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

Thursday, April 11, 2002

I remember pneumatic tubes, at the bank. This was to foil robberies. You put your deposit slip and money into a cartridge, sealed it with a satisfying click, and put it into a pneumatic tube. The teller (whom you could see on closed-circuit tv) was on another floor. I seem to recall that they used to also use pneumatic tubes at the library -- you'd put a book request or several in them, and eventually the books would come by dumb-waiter. But this memory might be a hodgepodge of several different memories.

I remember that when you took out a book from the New York Public Library (I would go to the St. Agnes Branch on 83rd and Amsterdam) they photographed the slips from the books you were taking out plus your library card. I thought this was interesting and efficent but expensive.

I remember also the library between my school in the Bronx and I think the Moshulu Parkway? A brick building. A few blocks farther was a sub shop where I leared from Lou Rossman to order roast beef subs with shredded lettuce and vinegar. Amazingly good, I remember: I've had roast beef only once since sophomore year, and that was to be polite to a dinner hostess who didn't know I was a vegetarian.

posted by william 7:08 PM
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