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

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

I remember that there were always seats at the back of the bus. My downtown grandmother knew this. I was skeptical when she claimed that if we went to the back of a very crowded bus there would be seats there. But she was right, and later I would confirm the truth of this wisdom for myself. I don't recall my uptown grandparents ever riding the bus, although my uptown grandmother must have when she came to our apartment. But my downtown grandmother was an expert in bus travel, and I admired her expertise.

posted by william 11:59 PM
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