Denise Enck:
I’ve been writing a piece about Ted and will post it here in a few days. But this this morning while looking through a cache of letters, postcards, and ephemera Ted sent me over the years, I found this recent item which I thought I’d share with you now.
Getting mail from Ted was always a treat. His newsy letters were often embellished with drawings or rubber stamps; sometimes he’d include clippings or other ephemera. No matter their appearance, they were always full of Ted’s wit & plenty of news.
For Christmas 2002 my husband Craig & I sent Ted & Laura a wine stopper. It was a blown-glass rhino atop a cork & was made in Africa. In early January I received Ted’s marvelous thank you! He even incorporated the package’s customs slip.
Harold Chapman:
… I was living in the Beat Hotel in Paris and a friend of mine, Thomas Neurath, had just taken a room there. He asked me in to see a mural on the wall. Graven into the plaster, covering one entire wall of the room, was a drawing… It was titled and signed “The chick that fell off a rhino, Ted Joans”… I met Ted by chance a few years later in the street… below are the first few photos I took of him while he was staying in the Hotel Stella in July 1966.
Rik Lina:
Here is the funeral ad. in the Dutch paper, signed by his artist-friends living in The Netherlands.
Mark Fisher:
I met Ted Joans several years ago at the NYU Beat Conference. He was standing by himself in a crowded room, a small coffin in his arms. “What’s in the coffin?” I asked. “Poetry,” he smiled.