We Love You So – Where The Wild Things Are – Spike Jonze

You can often get a fair idea of what a book is like by glancing at the Library of Congress categorizations on the copyright page. In I Remember, a book by the late great artist Joe Brainard, these categories include:

*Childhood and youth
*United States—social life and customs 1945-1970
*Authors
*Biography
*Memory

I Remember isn’t a book in any recognizable sense of the word, though it does come printed on pages and bound with a matte cover. It is composed entirely of sentences that begin with the words “I remember” and form, within those constraints, an appreciable narrative. Excerpt:

I remember “Any little kid could do that”

I remember the first time I saw myself in a full-length mirror in Bermuda shorts. I never wore them again.

And so on. Those familiar with Brainard’s work will dig the obtuse (but personal) entry into his thought processes. Those unfamiliar with Brainard’s work will dig it for what it is: a sweet, gnomic account of days long gone.

“The world has in Joe Brainard a semi-secret maverick hero who will win new friends indefinitely,” says art critic Peter Schjeldahl. Well, the world had him for a few decades (1942-1994); now what we’ve got left is the genius poet/artist’s work, including The Nancy Book. It’s a classic of reappropriation, up there with anything that Warhol churned out and a lot funnier, too.

You’ll recognize Nancy as the cutenick from Ernie Bushmiller’s comic strip, Nancy. With her perennial bow and plump build, the character is an affable icon for Brainard to play with. The Nancy Book is an anthology of Brainard’s reappropriations, which involve plopping Nancy in all sorts of untoward and obtuse situations. Bushmiller threatened to sue, as people will, but nothing came of it. Nancy lives on.