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

Monday, August 10, 2009

I remember Embassy Florists (where we got flowers for my grandmothers) and Morris Brothers, which always reminded me of my downtown grandfather, both because of his Americanized first name (Morris) and because of the kind of jackets and slacks they got me there.

posted by William 11:29 AM
. . . 1 comments
Comments:
I remember that we always bought jeans there and that there were several helpful salesmen. I also remember the shoe-store with the footstool the salesman sat on to pry the shoe onto your foot. The slopeing foot-rest had black, ridged, rubber matting.

# posted by caroline : 3:47 AM

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