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, March 27, 2007

I remember someone asking me, senior year of high school, "Are you a head?" I didn't know what they meant. This was at the bottom of the hill near Broadway and 250th street or so. We drove there in driver's ed; I remember that Keith Outlaw once slammed on the gas rather than the brakes when Mr. Moran told him to slow down as we approached the intersection, and Mr. Moran quickly slammed on the pedal that he controlled from the passenger's seat. That was scary, but I was impressed with how quickly and successfully he reacted. But this time we were just walking down the same street, and possibly I was smoking a cigarette; certainly it was a non-smoker who asked me. After a brief panic, it became clear that I didn't know what they meant, and then they said that if I didn't know it was because I wasn't. I don't know how I found out the meaning of the term -- this was (just) before headshops became popular or well-known. But I found out within the next few days, and eventually became a head when we visited Boston for the Model U.N. Brent sang "Don't bogart that joint, my friend," which I think is from Easy Rider, or maybe Arlo Guthrie, or both. Well, I didn't really become a head that trip -- I tried pot then but didn't know how to inhale. I think that came a week or two later.

posted by william 10:51 PM
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