I can’t account for…

So so so so so so so so much

I’ve spent much of this year getting to know the uncategorizable work of Joe Brainard (1942-1994). During his lifetime he was most well-known as a visual artist who did paintings and collages, frequently in collaboration with writers and other artists, particularly those associated with the New York School of poets. His prolific body of work blurred the lines between the seen and the heard, the depicted and the read, encompassing collage, sculpture, painting, and comics. He died tragically young of AIDS in the early ‘90s, but he left behind thousands of weird, funny, and fascinating works.

I hope to write a post dedicated to Brainard at some point soon, but in the meantime, I’m sharing a piece that was directly inspired by one of Brainard’s most iconic works, which is, atypically, a piece of writing. In 1970 he authored a hard-to-categorize book that’s part memoir and part poem, called I Remember. It consists of hundreds of lines that all begin with the same phrase: “I Remember.” (Get a taste of it here.)

Some of his memories date back to his Oklahoma childhood in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Some are about his life as a queer man in ‘60s Manhattan. Some are about something that happened earlier that day or week. Most of them are very small everyday details or anecdotes. Sometimes these memories string out in connected sequences, other times they leap around randomly. They’re all connected by only one thing: a single person’s memories. It’s very moving, not because any single thought is a mark of genius, but by the accumulation of simple, relatable details. 

In one of my own writing exercises, I tried to think of what an equivalent to “I Remember” might be for my own life and mind. I realized that I’m in greater awe of what I don’t know than what I do - there’s just so much more of it, after all. Here is part of what I’ve written.

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I can’t account for the patterns of the rain, why it falls sometimes harder and sometimes softer. 

I can’t account for the same fickleness in the patterns of fate - why some people turn awful despite all advantages and why others remain decent through the vilest oppression. 

I can’t account for sleep - why we need it, how it works, and why it’s impossible to get enough. 

I can’t account for the flight of birds - how can their muscles be strong enough to lift them up but light enough not to weigh them down? 

I can’t account for the human brain, that black box of mysteries and miracles. 

I can’t account for that sense of tenacity that drives people to try 1000 different things to reach a desired result. If I see a technical diagram of a complex, human-driven process, I think, how did they not just give up? 

I can’t account for my own sense of impatience. Obviously other minds are more systematic and committed than mine - that’s the only way things get done. So why is mine so different? 

I can’t account for a system that rewards infinite growth above all else. It’s clearly an impossible fantasy, and yet people believe in it enough to destroy the earth for it. 

I can’t account for the color of the sky. It’s been explained to me a million times that the atmosphere filters out all the other colors, but I still can’t stop imagining it as a vast blue substance, that if you get deep enough into you can actually handle - not a solid wall, exactly, but something soft and viscous without being slimy, which you can squeeze apart into little blue blobs that will recongeal the moment you stop manipulating them. 

I can’t account for the way some memories remain vivid for decades, while others - often rather important experiences - fade almost instantly. You only remember that big adventure through other people’s descriptions, but the way you looked at a tree when you were five is imprinted with hallucinogenic intensity. 

I can’t account for the slow, steady ebb of my energy as I age, and the corresponding increase in desire that accompanies it. I keep wanting more and accomplishing less. 

I can’t account for the human inability to reckon with what exists outside of our sight. I really hope evolution selects for individuals who have an ability to think and act holistically, because that’s probably the only way we’ll survive. 

I can’t account for the passage of time. Why can’t I pause it at will? 

I can’t account for my tendency to get sick more often than anyone else in my family. We are exposed to the same germs, so what made my immune system turn bunk? 

I can’t account for cellular growth in plants - animals I get, they eat things and the food turns into mass, but plants, with their water and CO² and sunlight, it just doesn’t add up. Where does the extra matter come from? Is it the soil? If a giant tree is sucking up soil, how come so much is left behind? Is new soil always coming in from elsewhere - washed in by the rains perhaps? I just can’t do the math.  

I can’t account for math, which increasingly addles me as I age - even simple sums require deep concentration, digits fleeing my attention like bugs from an upturned rock. 

I can’t account for the mild inflammation I feel at the back of my nose/throat cavity when I sit on a hard seat for too long - is my alimentary canal stiffening as I age, thrusting up my insides and scraping against the back of my skull? 

I can’t account for poetry and have no idea how to distinguish a “good” poem from a “bad” one beyond whether I like it or not. This also applies to books, movies, music, politics, natural beauty, and most people. 

I can’t account for the constant accumulation of dust in every corner of every room in every building everywhere at all times, with no hope of surcease even thousands of years after the last human breath. Related: How much dust is in space? 

I can’t account for my mad hunger for new books every day, every hour, especially as I already have access, in my home (let alone through libraries) to more books than I could possibly read in my lifetime. It’s almost as if coveting books and reading books are two completely different occupations, and I’m powerless to understand the distinction between them. 

I can’t account for the assumption on the part of my parents’ generation that home ownership is an immutable law of nature while I’ve had to slowly accept that any circumstance under which I own any sort of dwelling or property will be the result of extravagant coincidence rather than any sort of deliberate action on my part. 

I can’t account for the industrialized world’s extreme prejudice in favor of cars as the default mode of transportation - the messiest, least efficient, most dangerous and unpleasant option. 

I can’t account for the deep enjoyment I take in driving a car, despite my clear knowledge of their irredeemable awfulness. 

