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

Sunday, April 03, 2011

I remember my friend R's older brother, D. I stayed at R's house many times for Shabbat. D was sly: he caught me out watermeloning the words to the Bentsching (Grace after Meals); he made the most of R's moods (she probably got sick of me sometimes) and would invite me to play Sorry or Chutes and Ladders in his room when she got tetchy; and he was the only boy I can remember who propositioned me with the traditional "I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours" (I didn't). I liked him fine, most when we hung out with his friends. Their jokes flew so quickly, and they teased without meanness. I remember wishing I had an older brother.

posted by Rosasharn 11:47 PM
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