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, August 06, 2006

I remember the first time I ever tasted a bagel. I was in my first year of law school and my classmate, Barbara Aronstein (who later under the name Barbara Aronstein Black became dean of Columbia Law School), invited me to spend a weekend at her family's summer house in Monroe, NY. We were having brunch and I was offered a bagel with cream cheese. I did not know what it was, but when I tasted it I thought it was ambrosia. I think bagels are one of the great contributions of Russian Jews to civilization.

posted by alma 9:41 AM
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