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

Friday, November 09, 2007

I remember getting my first zip-up coat. My earlier winter coats used buttons. My mother knew -- again with that adult savoir faire that was so impressive to me -- and remarked to my father that the zipper on this coat was very different from the zippers I was used to (on my space-suits), since you had to bring both sides together and then zip up. The zipper wasn't already attached at the bottom. I couldn't even conceive of such a thing. But she knew all about it, and even knew how to zip up my coat, which she'd do for me until I learned how myself.

(I remember also being amazed, probably before this, that zippers worked. I think Hugh tried to take the apart to see how they worked. My attitude was -- and still is -- that if you dismantled it enough to see how it worked you'd never be able to get it to work again.)

posted by william 11:36 PM
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