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, February 22, 2004

I remember Ralph Petrillo saying of various smoking athletes at our school that the could work off the effects of smoking by training. Our soccer team coach said if we were caught smoking we'd be kicked off the team, because the carbon monoxide would interfere with our aerobic efficiency. But I liked the idea of being able to work off the effects of smoking. I started smoking senior year. We all smoked in the pool room in the basement of one of the school buildings. I think you weren't supposed to smoke there -- only on the porch of the art building, where the administration could see you (and stop you if your parents hadn't given you permission) -- but really no administrators ever came down there, and how could you play pool without smoking?

posted by william 7:44 AM
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