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

Thursday, September 28, 2006

I remember my yellow jack-in-the-box. I remember it from the one time I played with it. This was either at my pediatrician's, Dr. Steffy's, office, or at my uptown grandmother's house, which was a couple of blocks away from her office. Both my grandmother's apartment and Dr. Steffy's office were old Washington Heights pre-War buildings, and they shared an ambiance. Dr. Steffy's office struck me as an apartment more than an office, which was unusual for me, since I always believed what designers wanted me to believe about interiors. Dr. Steffy had a waiting room, a consulting room, and a room with the instruments where she'd give you shots and listen to your lungs. The consulting room was what I am now unable to distinguish from my grandmother's house when I try to picture where the jack-in-the-box sprung open and terrified me. I think it shocked me away from feeling secure where I was -- for an instant I could have been anywhere, even the 93rd street sandbox where I'd sift sand. Somehow I thought the jack-in-the-box would be like my sifter and pail. But it wasn't.

posted by william 8:55 PM
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