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


Sunday, May 05, 2002
I remember S&H Green Stamps. There was a booklet that showed you the amazing things that you could get: TVs and camping equipment and outboard motors. I think we once managed a toaster.

I remember amphibious cars. I saw them a couple of times. I remember seeing two drive right up to the edge of Lake Carmel and then into and through the lake. Can this have really happened? Or was I just seeing a boat rolling down off a trailer? But I remember it vividly.


posted by william 7:42 AM
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