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, October 26, 2002
I remember Grossinger's vs. The Concord. I liked Grossinger's and never went to the Concord -- always wondering what I was missing. I liked the huge meals there. We'd go there with the Schubins winter vacations to ski. I remember some day camp there, some child-care affair, and the counseller offering me (or anyone) a dime to drink from a horrendous mixture of water, salt, sugar, ketchup and God knows what else. I think I had a sip and won the dime.


posted by william 12:49 AM
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