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, October 22, 2005

I remember when my dog Jaeger stood up in the morning, or got up from a nap, he shook his body all over, a rapid shuddering that started with his head and ended with his hindquarters. Because of his jowls and his somewhat loose skin, the shaking made a sound like a flock of pigeons taking flight. Or sometimes he would get up from a nap and not shake but stagger, drunk with sleep, to another, presumably still more comfortable spot. He would move unsteadily from the couch to my bed or his, or from a bed to the couch, seemingly without ever having woken up, and then he’d drop heavily, sighing. I loved that in him: that he would heave himself up from one bed to find another, softer bed.

posted by Carceraglio 3:40 AM
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