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

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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