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

Saturday, March 16, 2002

I remember pneumatic drilling outside the classroom window -- maybe in fourth grade?

I remember standing in line in the lobby, waiting for school to start, arranged by height.

I remember the sixth grade monitors, and hall passes to go to the bathroom.

I remember being sent to the principal's office, Mrs. Eben.

I remember the vice-principal, who was infinitely nicer and who once took our class as a substitute teacher.

I remember notes home on little canary slips that you had to get your parents to sign. I once managed to dodge this by repeatedly "forgetting" to bring the note back. Then spring vacation came and after vacation, Mrs. Brenner forgot to ask for it.

I remember another time of sheer fun -- jumping on the Sterns' trampoline, which we found next door. We scattered when Mr. Stern saw us, but he chased us and invited us to jump, and then his youngest son Geoffrey and I became best friends. We did flips in the air and went way up high. It was the kind of trampoline later outlawed as too dangerous -- if you fell the wrong way on its frame you could break your neck.

posted by william 6:24 AM
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