Postcards From The Past

I discovered Joe Brainard’s “I Remember” 8 years ago.

He filled it with simple, earnest, and seemingly random statements of things he remembered. One of his friends wrote: “Painterly in its vivid details and collagist in its hands-off juxtaposition, it is an accumulative, oblique biography . . .  much, much greater than the mere sum of its parts. [John] Ashbery referred to it, only half-jokingly, as ‘humane smut.’ It has that sweet, playful self-possession that pervades Brainard’s work.”

A sampler:                                                                                                     

*   I remember my first erections. I thought I had some terrible disease or something.      

*   I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie.

*   I remember when my father would say “Keep your hands out from under the covers” as he said goodnight. But he said it in a nice way.

*   I remember when I thought if you did anything bad, policemen would put you in jail.

*   I remember when polio was the worst thing in the world.

*   I remember a very poor boy who had to wear his sister’s blouses to school.

In May of 1994, Joe Brainard died of AIDS-related pneumonia.                                                                                                                                                                                                                 I used to listen to NPRs “Story Corps,” which isn’t anything like “I Remember,” except in spirit. People recorded their stories in their own words. Later, they were performed on the radio. I saw a lot in common with the two projects. I came up with a hybrid of the two I called Postcards From The Past. Postcards are odd anecdotes or vignettes about ourselves (but can be about anyone or thing) that have never been told. Minimalist in structure, they stand alone. If there is a moral or a point, leave it for the reader to figure out. Two writer friends (SB & MF) and I started writing and sharing them. I stuck them in a file. As of March ’23, we had 98 Postcards.

Postcards was “produced” at several WordSmittenWorkShop conferences in Florida. A few Brainard I Remember samples were read, people were asked to write one or two at their desks, then read them to the group. It went well. Nothing ever came of it and we stopped writing them.

When I started thinking about a Website, I thought about Postcards again as an interactive feature that could be shared. How that might work, I am not sure. Perhaps they could be used as prompts, but I don’t think of them that way. Ray Carver put it like this in On Writing, “Every good writer makes the world over according to his own specifications. . .. It’s akin to style, what I’m talking about, but it isn’t style alone.” He said the short story writer brings more than his literary skills to bear; he brings how the things of the world are to him or her— “like no one else sees them.” They are influences or forces or ‘fires.” He said he didn’t think he was ever influenced by other writers to write like them. Raising his children was more influential . Flannery O’Connor said you will have enough to fuel your entire writing life by the time you are twenty. And, holy shit, the craft of writing has nothing to do with it.

Some Postcards from The Past:

ONE [DF]

As a kindergartner I collected caterpillars. I do not know why. No one does. I filled the old school coffee can with holes in the lid with grass like kids do. Except caterpillars kind’a grossed me out so I used to hold out the can and tell whoever, "Hey, can you put that in the can for me?" and snap the lid down because I couldn't stand to look at them.

TWO [GC]

At sixteen my heroes were baseball and hockey players. But I was inclined toward heroes multiplied beyond imagination—Christian Martyrs. I loved how martyr was spelled. The holy suffering -- rosaries times five. Not to scratch when itchy, etc. These things I offered to purify myself, to retard my desire to masturbate less than five yards away from my blessed mother in the kitchen doing her crossword, while I sat behind the door on the toilet. I could hear her breath.                                                                                                                                          I put marbles in my shoes. I stomped around the neighborhood, each step a penance, each yard insurance against another abuse of self.                                                                                            "How are you doing in there?" she'd ask. I’d add a marble and limp out the door down the stairs into the street. 

THREE [SB]

When I was around 4 years old, and my parents were packing up the apartment in preparation for our move to the suburbs of New Jersey. The entire living room was filled with boxes.  One box that was roughly as tall as me and barely wider. It was always standing up, leaning against the wall, with no top.  I spent a lot of time standing inside that box looking out at the rest of the boxes.

SB may possess a sharp sense of imagery or have an acute flare for plot structure, but I rather think her time spent in that empty box, and reflected upon today, had more to do with what kind of a person and writer she is. I was introduced to Joyce’s Ulysses by a girl at a dance when I was 18. The next day I found it in the library. So, was I influenced more as a writer by the girl or Joyce’s unique style? Who knows? But her name was Mary.

Want to share a Postcard From Your Past? Email it to gerryc1916@aol.com