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, February 24, 2009

I remember one time there was a party at the dojo after class on Saturday. I didn't know it was coming, but after I got out of the locker room it was all set up. My adult white-belt friend was hanging out with the Sensei and with lots of other students, both kids and adults. There was lots of party food in the entry area (not on the exercise floor, of course). The sensei was sitting at his desk, relaxed, having a good time, very different from usual. Then as I was getting ready to go, they delivered pizza, so I hung out some more.

They were listening to a tape of classical music with the pizza. I heard my white-belt friend say, "Hear that? Every performance has mistakes in it." The sensei rewound the tape and we all listened to the violinist scrape his bow in some spasm of unintentional motion. I had never been able to hear the differences between performances before -- in vain did my grandmothers take me to hear Serkin and Rubenstein (though I liked their kindly looks). But this was a mistake I could hear, and I was proud of that -- not proud that I could hear it, because it was obvious, but proud to be part of the group of people listening to this tape and all hearing the same obvious lapse.

The party was still in full swing when I went home -- I didn't want my family to wonder where I was. But it turned out to be early evening when I got there (I didn't have a watch, so I had no idea what time it was). My grandmother was beside herself. I'd thought I was about half an hour late. But I'd spend four extra hours at the dojo. That afternoon was one of the best times I'd ever had: it just slipped away in fun.

posted by william 8:46 AM
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