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 06, 2003

I remember that my father used to have a big glass top on his desk, with notes and some pictures underneath. I remember that I would sometimes hide notes from teachers or report cards under other slips of paper under the glass. Then they would be there if I was challenged about them, but not noticeable if I could get away with it. I remember the odd way paper had of slipping and sliding smoothly under the glass, which I guess it was drawn to by static. It was a kind of upside down two-dimensional aquarium world that these papers lived in. It all made it all the more plausible if paper slid under other papers. I have also a kind of physical memory of trying to align certain sheets under the glass with its edge. You could push but not really pull, so it wasn't an entirely easy thing to do. I'd use hard cardboard or junk mail to retrieve sheets that went in too far.

posted by william 11:22 PM
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