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

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Agoraphiliac remembers:

I remember the only time I ever fainted. I was in my mid-twenties. It was a hot summer day, and I had been sick, had been taking codeine for a bad cough. I was standing in a long line at an un-air-conditioned health-food store.

When I got to the cashier, he said "How are you today?" I was filling out the check and my vision narrowed; I could see only part of the check and everything else was swirling black and green. It seemed important to answer the cashier's question. How was I? It was so hard to say. I said, "I feel...." and I paused, struggling to find the right word. And when I found it, I was so pleased, I said it decisively and with great satisfaction: "Faint!"

Then I was on the floor, looking up.

--Cross-posted from Agoraphiliac's Livejournal

posted by william 7:17 AM
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