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, November 30, 2006
I remember confusing the First Lady and Wonder Woman. I couldn't keep the names straight--Rosalind Carter and Lynda Carter. And since I didn't know how to spell their names or my own, Roselyn, only knew that My Name was That Name and that I had dark hair, red lips and a Wonder Woman leotard (underoos?), I wasn't certain if I were meant to be the First Lady or Wonder Woman, or both. What might these affinities signify?


posted by Rosasharn 12:05 PM
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