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

Sunday, November 16, 2003

I remember a game you played with three pennies. You made a goal with your pinkie and index finger extended from the fist pressed to the edge of the table, and your opponent flicked one of the pennies through a gateway made by the other two. You couldn't flick the same penny twice in a row, and if you missed the gate or sent the penny off the edge of the table it was the other person's turn. The aim was to flick a penny into your opponent's goal. It was always harder than it seemed it would be. There was something interesting about the different but related sensations of extending two fingers and jamming the others to make the goal, and curling your index finger to flick the penny if you were on offense.

posted by william 1:04 AM
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