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

Saturday, November 16, 2002

I remember lining up for a hearing test, probably in fourth grade. Hugh Cramer and Dickie Fleischer were on line with me, as well as some other people. Brian Seeman? The person who tested us wrote down an N after each of our names. Hugh told us with great authority that N meant excellent. Later, in seventh grade, I remember hearing Larry Cohen and some other people talking at the other end of a long double class-room with asbestos tiles. I could hear them perfectly. Larry was asking, "Have you seen Billy?" and I responded -- but had to raise my voice -- "I'm right here." He was amazed by how good my hearing was. Clearly an N. But the word acousticssomehow entered my mind at that moment, and I thought of saying it but didn't. I knew that the room carried sound well. I was kind of proud that he was so impressed, and I thought that he wasn't entirely deceived: there wasan impressive thing, namely my knowing the word "acoustics." And if the acoustics were so good, then he should have been able to hear me think the word, anyhow. I had heard it. So maybe my hearing was great after all.

posted by william 12:37 AM
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