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, November 06, 2005

I remember that both my grandmothers sewed. But my downtown grandmother used a Singer sewing machine (which I would always associate Isaac Bashevis Singer with) at our house, with two pedals. I never understood how it worked. She had a sewing kit which stayed at our house too, large and oval, metal with red flowers, not roses I think, on a field of black. My uptown grandmother had a smaller sewing kit, metal and square, turquoise green and textured. My downtown grandmother used pins with colorful plastic heads: I still associate pins like that with her. I can almost hear her voice when I see them.

posted by william 12:45 AM
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