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

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

I remember the hair dryer that someone brought us from the States, with the "Do not remove under penalty of law" tag. Detectives and cops in American movies seemed to be competent and powerful, so I imagined they might figure out if I removed the tag and show up at my door.
I was itching to try to tear out the tag just to see what would happen. It was a bit like the temptation to put my foot on a book intentionally with no one watching -- would there be retribution for that? One could never know, so I played it safe.

posted by sravana 12:49 PM
. . . 0 comments

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