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, July 01, 2025

I remember the pleasure of reading excerpts from books, even books I might not have wanted to read. I think they were published in the newspaper or a magazine every once in a while, but my memory is hazy. I might also be thinking of excerpts published in other books. Books that we didn't own weren't easy to come by; an excerpt had the same thrill of getting a free sample when you weren't seeking it, like the universe picked that day to give you a taste of something valuable without asking for any work in return.

posted by sravana 10:02 PM
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