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

Sunday, April 13, 2003

I remember the fifteen cent subway tokens. They were very small, smaller than a dime. Then I remember they went up tp 20 cents -- but it was the same token (why shouldn't it have been)? But when they jumped to 35 cents, they went to a different token -- the larger more modern sizes. The old tokens lost their value if you didn't turn them in, just as the remaining tokens are about to lose value now. These tokens still had the Y of NYC punched out. I liked the swooping logo -- large Y in the middle, smaller N and C crowding it with their curved shoulders on the sides. I used to like the feel of pressing my finger into the Y. It made me think of Braille, back when I thought Braille letters were shaped like printed letters -- a notion I think I was disabused of only when elevators started putting in Braille buttons. I was sorry to see the Y go, and the token turn into something more like a fake nickel or quarter.

posted by william 12:45 AM
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