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, December 23, 2018

I remember that I was always subliminally confused about Frank Borman (the astronaut) and Martin Bormann (the Nazi). My parents talked a lot more about the latter -- I think there was a rumor he'd actually escaped to Argentina, and it seemed a vague pity to me that he should have been part of the Apollo project. This was of coursed influenced by the true pity that Wernher von Braun was so central to the American space program. (I used to confuse Argentina with Arizona; hence my not getting the joke about Goldwater being "still alive and living in Argentina.")

posted by William 7:18 PM
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