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

Saturday, June 15, 2002

I remember that when we went to the movies or to a play or concert, my father would hold all the tickets, and shepherd us in ahead of him past the usher. I was always self-conscious about this, thinking the usher would think we didn't have tickets; then my father would hand over all four. I was always impressed that we were never challenged, and always worried that this time we would be. I thought this was a complacent affectation on my father's part, making life more difficult for the usher, and not till years later did I realize it made life easier, since the usher could tear all four tickets at once.

posted by william 2:25 PM
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