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 02, 2024

I remember learning the word coincidence from my mother. I don't remember what I was surprised by, but she said it was just a coincidence, and since I didn't know the word she explained it. It seemed just wonderful that there was this benign term for how the world would sometimes get in synch with itself -- that two things should just come together cheerfully and wholly in the present. She'd pointed out something lovely.

posted by William 7:14 PM
. . . 1 comments
Comments:
What a beautiful recollection. It was a foretaste of the joy of literature which consists of words.

# posted by alma : 2:23 PM

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