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

Wednesday, April 03, 2002

I remember when radios and televisons had to warm up. You turned them on and it took about ten seconds for a radio and maybe 20 for a t.v. to turn on (the sound would come on first on the t.v.). Movies set in the pre-transistor era don't preserve this fact -- they have these things turn on immediately.

I remember that when you turned the t.v. off the picture would collapse into a bright dot at the center of the screen that would fade very slowly.

I remember when it was a mark of the quality of a portable radio (a transistor radio) how many transistors it had. I remember the schematic diagrams in the 9-volt battery compartment, which I learned to read a little after getting my Heathkit Jr.

I remember likewise when it was a mark of the quality of a watch how many jewels it had. A good watch was accurate to a minute a day.

I remember self-winding watches.

posted by william 7:15 AM
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