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, September 22, 2002
I remember my father listening to the news on the radio. He'd listen in the morning in the bathroom while he shaved. I remember him shaving and listening to news about the beginning of the Six Day War. I remember also riding in the car with him while the news reported, once, the death of John XXIII, and, another time, the death at 88 of Truman. If I'm not mistaken Truman outlived LBJ.


posted by william 12:03 AM
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