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

Sunday, August 25, 2002

I remember change purses. There were the little feminine purses both my grandmothers had -- little pockets of vinyl with brass fasteners that snapped together to form what looked to me like a bow, a double loop at the top of the purse. These sometimes contained two compartments. In his very old age my uptown grandfather would carry a purse like this to take change to the store when my grandmother (who couldn't walk without a walker) would send him out to buy something. As with all her other assignments, he followed her instructions uncomplainingly, but to me it felt like dilapidation, this use of a feminine change purse. I remember the change purses sold in trinket shope in Italy, which I lover. They were of fake leather, often fringed, a shape square on one end and semi-circular on the other, and about a centimeter thick. You unfolded one and then shook the change out onto the flat area formed by the inside of the open cover. Sometimes there would be a kind of pull out drawer inside, which you could pull out into that edged cover area. The second comparment left room when shut for some paper money wedged behind it and the back of the purse. I guess I liked these because they didn't have the feminine decoration, and because they reminded me so much of Italy, which I loved so much -- they seemed so right for lire, and all the Italian boys had them.

I remember, thinking about shaking change out into the top of the purse, poker dice, which they had at the bar at the hotel in Bellagio, and which I loved to play. You rolled them out of a felt-lined leather cup (not unlike the backgammon cups that got me into some trouble later on). It was so easy to get four of a kind!

posted by william 1:05 PM
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