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, December 05, 2004

I remember different food habits and utensils, that marked family differences. That is, I remember that the Schubins, I think, had corn-cob holders in the shape of corn-cobs that you stuck into the ends of the cobs; also they ate their corn with butter, which we didn't. I liked the corn-cob holders. I thought they should be symmetric (since they had different designs) around a cob, but no one else seemed to care. I remember that most of my friends had salted butter -- the Hoges I'm sure about -- whereas ours was always unsalted. I preferred salted. And I remember that the Hoges, again, had plastic mustard dispensers, sort of like at the movies or ball-park, maybe even sometimes pump style, with crusts of dried mustard around the spout, while we always had glass jars and used knives and spoons. We never ate peanut butter in any form, while most of my friends brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, sometimes at least. We never ate jelly either, but always jams, preserves, and marmalade (and honey too). But I got to eat PBJs on white bread at my friends' houses too. And they had buttered bread with cold-cuts, which we didn't. Salted butter. After sleepovers we got frozen orange juice, whereas at home it was always fresh-squeezed. I liked those more American utensils and products better, and it always felt a little bit like going out to eat when I ate at their houses.

posted by william 2:50 PM
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