Joshenilia (14)
By:
March 20, 2016
One in a series of posts exhuming the juvenilia and significant objects of HILOBROW’s Josh Glenn.
Summer 1986 — a few weeks after graduating high school. I’m sitting on the front steps of my father’s house in Jamaica Plain; he took this photo. I used to buy glass bottles of Coke by the case — in the old wooden cases — from Ruggiero’s, a neighborhood convenience store whose entire stock seemed out of date.
My brother Pat worked in the kitchen of a summer camp. That summer, some cereal brand was offering glow-in-the-dark bracelets as a prize, and Pat — whose job it was to open dozens of cereal boxes every morning — shared with me his impressive collection of these childish novelties. I’m also wearing a Keith Haring Swatch, here — I swapped something to somebody for it, then later swapped the Swatch for something else.
READ MORE essays by Joshua Glenn, originally published in: THE BAFFLER | BOSTON GLOBE IDEAS | BRAINIAC | CABINET | FEED | HERMENAUT | HILOBROW | HILOBROW: GENERATIONS | HILOBROW: RADIUM AGE SCIENCE FICTION | HILOBROW: SHOCKING BLOCKING | THE IDLER | IO9 | N+1 | NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW | SEMIONAUT | SLATE