Loves

Late last year, I read a book review that began:

This book review is a Trojan horse. Ostensibly it concerns a collection of letters titled “Love, Joe,” written by the downtown artist and writer Joe Brainard (1941-94) to friends including the poets John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, Anne Waldman and James Schuyler.

Before we get to those letters, a historical wrong must be righted. Next year is the 55th anniversary of the publication of Brainard’s experimental memoir, “I Remember.” I hadn’t read it until I picked it up in preparation to write this piece. Now I consider it one of the best books I know.

I immediately ordered Brainard’s book. To call it a unique work would be an understatement. It is a small, 146-page paperback made up of one long list, entries of sometimes a few words to a few sentences, each beginning, “I remember.” Andrew Solomon wrote that “the primary mark of a good memoir is that it makes you nostalgic for experiences you never had.” Brainard achieves this in spades. I was reminded of people, experiences, and objects from my own past. I also enjoyed reading about his life.

Years ago, I started a list of “loves” on my phone. Every entry on the list is something that, at some point, I have paused and appreciated. I’m not sure why I started the list. Perhaps it was an effort to be present, or just to recognize the things that make me happy to be alive. The list has grown over time. I hope it keeps growing. So here, with a nod to Joe Brainard, I Love.

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I love listening to baseball games while cooking dinner 
I love working on the pottery wheel
I love podcasts 
I love reading the newspaper, sitting on our kitchen couch, in the sun, with a cup of  
coffee
I love the couplet:
	I drank the last of the coffee
	Waiting for you to arise 
	(Frances Quinlan)

I love talking to Sarah about something I can't discuss with anyone else
I love listening to my son talk about anything that excites him 
I love making my kids laugh
I love long conversations with my daughter about utterly trivial things
I love cousins

I love unhurried conversations with 1-4 friends
I love having a catch with a kid (or an old friend)
I love a run, a swim, or a bike ride
I love wandering through museums that I’ve wandered through dozens of times
I love to travel

I love Newcomb pottery, Ferragamo ties, and vintage Seiko watches
I love the Alfa Romeo GTV 2000, the Lamborghini Miura, and the Ferrari 308 GTB
I love paintings by Byron Gin and Russ Detwiler
I love sitting in coffee shops with Sarah
I love 2001, Apocolypse Now, and Airplane!

I love Bob Dylan
I love Rolling Stones albums (through Some Girls) 
I love REM albums (through Lifes Rich Pageant)
I love the A List (a playlist of my 912 favorite songs)
I love plotting with Sarah about child rearing or work issues

I love Michael Ondaatje, Haruki Murakami, and Colson Whitehead
I love Visions of Johanna
I love Driver 8
I love strong opinions lightly held (H/T Paul Saffo and James Stacey)
I love the ‘73 Mets, the ‘78 Yankees, and the 2016 Cubs 

I love pigs in blankets
I love aglio olio
I love bucatini alle vongole
I love ice cream sandwiches 
I love sfogliatella

I love "If you want to have friends you have to remember nobody's perfect." Jonathan Franzen
I love "The girl came in with coffee and buttered toast. Or rather, it was bread toasted and buttered." Ernest Hemingway 
I love "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Arthur C. Clark
I love "Disease only treats humans equally when or social orders treat humans equally." Jonathan Green
I love "Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards." Søren Kierkegaard

I love Chasing the Monsoon
I love The English Patient
I love The Art of Fielding
I love Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth
I love A Gentleman in Moscow

I love 2001: A Space Odyssey
I love Apocalypse Now
I love Before Sunrise
I love The Grand Budapest Hotel
I love When Harry met Sally

I love Paul Cézanne, Franz Kline, and Giorgio Morandi
I love that when I told my father that I loved Giorgio de Chirico, he replied, “All
       adolescent boys love de Giorgio de Chirico”
I love Villa Eva, Gelateria Della Palma, and Fontana della Tartarughe
I love Matchbox cars
I love the smell of Italian churches

I love salt bagels
I love guanciale
I love strawberry rhubarb pie
I love how parathyroid hormone regulates calcium homeostasis
I love the sound of frogs at night

I love that my parents visited Haverford without me in the spring of 1985 
I love that my father’s goal was to “make things a little easier for someone every day”
I loved my Saab 900 convertible 
I love night swimming (the activity, not the REM song, though the song is pretty great)
I love the Met, the AIC, and Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna

I love baseballs (“No other small package comes as close to the ideal in design and
       utility. It is a perfect object for a man’s hand. Pick it up and it instantly suggests its   
       purpose; it is meant to be thrown a considerable distance—thrown hard and with
       precision." Roger Angell)
I love Roger Angell
I love naps (especially while listening to baseball games)
I love swimming in the ocean with my kids
I love road trips

I love smells that bring me back 
I love songs that bring me back 
I love that getting pool water up my nose still brings me back to Brewster
I love that the smell of damp cardboard boxes brings me back to the walk-in
       refrigerators at Cifu grocers
I love Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk

I love The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
I love Kafka on the Shore
I love One Hundred Years of Solitude (though I have trouble with more than a day of
       actual solitude)
I love The Blizzard Party
I love A Moveable Feast

I love Promontory Point 
I love Sutton Square
I love The Arnold Arboretum
I love Jackson Park
I love Boboli Gardens

I love Noguchi coffee tables and Nakashima dining tables
I love Rawlings “Heart of the Hide” gloves
I love that my father already knew two of the three secrets I revealed to him before he
       died
I love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Nutter Butters
I love records

I love cheeseburgers
I love Chicago hot dogs
I love chocolate chip cookies
I love rice pudding
I love old friends