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

Thursday, April 28, 2005

I remember my mother telling me about going under Niagra Falls on a boat, and that you had to wear a raincoat. (This is associated for me with the I Love Lucy episode about Niagra Falls, if there was one; and also the Three Stooges Niagra Falls routine: "Niagra Falls! Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch...." and then Moe or Larry falls upon Curly, who's said the dreaded words.) I wanted to do that, but I also felt disappointed; I thought it must be like showering. I thought you let the falls hit you directly. I was interested in waterfalls, maybe from James Fenimore Cooper or maybe from movies where people went over falls, and I'd never seen any. And somehow I wanted them to be more than just a tall shower.

posted by william 9:00 AM
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