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

Monday, June 09, 2003

I remember the first day I went to karate class, at the dojo on 72nd street. The class was intense and I didn't quite get it. There were a couple of greenbelts my age in the class, one of whom was sobbing with effort as he drilled: I'd never seen anything like it. We got a demonstration a weekend or two later, and he broke three boards. The sensei was very charismatic. After that first class we all sat on our heels and meditated, eyes closed. But I couldn't quite understand his English, and wasn't sure I was doing the right thing, so I kept peeking. He was always right in front of us, facing us, eyes closed. After a while he said something and everyone got up. I changed in the locker room, but on my way out he stopped me and rebuked me for opening my eyes. I was impressed that he'd known this, since his own eyes had been closed every time I looked. It was a very effective trick -- or not a trick exactly (as it would have been in a movie analogue) but something not quite fair, since obviously he'd opened his eyes to see me open mine. But he was charismatic enough to prevent me from really articulating this to myself, or from doing it firmly, at any rate.

posted by william 12:46 AM
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