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

Friday, June 13, 2003

I remember another couple of Superman episodes. They may be the same one. In one -- somewhat like the one in which Superman learns to pass through solid walls -- he learns to levitate people, at about three feet above the ground. First he puts them into a hypnotic trance, and they go catatonically stiff. This is very useful when some walls are compressing inwards. It looks like Superman will have to keep them apart, letting the bad guys do whatever they plan to do. But Superman levitates someone -- Lois Lane? -- and her stiff and horizontal body keeps the walls apart. Later she complains of a headache. The other thing I remember is Superman and some other people trapped in an elevator. He could get out, of course, but to do so would lead to the others' death. (Maybe, come to think of it, they're in a bathysphere, under water.) He figures out a way to undo the top of the chamber and pull the whole thing up the rope that it's attached to. I thought both the trap and his response were very clever.

posted by william 1:37 AM
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