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

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

I remember the day my mother made croques-monsieur for a party. It was very hectic. She made all these sandwiches, and then dipper them in egg! And fried them! And then trimmed off their edges! It was like seeing the invention of a new food (not just a variation on something I was already familiar with.) I tried one, and it was delicious. Even though it had swiss cheese in it. This was the first time I saw the appeal of swiss cheese, taste-wise. (I'd liked the holes but hated the bitterness.) And of ham. I ended up staying in the kitchen eating all the trimmings. As far as I was concerned the croque-monsieur was a major success. But I don't think she ever made them again, probably because they were too labor-intensive.

posted by william 6:39 AM
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