Joe Brainard

This book presents a selection of Joe Brainard s letters stretching from 1959 to 1993 offering an intimate view of his personal and artistic life

Discover the works of Joe Brainard, whose quirky style earned him a reputation as a recognizable American phenomenon and oddball classicistwith a foreword by 4321 author Paul Auster (John Ashbery) An artist associated with the New York School of poets, Joe Brainard (1942-1994) was a wonderful writer whose one-of-a-kind autobiographical work I Remember has had a wide and growing influence. It is joined in this major new retrospective with many other pieces that for the first time present the full range of Brainards writing in all its deadpan wit, madcap inventiveness, self-revealing frankness, and generosity of spirit. The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard gathers intimate journals, jottings, stories, one-liners, comic strips, mini-essays, and short plays, many of them available until now only as expensive rarities, if at all. Brainard disarms us with the seemingly tossed-off, spontaneous nature of his writing and his stubborn refusal to accede to the pieties of self-importance, writes Paul Auster in the introduction to this collection. These little works . . . are not really about anything so much as what it means to be young, that hopeful, anarchic time when all horizons are open to us and the future appears to be without limits. Assembled by the authors longtime friend and biographer Ron Padgett and including fourteen previously unpublished works, here is a fresh and affordable way to rediscover a unique American artist.

Men recordo sallunya radicalment de les convencions del gènere memorialístic. Cada frase comença"Recordo..."i és seguida per un sol record. La successió de records -ni cronològica ni temàtica- que ba

An enduring gem, Joe Brainards I Remember is a literary and artistic cult classic. Brainards method was brilliantly simple: to set down specific memories as they rose to the surface of his consciousness, each beginning with the refrain I remember: I remember that little jerk you give just before you fall asleep. Like falling.Recollections jokes, confessions, daydreams and memories were carefully, lovingly woven together. They were of family and friends; of movie stars; of early heterosexual fumblings and later gay life. Brainards pared-back prose dodged both self-pity and judgement of others, and was written with an ear for musical cadence and an extraordinary painters eye. The result is witty, incantatory, profound and wholly captivating.

Joe Brainard era tan polifacético que él mismo parecía uno de sus propios collages. Más conocido como artista que como escritor, su incladificable libro Me acuerdo se consideró una obra excepcional desde su irrupcion en 1970 en el panoramo literario de Estados Unidos. Su impcto fue tal que, años despues, Georges Peres escribio su Je me soubiens bajo el modelo de Brainard, y se lo dedico a este. La formula es tan simple que escritores como Ron Padgett, poeta y gran amigo de Brainard, se pregunarom: . Su original forma, basada en un repeticion casi de mantra, recoge mas de mil evocaciones que empiezan con las palabras . Se trata de frases, en su mayoria breves, que activan un resorte en la mente al rescatar imagenes con las que han crecido varias generaciones de todo el mundo. Una entrañable mirada a lo mas intimo de la vida de Brainard y un retrato de la cultura y del imaginario popular del Estados Unidos de los cuarenta y los cincuenta. Paul Auster

“Me acuerdo es una obra maestra. Los libros supuestamente más importantes de nuestro tiempo serán olvidados uno tras otro, pero la pequeña y modesta joya de Joe Brainard perdurará. Con frases sencill