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, April 29, 2008
I remember that you're supposed to get under a doorway in an earthquake. Hugh and I liked this knowledge. Suddenly (for a little while) doorways looked like impressive serene guardian spirits, somehow patricianly superior to the building that would crash down around them while we stood under their patient protection.

posted by william 8:43 AM
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
I remember that you used to signal that you wanted to get off at the next stop by pulling on the cord that was draped along the two sides of the bus, under the ads, in lovely catenary curves from eyelet to eyelet. When you pulled the cord a bell rang, and the driver would let you out at the next stop. No "Stop Requested" sign went up, so if you weren't paying attention you wouldn't know that someone had already rung, and sometimes the driver would be vexed by six or seven signals. And of course the kids liked signaling and ringing over and over again -- irritating the driver if he (always he) thought we were doing it intentionally, which we weren't always. Bus drivers in New York (I think this is still true) were unusually committed to countering antisocial behavior of any sort on the bus. Train conductors too. My father taught me great respect for them, and he was right.

posted by william 12:05 AM
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008
I remember that I hurt my leg a little once -- I think I banged it into a piece of furniture. Hugh had injured his leg or his knee (he had fragile knees we'd find out later) and was limping, and then I hurt my leg and started limping too. At dinner I was limping my way to the kitchen to get something or clear something, and my father told me to stop. So I did stop -- in fact I wasn't in any pain at all, whatever had happened was over -- I stopped or thought I did, but he got angry and told me to stop immediately. I tried to walk normally but he got angrier and angrier, and I didn't know what to do. The next day everything was fine though, but it was odd to feel that I just didn't remember how to walk, or maybe just couldn't even walk gracefully under pressure (like the boy in Kleist's story who notices his unselfconscious resemblance to the Spinario sculpture in a mirror, and then can never repeat the gesture that brought out the resemblance.)

posted by william 12:52 PM
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Sunday, April 13, 2008
I remember that you could read after you handed in your test. You weren't allowed to leave till the class was over, but the classroom was completely quiet (people were taking the test) and it was just a perfect time to read. In high school of course we could leave when we were done, and that was something of a loss.

posted by william 12:41 AM
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Saturday, April 05, 2008
I remember the fascination with which I watched the horse in front of me, during group riding lessons, swat at horse flies with its tail. It did it in synch with its plodding. The flies landed on its rump in the same lazy rhythm. It was all standard and pleasantly phlegmatic. It was just a way of rattling through the environs, like sitting on a rocking chair on a back porch, but the porch was just unhurried life itself on a summer's day.

posted by william 12:57 PM
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Friday, April 04, 2008
I remember my mother telling me -- we were looking at a rowboat or maybe getting into it on Lake Carmel, near Stormville -- that things would float if they had air in them. This was a fascinating piece of knowledge -- I loved the fact that she knew it; but, but then she knew everything; and I loved the fact that it was true. (Later she would tell me about Archimedes's "Eureka" and how objects displace their own weight -- floating objects, but I don't think she quite knew that; she also told me about Pi but thought Pi really was 22/7).

I also remember her telling me, at the dining room table, how "water always seeks its own level," a wonderful and lucid precept that had for me the force of revelation. What was revelatory about it was the combination of description and fact. It was something I knew intuitively, but not that strictly or perfectly. And now I did. But I was also awed by the clarity of the formulation. It was possible to say these things perfectly! My mother and water were two similar and perfect intelligences -- why, it turned out that water could seek, had intention and agency, just like my mother -- each of them in absolute tune with the other, which is to say, with how things are.

posted by william 10:22 AM
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