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, March 28, 2011

I remember learning to type: asdfg hjkl; In bed for much of 1985, recovering from one laser surgery after another, I sat with a tray and an old manual typewriter on my lap and practiced drills off a library book. asdfg hjkl; asdfg hjkl; asdfg hjkl; The dry cramped experience I hated most bitterly: meaningless repetition of meaningless marks--no plot, no character, no rise or fall beyond my clumsy, disobedient fingers. No one forced me. That book was my own hateful choice, trapped for all those loathsome blank weeks, asdfg hjkl; asdfg hjkl; asdfg hjkl; asdfg hjkl; asdfg hjkl;

posted by Rosasharn 8:35 PM
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