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, June 22, 2012
I remember watching how the varsity goalie (Mike Stevens, All-American!) and the best fullback knew just where to line up on a corner-kick, the goalie standing straight and tall at the far goal post and the fullback at the other. The were partners, and they knew what they were doing. Later when I played goalie I loved thinking of the quasi-professional knowledge that I had: where to stand on a corner-kick. I had my place, and the goal itself marked it out, the goal post a schema and rough sketch of me, standing contiguous too it, just as Mike had.


posted by William 6:50 PM
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