I remember / je me souviens
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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


Friday, February 11, 2005
I remember that I started I remember / je me souviens three years ago yesterday, and that an enormous amount has changed in the perspective of the rememberer, and also that the kinds of things that I remember and haven't yet posted are very different from the kinds of things I was recovering or just noting at the start; and also that some of the things I've posted I forgot again until browsing; and also that somehow I missed the third anniversary yesterday, which seems like some allegory about remembering.


posted by william 12:14 AM
. . .
0 comments
Comments:

Post a Comment





. . .