Gift Every Day  by  Christine Tamblyn

July 7, 1989

Dear Editor,
I decided to do a private work for you. The work entails sending you a gift every day, along with an explanation about the circumstances surrounding the selection of the gift.

July 10

The object in question is a mushroom brush made out of brown plastic. The store carried similarly designed green celery brushes and orange carrot brushes. The sales pitch claims that prospective buyers should stop washing vegetables, because of the risk of losing valuable nutrients. Instead, dirt should be removed by scrubbing with the appropriate brush. It may not be facetious to refer to mushroom-gathering as a genre of life art performance. For John Cage, the mushroom hunt epitomizes the receptivity of finding, as opposed to the aggressivity of searching.

July 12

It is difficult to maintain the energy to enact arbitrarily constituted scripts when worldly concerns press in. I suppose it violates principles of psychic economy. Since I keep feeling embarrassed and self-conscious about this piece, I've decided to end it by sending you a small rubber monkey mask.