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, September 07, 2003
I remember "Blow in my ear and I'll follow you anywhere," from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In. (That's also where I first heard of Burbank: "Beautiful downtown Burbank," which I then thought of as Secaucus, NJ to L.A.'s New York. (My father had to go to Secaucus on business lots.) Blow in my ear and I'll follow you anywhere. This was funny because it was silly; I didn't know then how close to true it might become.

I remember "Jeffrey Cohen's Laugh-In." He was the hilarious class clown in sixth and seventh grade (at the Franklin School) and maybe fifth too (at P.S. 166). He had some wonderful obscene routines. I seem to recall he was kicked out for his wildness, but I'm not sure about that. He was very funny, and lived for Rowan and Martin.


posted by william 9:51 PM
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