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

Monday, June 24, 2002

I remember how trucks were unloaded into supermarkets in New York when I was a child -- particularly at Key Foods on 92nd Street. The truck parked on the street, a side door opened, and crates were sent down a sort of tilted ramp covered with loud rollers. Half-way down the ramp was a gap for pedestrians to go through, where one of the relay people stood. When the gap was clear he'd grab the crates barrelling at him and toss them onto the next ramp. From there they went down to the much steeper rubber treadmill through the trap door in the sidewalk and into the basement of the store. I seem to recall as many as four people working these relays. One inside the truck would toss crates to the person at the top of the first ramp, who would send it down to the guy at the gap, who would toss it onto the second ramp, at whose bottom a fourth guy would put it on the treadmill: of course there were people off-loading in the basement too. I don't think I've seen this in years: I think now all supermarkets have loading bays into which the trucks back up. The rollers with their metal wheels were really loud, just as rollerskates and scooters and skateboards were really loud. There was something comforting -- substantial and solid -- about all that noise and competence.

posted by william 11:35 AM
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