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

Sunday, June 26, 2005

I remember my surprise when Hugh Cramer unpeeled the red vinyl handlebar tape from his bike. I thought of the tape as part of the whole thing, and it seemed liberatingly wrong to be able to take it off without detriment to the mechanism. Hugh set a style for us of riding with bare metal handlebars. Later he would strip fenders and chain guards from his bike, to make it more efficient. (He had just the mechanical aptitude I lacked.)

posted by william 9:02 AM
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