe – an evening celebrating the publication of Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard Wednesday | 10/30 | 7:30pm reception, 8pm event | The Parish Hall @ St Mark's Church

Please join us for an evening celebrating the publication of Love, Joe: The Selected Letters of Joe Brainard, edited by Daniel Kane. Joe Brainard was one of the most distinctive figures on New York City’s vibrant cultural scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Widely known for his influential experimental memoir, I Remember, Brainard worked in a variety of forms, from New-York-School-aligned poetry to Pop-Art-adjacent artworks, including wild riffs on the comic strip character Nancy. Love, Joe presents a selection of Brainard’s letters that stretch from 1959 to 1993 addressed to artists and friends such as John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, Fairfield Porter, Bernadette Mayer, James Schuyler, Alex Katz, and Andy Warhol. The letters, edited and annotated by Daniel Kane, allow readers to witness an extraordinarily fertile moment in New York’s history, when literary and visual arts intersected with happenings, proto-punk and psychedelic rock concerts, and experimental music and dance performances. The evening will include readings by Tyhe Cooper, Kyle Dacuyan, Heather Denton, Mike Funk, Brad Gooch, Vincent Katz, Michael Lally, Ann Lauterbach, Keith McDermott, Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, and Nicole Wallace. We hope you can join us at 7:30pm for a reception before the event. This event will also be livestreamed for free on The Poetry Project's YouTube channel.

TICKETS

Daniel Kane's publications include All Poets Welcome: the Lower East Side Poetry Scene in the 1960s (2003), We Saw the Light: Conversations between the New American Cinema and Poetry (2009), and Do You Have a Band? Poetry and Punk Rock in New York City (2017). He lives in Copenhagen and teaches American literature at Uppsala University in Sweden.

HYSTERICAL

 I eat dark chocolate every day, and I'm not stopping. But, I found this internet meme hilarious.

VERY FUNNY, AND NOT SO MUCH

 

NEW LIST

Woke up this morning with my mind working on a new list which became my top fifteen favorite films with a single first name as the title:

AMELIE (2001)

ANNA (2019)

BELLE (2013)

GILDA (1946)

GLORIA (1980)

JUNO (2007)

LAURA (1944)

LUCY (2014)

MARTY (1955)

NINOTCHKA (1939)

PHILOMENA (2013)

ORLANDO (1992)

RAY (2004)

RUDY (1993)

SABRINA (1954) 

STOLE FROM A FRIEND'S PAGE (MORE THAN "QUITE" AND NOT SO "SOLEMNLY"—IN FACT THE OPPOSITE OF)

 

SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE

Watched the first season of SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE, and now it's my favorite show. Set in farmland outside Manhattan, Kansas, (a place I knew well in the 1970s when old friend poet Robert Slater taught at the community college there and invited me to read my poetry to his students every year). The cast (led by Bridget Everett) is fantastic playing misfits dealing with other misfits sometimes realizing we're all misfits. So much fun and poignancy and originality, highly recommend.

ME NOW

 
[spent my life almost always being on time or ahead of time, but with Parkinson's this is me now]

25

Some favorite photos of my son Flynn: as a toddler (while visiting friends in Martha's Vineyard, photo by Rita Stern Milch), and pre covid a few years ago clowning with me in a Jersey cafe, and staring into the camera while modeling for an ad campaign, also pre-covid, He turned 25 yesterday and my heart is full of gratitude for the great gift of his presence in my life. 

HAD TO SHARE

 

FIRE ISLAND

 
Joel Kim Booster wrote, produced, and stars in this loose adaptation of Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE update to the 21st Century and set in the summer vacation getaway, especially for gay men, FIRE ISLAND. Directed by Andre Ahnm and co-starring Bowen Yang and Margaret Cho, it's worth seeing just for the fact it's a Hollywood style rom-com that stars Asian-Americans who happen to be gay (a first as far as I know), let alone that it's at times uncontrollable laughter inducing.

It's mostly light but has enough serious issues depth to anchor it to present realities (pre-covid though) and give us a reason to switch allegiances as in the Austen version (Conrad Ricamore as the Mister Darcey reincarnation is excellent, as is the entire cast). Perfect summer fun movie, though with much more sex than the usual Hollywood hetero norm fare (fair warning). Hope it's successful enough to pave the way for more trailblazing movies like this one. 

NEW FAVORITE MEME (made ME laugh)

 

LATEST FAVE QUOTE

 

STORY OF MY LIFE (OR A LOT OF IT)

 

BEST RESOLUTIONS

 Don't remember where I copped this from but totally cool new year resolutions from woody guthrie:

[click to enlarge]

SEASON'S GREETINGS

Part of one of my many yet to be organized bookcases (photo by Hannah Bracken).

[click on photo to read]
 

NEW FAVORITE INTERNET MEME

 

                                                    

                                                   [thanx to LA friend Bill Wilson]

R.I.P.

 click here 

MY FAVE QUOTE OF THE OLYMPICS SO FAR (FROM ONE OF THE IRISH GOLD MEDALISTS)

When the BBC asked how it felt being an Olympic gold medal-winning athlete, O’Donovan said: “It’s alright, yeah. You can’t complain about it really. I wouldn’t go around introducing myself like that though.” (my peeps!)

[Before 1924, Irish athletes competed as part of the Great Britain team. One of the first notable acts of protest at an Olympic Games came in the special Athens event in 1906, when, having finished second in the long jump, Ireland’s Peter O’Connor climbed up the flagpole during the winners’ ceremony to replace the British flag with an Irish one he had smuggled in.]

IN THE ETERNAL NOW

My dear longtime (35+ yrs) friend, the writer/actor Jamie Rose, has been staying with me since Weds (leaving for LA today) and here's what that's looked like (the photo of me attempting to give the finger with two old guy gnarled hands cracks me up)...

IN THE HEIGHTS

I cried, I laughed, I moved to the music, I couldn't stop smiling as stars were born, a new favorite musical made a future list, I already want to watch it again (this time with the captions on so I don't miss a syllable of its delightful theatrical genius), oh and make sure you stick around for the coda after the end credits!