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, August 24, 2002
I remember the ads on the busses for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (before I knew who they or Stoppard were). And at the same place on the busses were ads either for How Now Brown Cow? or How Now Dow Jones? The latter was a parody of the former, but I'm not sure which was a play.

I remember another in the set of novelty trading cards mentioned a while ago: "You're a real peach" -- flip! -- "All covered with fuzz."


posted by william 12:26 AM
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