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, December 18, 2005

I remember the first time I remember trying not to fall asleep when I was supposed not to fall asleep. I was babysitting for some people I didn't know so well, on the other side of the building. The children had gone to bed, but it was getting late, and I was lying on the rug in their living room waiting for them to come home. I fell asleep, woke up, determined myself to stay up, fell asleep again, and woke up to their return. I don't know whether they knew that I'd been asleep or not -- and of course it would have been fine if they did; but somehow I didn't know that. I do remember the pleasure of getting paid on the spot, though.

posted by william 8:33 AM
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