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, November 21, 2004

I remember autograph albums, that some kids pulled out when we were graduating fifth grade. I remember Amos had one. It's one of maybe three things I remember about Amos, the other two being his name (and how it reminded me of my grandfather's Emil), and that he lived east and not west of P.S. 166, since I either went to a party once at his house or I saw him going home one day in the opposite direction -- I can't be sure. The autograph albums were oblong, with waved, cream pages. It seemed strange to me to be asked for my autograph, since I wasn't famous. I assumed that the autograph albums I had read about only had the signatures of the renowned in them. I didn't have one, and I don't think any of my close friends did. But it turned out my father did, and still does, I think, from when he was in high school or maybe even earlier.

posted by william 2:17 PM
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