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, June 22, 2005
I remember the little white crescent-flecks that appear on your finger nails when you injure them somehow -- smash or crush them. I think that's where they came from. They were like a little echo of the edges of your nails in the middle of the surface. I didn't like them very much, but found it interesting and curious how they would grow towards the tip and eventually merge with the edge and disappear when you cut them. As with
prune fingers in the tub, I don't think I've had this bodily experience in years. I remember how Spalding-pink and -rubbery my baby sister's feet got when she took a bath.


posted by william 11:11 AM
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