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

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

I remember that what's now Filene's Basement on 79th and Broadway was once a pool hall -- at least the second floor was. I went up there once, thinking it would be like the bowling alley on 72nd, but it was much seedier and kids weren't allowed in. I didn't know that an official commercial place could be that seedy. It was empty and dusty and not at all appealing. (Probably it looked better after dark, when it was full and the dust didn't show.)

posted by william 9:07 AM
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