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 26, 2006
I remember seeing my father walking through the apartment one day with his hands clasped behind his back. This was the first time I'd ever noticed this way of walking, which I asked him about. It seemed really interesting and unintuitive, and I tried it for a while. Thinking about it now I realize that I never walk like that. But he certainly did, and not just when he was thinking.


posted by william 8:54 AM
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