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


Tuesday, May 29, 2012
I remember being surprised that my Latin book had such a good translation of Martial, and also that Martial was so modern:
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell. The reason why, I cannot tell. But this I know, and know full well: I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.
I wondered a bit about what kind of doctor he was, and why his name didn't sound Latin.


posted by William 6:18 PM
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