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

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

I remember my grandparents teaching us to play cards. We played Black-Jack (21), Poker (five- and seven-card stud, mostly), and we played Bridge. I remember my grandfather trying to teach me to think about my hand: Not just how to hold my cards or count my points, but how to think about what contract I ought to be in, and what was out against me. "Count your losers," he would say, "count your losers"—but I would get so caught up in what I imagined doing with the cards I had been dealt, my enthusiasm would cloud my sight.

posted by Rosasharn 10:05 PM
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