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

Thursday, October 24, 2002

I remember the pitching rotation for the 1969 Mets. Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman (the only lefty, I believe), Gary Gentry, and Nolan Ryan. Sometimes there was a fifth starter, but I don't remember whom. The battery -- is that word still used in baseball? -- would usually feature Jerry Grote as catcher, but sometimes the marvellously named Duffy Dwyer, who pulled a shoe-polish trick in the 1969 World Series. Gil Hodges was manager. Cleon Jones and Tommy Agee were almost always in the outfield, and Ron Swoboda, slow but a great diver, was often the right-fielder. I just barely forget the shortstop's name -- he hit a homerun on his first at bat in the World Series? Or was it his first at-bat in the 1970 season? I think he only had two homeruns in his career. But he was a great fielder. I remember that the Mets always won their first game, from 1962 on. Then they'd lose plenty in a row.

I remember meeting Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra at Grossinger's. They were at a nearby table. I didn't really know who they were, but I got an autographed baseball from them. Later we played with the baseball in Riverside Park, and the autographs were obliterated.

posted by william 12:24 AM
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