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

Thursday, February 19, 2004

I remember being disturbed by the large hydraulic mechanisms that slowed down slamming doors, especially doors out of buildings, doors with EXIT signs, at school and perhaps at my uptown grandmother's building. The mechanism was asymmetrical. It was big. It was vaguely anthropomorphic, like a huge arm, sleeve rolled up past the elbow. That anthropomorphism made it seem as though it chose to be mechanical rather than human. This seemed an adult choice. So it seemed adult: powerful and indifferent to the way it disturbed me. Now I don't notice those mechanisms any more.

posted by william 12:12 AM
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