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

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

I remember certain words had a near-charismatic force, like the tremendous word tackle in "tackle football." We almost never played tackle -- to scary, too rough. Once when I did I was amazed by how hard you got slammed when you were tackled. The Kennedys were famous for playing touch -- I remember two-handed touch and one-handed touch -- but tackle was the transcendent thing. Later I think first cigarettes and then deconstruction gave the same thrilling feeling.

posted by william 7:45 PM
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