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, December 31, 2010
I remember the sudden cruelty of friends and just as sudden reconciliations.

posted by Rosasharn 1:12 PM
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0 comments


Thursday, December 30, 2010
I remember giving Nina a box of fat crayons for our second birthday. I remember wanting to keep them for myself. I remember a conversation on my father's lap in which we reviewed our agreement that when I turned two, I would give up the bottle. I remember the feeling: something inevitable, final, unavoidable.

posted by Rosasharn 10:46 AM
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2 comments


Wednesday, December 29, 2010
I remember whole conversations with my friend Avri made of lines quoted from Beatles songs. We could say anything with their words.

posted by Rosasharn 12:39 PM
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0 comments


I remember that Mayor Lindsay's failure to dig Queens out of a snow storm for a week was a mortal blow to his political career. I remember the V was for Vilet.

posted by William 12:58 AM
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0 comments


Saturday, December 25, 2010
I remember that my father would stick his tongue a little bit out of the side of his mouth as he concentrated on putting various "assembly-required" toys together. That expression of concentration-demanding hard work is one you can find in Peanuts characters passim. It seemed to me natural and obvious, but I notice that I never do it, and I don't think anyone else does anymore.

posted by William 7:14 PM
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0 comments


Monday, December 20, 2010
I remember books I read in fourth grade because books were so precious in Israel: Little Women and Little Men and The Swiss Family Robinson and Dr. Doolittle (and from my Lipincott reader which I had brought from school and which struck me as utterly insufficient, The Walrus and the Carpenter and Riki Tiki Tavi) and The Little Princess and National Velvet and Black Beauty and The Secret Garden and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Or maybe I don't remember them: I'm sure I had access to Miri's library, and I don't remember what I borrowed from her, only what my extended family sent me. I remember writing in the little red Record book my parents gave me as a diary that year. I remember drawing a map, in color, of our first apartment, the little place on Rechov Haportzim, in Katamon. I don't remember learning how, but I did learn to crochet in school that year, and I remember that it was hard for me. With great difficulty, I made an ugly piece of uneven pink crochet-work, but it was sufficient to get a passing grade on the assignment. And later I improved. I also made a beautiful hand puppet boy, with yellow yarn hair and embroidered features, whom I named Dan. I remember stitching his yarn curls into his fabric head, one by one. I loved making him.

posted by Rosasharn 11:39 PM
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0 comments


Monday, December 06, 2010
I remember how little pleasure nursery rhymes afforded me once I could read.

posted by Rosasharn 8:38 PM
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0 comments


Thursday, December 02, 2010
I remember seeing Yellow Submarine in the theater. I remember Steve's Ice Cream. I remember going to Harvard Square on summer nights and the street magicians singing If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a cake. I remember playing in a park outside a Catholic high school and my mom's distress that the girls all smoked while the boys played ball. I remember a sunny field at MIT. I remember a park a car-ride away that had a herd of letter-animals in orange plastic. I remember ball games late on Saturday afternoons. I remember the bitter cold, sitting in the yellow VW, and the realization that it just wasn't going to start.

posted by Rosasharn 7:30 PM
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0 comments


Wednesday, December 01, 2010
I remember the morning that Shandy could not stand up. My father tenderly picked him up and took him to the vet to be put to sleep.

posted by Rosasharn 9:18 PM
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0 comments





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