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

Tuesday, March 26, 2002

I remember Bill-Dave's after-school recreational program. This was in the line of the after school programs Salinger writes about in Nine Stories. They'd pick you up in a van, and you'd go skating. The counselors had jackets with round Bill-Dave patches on their sleeves.

I remember a boy named Carrol who was my classmate in kindergarten at L'ecole francaise. He used to say: "Guess what?" What? "That's what!" I drove my parents crazy with this bit of wit. Amanda Plummer was also my classmate, but I don't remember her -- my father told me this much later. I remember a metal stairway, outdoors, in a cage, from the courtyard to the building at L'ecole francaise. I remember we had to take "dictation." I hated it. The first day I went there (a van picked me up and I remember driving to 96th street -- towards Washington Heights -- I threw a tantrum because I'd been told we were going to Lycee Francais, and when it turned out to be L'ecole francais I was sure there was a mistake. I refused to participate until the end of the day when I finally agreed to play hide and seek with the other kids.

I remember my father taking me to P.S. 166 when I was 5, to register for first grade.

I remember my grandparents taking me to Fort Tryon Park (which my grandmother loved), a short drive from Washington Heights. I liked going via the West Side Highway, because you entered through large arches overlooking the Hudson. One day I became sure that it was really Fort Ryan Park, and that my grandmother's accent made it sound like Fort Tryon.

posted by william 6:49 AM
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