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, March 10, 2004
I remember when you could see things across the world, live, on satellite! I seem to recall the first satellite transmission I saw as being of some Soviet leaders, maybe talking to U.S. leaders. Possibly it had something to do with Kruschev, before he was removed from office. I remember that you could tell these were European leaders because they were wearing hats. My teacher (were we watching this in school?) was very excited that we could see them live. I recall that it was in black and white (of course it was -- all TV was. But this really looked black and white) -- it seemed that we really were watching Europe because of the graininess and the B&W and the hats, all somehow different aspects of the same thing.


posted by william 5:14 PM
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