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, September 07, 2020

I remember my grandmother would collect jokes from magazines, which she'd retell at bedtime during our Hyderabad visits. I think those were the only times I've ever laughed to sleep.
I don't remember if she clipped them or copied them out, but there was a notebook. When I started to learn to read Telugu, I'd clumsily try reading them, but with the great effort it took, the punchline was usually disappointing.

posted by sravana 11:48 PM
. . . 0 comments

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