I remember / je me souviens

I remember / je me souviens

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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, November 16, 2015

I remember the appearance of Jews for Jesus. They put up signs and posters everywhere one summer. Posted bills. I was intrigued by one of their lamppost signs one day. It looked like a protest. In large letters it read:

NO MORE

JEWS

FOR

JESUS

But printed underneath that in smaller letters was:

But we're here anyway.

Jews for Jesus.

I liked the rhythm and the epistrophe (the repetition of "Jews for Jesus" at the end of both slogans). I kept thinking of it and repeating it as I walked to work, and my preconscious continues to do so from time to time.

posted by William 10:36 AM
. . . 0 comments

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