Joe Brainard: I Remember [Paperback]

Ron Padgett (Editor), Joe Brainard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2001

Joe Brainard's I Remember is a literary and artistic cult classic, praised and admired by writers from Paul Auster to John Ashery and Edmund White. As autobiography, Brainard's method was brilliantly simple: to set down specific memories as they rose to the surface of his consciousness, each prefaced by the refrain "I remember": "I remember when I thought that if you did anything bad, policemen would put you in jail." Brainard's enduring gem of a book has been issued in various forms over the past thirty years. In 1970, Angel Hair books published the first edition of I Remember, which quickly sold out; he wrote two subsequent volumes for Angel Hair, More I Remember (1972) and More I Remember More (1973), both of which proved as popular as the original. In 1973, the Museum of Modern Art in New York published Brainard's I Remember Christmas, a new text for which he also contributed a cover design and four drawings. Excerpts from the Angel Hair editions appeared in Interview, Gay Sunshine, The World and the New York Herald. Then in 1975, Full Court Press issued a revised version collecting all three of the Angel Hair volumes and added new material, using the original title I Remember. This complete edition is prefaced by poet and translator Ron Padgett.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Out of print for a decade, these memoirs of the artist and writer who died of AIDS last year include a new afterword by Ron Padgett.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Granary Books (February 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1887123482
• ISBN-13: 978-1887123488
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,404 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #24 in Books > Education & Reference > Encyclopedias > Children's
  • #53 in Books > Education & Reference > Encyclopedias > Art

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Pocket-Sized Proust, March 14, 2001

By 

Arch Llewellyn "arch-l" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joe Brainard: I Remember (Paperback)

I just picked up a copy of "I Remember" at a Joe Brainard retrospective at the Berkeley Art Museum last weekend. All the warmth, humor and good-natured silliness of his art are here in these "poems"--1-3 sentence reminiscences that meander from his Tulsa childhood to sexual experiences in New York in the mid '60s. It's tempting to quote individual lines, but I'd best leave the writing to Brainard. Just dip in anywhere and follow the flow from objects to advertisements to remembrances of friends or incidents or walks, all woven together by the nostalgic refrain: "I remember . . . "

Brainard records impressions like a camera, not trying to make them mean. Without pretension or irony, he mananges to describe an America of a certain time and place more vividly than longer, more macho efforts to capture The American Experience. Brainard makes it seem easy, and he passes the fun on to you. Read, remember, enjoy.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Little book I used to live in, November 9, 2005

By 

Jack_Hughes (southern California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Joe Brainard: I Remember (Paperback)

Ah, this little book. "I Remember" is a tiny, funny, heart-warming masterpiece composed entirely of microscopic reflections and remembrances: but like the human body itself, which is of course made up of tiny microscopic cells, the book's one- and two-sentence units of "I remember this or that" recollections gradually build up into a living, breathing, singular human presence.

This book has also become a cult classic for writing instructors, as it often helps unlock a particular gate for students, enabling them to write about their own lives in an open, vivid, and funny way.

(Note to parents and subject-sensitive readers: the book does contain some frank discussions of sexuality, including gay sexuality. Although these passages are honest, humane, and often funny, occasionally they can be a little bit graphic (though not at all trying to be 'shocking' or 'offensive,' simply honest.) But it does mean that the book is not meant for very young readers. Use your judgement.)

Warm, intelligent, vivid, and screamingly funny. To read Joe Brainard is to love the man. We miss you, Joe.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evocative memories of America and growing up, February 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: I Remember (Mass Market Paperback)

Your reader from Florida was obviously unmoved by this book. A pity. In a poetic series of alternately charming, dry and sometimes tragic aphorisms Brainard constructs a personality from minutiae and individual bits of personal memorabilia. Both haunting and touching I found this to be an extremely gripping read. Any interested parties might be keen to know that a British version of this was published by the writer Gilbert Adair in his book Myths And Memories. It's not that bad, though not a patch on the original.