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, April 16, 2002

I remember Gimbel's, B. Altman's, and E.J. Korvette's in Herald Square. I could never quite parse the cursive writing on the Altman's bag -- did it start with a B or an A? My grandmothers shopped at Altman's, so to me it seemed slightly dowdy, but I think this was actually and artefact of where my mother worked and where my grandmothers lived.

I remember my two favorite restaurants to go to with my parents: La Fonda Del Sol, in I think the Time Life building, on 50th street and Sixth, and Bambi's, on Madison across from 180 Madison Avenue where my father worked at the time. La Fonda Del Sol was South American, and they had a strolling band and also sorts of cheesy foods. But I remember best chewing on the sugar cubes whenever anyone looked away. Bambi's was a sandwich place. I used to go with my father to his office on Saturday's during "tax season," when he had to work, and he or his partner Ed Zeitlin would give me a list of numbers to enter into a ledger or to add up. I thought they were relying on me, but of course.... Sometimes I had to do homework there too. We would have lunch at Bambi's and I always ordered a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich on rye. I have a dim sense that I got the idea of this sandwich from Perry Mason -- that is from the Earle Stanley Gardner novels. My father always suggested rye toast,but I wouldn't give up the tried and true. I think I had a brownie a la mode for desert.

I remember the Perry Mason TV shows. I loved Raymond Burr. (My father had a friend who looked just like him: Abe something.) That's why I read the novels. I was surprised that when in one of the novels Perry Mason and Della Street are pulled over for speeding, and Mason explains to the cop that "I'm an attorney," and shows him his card, 1) the cop doesn't know who he is (I thought he was famous, like James Bond); 2) the cop doesn't realize he's a good guy, making a cutting comment about "these defense attorneys." "Where's the fire?" the cop asks, and Mason replies without missing a beat, "In my office." Della is unhappy. She gets out of the car, and the cop follows Mason to his office. There, it turns out, there isa fire, a tiny one, much to Mason's relief. It turns out that Della has called the office and told them to set a fire where it would do "about $10 worth of damage," and thus saves Mason's bacon.

I remember Paul Drake, Mason's investigator on the TV show. I think that when I first learned what a drake was, I saw the resemblance. Paul Drake, like Perry Mason, was big and tall, and I loved seeing those two tall men conferring together. They made Hamilton Burger look so puny.

I remember when the actor who played Ham Burger got on TV to do an anti-smoking public service ad (I think he smoked in the series). He was dying of lung cancer, and he informed us of this on the ad. My reaction was, "Good," since he was Mason's antagonist on the show.

I remember how surprising it was to see Raymond Burr in A Place in the Sun and in Rear Window.

posted by william 9:54 AM
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