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

Thursday, October 14, 2010

I remember power-cuts. (Should I say blackouts? The word doesn't convey the same thing to me. A power-cut is a temporary, normal interruption of electricity; there is something sinister and unexpected about a blackout.) They were usually on weeknights around dinner time and it was usually dark and raining. Depending on how hungry we were, we'd postpone dinner, or eat it by candlelight. Food is strange in that light -- familiar dishes suddenly look foreign and something about their taste is subdued. We weren't allowed to read under candles, so we had to set aside homework and sit together and do nothing and talk. I remember that if I had a test the next day, I would try to quiz myself in my head -- not very effective. At some point, we got a battery-powered lamp, but it wasn't really much better than candles, just a harsher light. I think I was allowed to study under it on occasion, if it was particularly important. I remember the annoyance of mosquitoes and sometimes, heat, and I'd often think how strange it was that comfort relied so heavily and almost solely on fans and electric mosquito mats.

I remember that the power would come back on with a sudden burst of light and the less sudden whirring of the ceiling fans. The sound of them turning on would start with the light, increasing within a few seconds, but only a few more seconds later would the coolness hit. I remember that my brother and I would race each other to blowing out the candles.

posted by sravana 12:33 AM
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