Little-Known Facts about People
By Joe Brainard
Did you know that Kenneth Koch's wife Janice used to be
an airplane pilot? Once she had to make an emergency landing
on a highway.
When Kenward Elmslie was a kid he wanted to be a tap
dancer. Did you know that Kenward's grandfather was Joseph
Pulitzer?
Kenward once told me that Jane Russell is a dyke.
Andy Warhol wanted to be a tap dancer when he was a
kid too.
D. D. Ryan wanted to be a ballerina.
Did you know that Pat Padgett was Ted Berrigan's girlfriend
for years before she married Ron?
Ron Padgett and I were in the same 1st grade class together
in school in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Ron's father, Wayne, was a notorious bootlegger in Tulsa
until Oklahoma went wet.
A few years ago Ron's father got divorced and married a
beautiful Las Vegas showgirl younger than Ron's wife Pat.
Did you know that Bill Berkson was once bat boy for the
Yankees?
Ted Berrigan married his wife Sandy after having only
known her for five days.
Did you know that the first poems John Ashbery ever had
published were published in Poetry magazine under the name of
Joel Symington?
Did you know that Bill Berkson was on the "1oo Best
Dressed Men" list of 1967?
Rudy Burckhardt once dated Miss Vermont of 1938.
Donald Droll is in some way related to Daniel Boone.
Frank O'Hara once told me that what he really wanted to
be was a concert pianist.
Did you know that Harry Mathews started out to be a com-
poser? He studied at the Juilliard School of Music.
Edwin Denby was born in China.
Anne Waldman's father wrote a book called Rapid Reading
Made Simple.
Tom Veitch's father writes Christmas card verse.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a fashion designer, a
minister, and an artist.
Peter Schjeldahl's father is very famous in the plastic area.
He discovered the new lightweight plastic used in Bufferin bottles.
Soon he hopes to open a contraceptive factory in Red China.
Did you know that Bill Berkson was once on I Remember
Mama?
D. D. Ryan went to see The Boys in the Band with Jackie
Kennedy just a week before she married Onassis.
John Ashbery was a quiz kid.
Kenneth Koch once won the Glasscock Award.
Did you know that Ron Padgett has blebs on his lung
which may explode at any moment? They have exploded twice
already.
Tina Louise once sang "I'm in the Mood for Love" to Bill
Berkson over London broils at P. J. Clarke's.
Did you know that Ted Berrigan did his thesis at Tulsa
University on George Bernard Shaw?
Did you know that the Katz Tumor is named after Ada
Katz who discovered it?
Edwin Denby once performed in Berlin's "Wintergarten"
billed as "Der Amerikanische Grotesktaenzer Dumby."
Yvonne Burckhardt was the backstroke swimming cham-
pion of Connecticut for one week.
When I lived in Boston I used to panhandle on the street
where all of the art galleries were, and I got my cigarette butts
from the urns in front of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Did you know that Ted Berrigan's first book of poems, A
Lily for My Love, was published by the Lenox Bar in Providence,
Rd. Island?
Greta Garbo once called Bill Berkson her ice cream man.
I once went to a "come as your favorite person" party as
Marilyn Monroe.
Did you know that John Ashbery once worked in a cherry
canning factory?
Copyright Credit: Joe Brainard, "Little-Known Facts about People" from The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard. Copyright © 2012 by Joe Brainard. Reprinted by permission of The Library of America.
Source: The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard. (Library of America, 2012)