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

Saturday, June 14, 2003

I remember red and green kryptonite. Green kryptonite was just toxic to Superman (though not to us). Red kryptonite always had some unexpected effect, different each time. I was impressed, in a semi-conscious way, that they didn't overdo it as a plot device, since they could use it for anything. I also seem to recall one episode about the rare yellow kryptonite, whose effect I don't remember. I remember being amazed when I saw real kryptonite once -- I was thrilled and surprised that it existed. (Did this mean that Krypton itself had once existed? Since kryptonite was supposed to be from the break-up of the planet.) I saw it, maybe on a school field trip (though I seem to recall my mother was there too), probably at the Museum of Natural History but maybe at the World's Fair.

posted by william 1:13 AM
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