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, July 03, 2009
I remember the Mitch Miller Show. My uptown grandparents watched it Sunday nights, I think. It was either before or after the Danny Kaye Show, so I tended to confuse them when I was little. But somehow I didn't like the Mitch Miller Show as much -- it might have been the name Mitch which I didn't like; or it might be that I don't really like the name Mitch because of its archaic association for me with the show. I remember horns that whined a little too much, and the name Mitch still has that whiney feel for me now. (Apologies to any Mitches!)


posted by William 12:57 PM
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