I remember / je me souviens

I remember / je me souviens

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For those limbic bursts of nostalgia, invented by Proust, miniaturized by Nicholson Baker, and freeze-dried by Joe Brainard in his I remember and by Georges Perec in his Je me souviens.

But there are no fractions, the world is an integer
Like us, and like us it can neither stand wholly apart nor disappear.
When one is young it seems like a very strange and safe place,
But now that I have changed it feels merely odd, cold
And full of interest.
--John Ashbery, "A Wave"

Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
--Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

Friday, February 15, 2002

I remember Spaldings. And chinese vs. american handball (in chinese it had to bounce before it hit the wall; american was notional only and we never played it; if we had the ball would have been in the street all the time). You called "Ace-no higher!" if you wanted to serve, and the courts were the sidewalk squares of concrete. Width one square for each player's court, length two squares. And "Bhuddas up" if you lost.

posted by william 1:53 PM
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