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, January 09, 2003
I remember Silva Thins. Also Benson & Hedges 101's. "A silly millimeter longer -- One-oh-ones -- a silly millimeter longer." There was an ad in which some safe crackers get caught because they spend the extra moment afforded by the extra millimeter. Also an ad where someone gets in an elevator and the closing door clips his cigarette.


posted by william 12:17 AM
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