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

Monday, April 06, 2020

I remember learning four-letter words from Hugh. One day, probably in third grade, I was at their house on 89th street. He and his older sister Gloria (three years older than us, I determined today) were sitting in the kitchen and in an excess of candor I asked them what fuck meant. They both replied simultaneous incredulity, as in a Shakespeare play where two speech prefixes precede the same line, "You don't know what fuck means?" I assured them that I knew what shit meant, but they weren't even slightly impressed. Gloria had Hugh take me to the other room to explain.

I was troubled and told my father about the bizarre process that Hugh had sketched out. He told me it was true. I couldn't believe it. (Later he told me he was a little unhappy that I'd learned the facts of life from Hugh.). I tried to imagine what that would be like. I wondered whether I could really pee -- since I imagined it had to be something like peeing -- on command in that situation. It all seemed very implausible. But my father assured me it wouldn't be, later on.

Today came the news that Gloria died ten days ago of Covid-19.

posted by William 8:31 PM
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