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

Saturday, June 13, 2026

I remember inching along with my friends on the ledges outside the walls of the plaza behind the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on 89th street overlooking the low part of Riverside Park to its west. I remember it was generally not that frightening except when you got to that side of the plaza, which was a couple of stories above the rocky ground.
I remember the cannons that are still there, on 88th street, where I tried to teach my sister to ride a bike.

posted by William 4:43 PM
. . . 0 comments

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