I can’t account for the world’s manifest lack of interest in my creative offerings of any sort. I’ve always felt my work to be offbeat but accessible, in a way that promises potential communion with a wide range of audiences while remaining distinctive enough to distinguish itself from alternative offerings - yet the overall indifference I’ve encountered through my life beyond a circle of 20-30 friends and family members with prior investment in me as a person makes me feel there’s some fundamental element to artmaking that I’ve consistently neglected or misunderstood, and everyone’s too polite or too scornful to tell me what it is. 

I can’t account for how hard a time I have getting back to sleep these days if I’m unfortunate enough to wake up for longer than 10-15 seconds in the middle of the night. 

I can’t account for nostalgia - my life and the world were not demonstrably better when I was younger, so why can’t I keep myself from longing for those times? 

I can’t account for the way grown-ups lie to kids, even in cases where the truth is less complicated than the lie. Is it a way for grown-ups to lie to themselves too? 

I can’t account for the decision on the part of Hudson Yards not to shut down that ugly public sculpture after the second person jumped to their death for it, waiting instead until four suicides were consummated before eliminating public access. I also can’t account for its continued embodiment of the sunken cost fallacy - empty, ugly, useless, and unpopular, yet enduring. 

I can’t account for the apparent lack of interest on the part of most moviegoers in a tradition of constant revival of classic and obscure films of the past across all of our nation’s multiplexes - I have to believe that, if people truly wanted that, Hollywood would easily figure out how to make it pay. 

I can’t account for the penchant of billionaire art collectors to indefinitely seal their purchases of great works from the public eyes as a form of personal “investment.” Surely an artwork that has been removed entirely from its context as a piece of our shared civilization ceases to retain its status as a work of art? 

I can’t account for the same phenomenon in billionaires who “invest” in luxury urban apartments that remain empty while jacking up real estate prices for regular folks across the city. That has to be considered a completely different market at this point, untethered by any relationship to life as it’s actually lived. 

I can’t account for people who refuse to condemn the hoarding of riches if they are not rich themselves. It will never happen to you. Stop pretending. You cannot escape death. 

I can’t account for people who put books out on the sidewalk for other people to take but don’t rush out and bring them back inside the moment it starts to rain. You may be finished with those books, but they still deserve to live!

I can’t account for books that are thrown in the trash before they are too tattered to read anymore. 

I can’t account for the ability of two creatures to create a third creature that retains various elements of the original two creatures while simultaneously standing on its own as a unique, unprecedented creature in its own right.  

I can’t account for the realization that people in old photos who appear to be so at ease might very well have been undergoing intense emotional pain. 

I can’t account for the splitting headaches that I get almost every Tuesday afternoon as the workday is winding down, which are largely unresponsive to painkillers and persist until sometime after I’m asleep; I wake up on Wednesday mornings feeling fine. 

I can’t account for my depressed and overwhelmed feelings whenever I throw out some random object that hasn’t been fully used, knowing full well that my contributions to the landfill don’t even register next to the massive waste that occurs across the planet every single second. 

I can’t account, right next to this, for my bold and accomplished feelings when I clean my house and throw out hundreds of such objects at a time. 

I can’t account for how badly I always want to eat lots of bread and fat compared to how badly I feel after I’ve eaten lots of bread and fat. 

I can’t account for how badly I feel after eating healthier food also, especially roughage, which I suppose might be a different sort of bad that is supposed to offer some sort of longer-term good. See also: exercise.

I can’t account for our collective inability to remain awed by the basic facts that rule our lives: that we stand on an orb that rotates around another orb and that another orb rotates around in turn, with the movement of these orbs determining every detail of our days; that our bodies are equipped with organs that allow us to discern variations in light (but not all light), sound (but not all sound), smell (but not all smells), and create meaning out of these non-sentient impressions; that we have words and numbers and shapes through which to understand ourselves and our world - all the things that children learn. Where does our awe go? Why aren’t we in the streets celebrating this every day? 

I can’t account for my feelings when I see evening sunlight reflected off upper-floor apartment windows. The lives of the people in there are surely as dull and inconvenient as my own, but still I long to see them, to understand them, to become them. 

I can’t account for my parent’s marriage; their divorce makes much more sense. Yet here I am.

I can’t account for the one-third of people in every place and every time who can’t seem to envision a world beyond their own fears and act to ensure no one else can either.  

I can’t account for the second third of people who allow the first third to do this despite knowing, with or without words, that they are wrong. 

I can’t account for my certainty that I’m part of the third third of people who are somehow above all this.  

I can’t account for the simultaneity of my disdain toward the prosperity of those more prosperous than me and my constant desire to be more prosperous. 

I can’t account for torture.

I can’t account for how I’m never ready to go to bed and never ready to wake up.

I can’t account for my nightly dreams of gigantic labyrinthine buildings, all down at heels with their best days decades behind them, a bit sad and oppressive on the whole, dark wood dimly lit, but with the promise of surprise and adventure if you turn the right corner into an unexpectedly expansive chamber to find light and movement, a festive gathering - it rarely appears, but you and the other searchers you pass in the halls always have an ear cocked, hoping to hear the faint music that will reveal where to go. 

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Can you account for any of these things? Please let me know. Also, add anything you can’t account for yourself in the comments. Perhaps I’ll continue this unaccountable list at a future time - if you’d be interested, that is.