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

Saturday, June 25, 2005

I remember being surprised and delighted by the screen door in Stormville, when we first rented the cottage there in the summer (when I was five or six). I don't remember ever seeing screens before that, certainly not screen doors. In the city we didn't need screens (this has changed a bit since my childhood; there are more mosquitos in New York now. Is this because they used DDT then?) Screens seemed so elegantly clever, the mesh allowing air in but keeping bugs (especially bees) out. At first I was surprised that the house had two doors, but as soon as I understood I was captivated. I think I still am.

posted by william 9:09 AM
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