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, August 27, 2005

I remember 'Maaza is veri veri extraordinari.' I couldn't figure out why it was spelled so badly, or why the tagline was so lame.

I remember that Maaza was considered less unhealthy than carbonated drinks, so people generally bought it for their kids while drinking cola or orange soda (Thumbs Up, Gold Spot) themselves.

I remember my parents would give me Limca ('lime-and-lemony-Limca...') when I got carsick on long drives, because lemons are good for nausea. I doubt they actually use lemons in the soda -- at any rate, it usually made me feel worse.

I remember that a distant uncle owned (or had a large share in) the Thumbs Up-Gold Spot-Limca-Citra-Maaza brands, before they were bought by Coca-Cola. He was (is) known as 'Gold Spot Sathyanarayan.' I wondered why they picked that rather than 'Thumbs Up S...', since that was the most popular drink of the lot. I guess 'Gold Spot' had a fortune-making ring to it.

posted by sravana 3:09 PM
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