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, March 06, 2003

I remember several times that I went to the circus. I'd seen it on TV, and was suspicious of it -- how good could it be? But my mother told me about the human canonball, and I have to say, that was pretty amazing. He was shot from one end of the hall to the other, where he landed in a net. I remember he had on a helmet -- in the old-fashioned football or motorcycle style. This was one of those very interesting moments when my mother had more expertise in a purely boyish thrill than I did -- this was very impressive of her.

posted by william 11:41 PM
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