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

Friday, November 07, 2003

I remember, on my birthday, that it was maybe for my thirteenth birthday that my father got me the small pool table from Rappaports (which I've mentioned before). Recalling it now, I remember that there was some problem with it, and they took it back, and my father kept pressing me to call them to find out what was happening. But I was mortally embarrassed about calling stores about anything -- whether they had something, whether they were open, etc. So somehow I managed to dodge this call, which I now see was part of my father's campaign to make me more aggressive with other people in the world (but it was his aggression that I hated); what I don't understand is how it came about that he eventually let the matter drop (since I do know it was never resolved). This is one of those things where I don't know now whether to admire or disparage his behavior: did he decide, after full consideration, not to pursue it? Or did he just forget, as Miss Brenner did the note she sent home and that I never got signed (see entry for March 16, 2002)?

posted by william 10:16 PM
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