“Looking at Joseph Riippi — 6″4, wild hair, hands that eat mine in a handshake and a imposing presence — you would never suspect the sensitive, tender writing that flows from his prodigious mind. Given all of our collective wisdom I should know by now not to conflate the physical and the emotional, I should be aware of the discrepancy between our physicality, largely unchosen, bestowed, and our interior worlds molded by our choices, our experiences, and the choices of other people, but given his daunting physical presence coupled with a rare empathic tender effort in his writing, this mistake persists with Riippi.”