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, May 23, 2006

I remember several things that I only got to see once, and then not entirely, on TV. The movie of The Secret Garden, which I ended up pursuing by getting the book. But it wasn't the magical movie. Part 2 of the first episode of Batman. The Mutiny on the Bounty, which Hugh and I were really looking forward to watching one night -- he'd seen it before. But then it turned out to be on too late, or I got in trouble and wasn't allowed to watch it. I remember my bitter disappointment at that.

And the cartoon version of "Who killed Cock Robin" (" ' 'Twas I," said the sparrow, / 'With my bow and arrow' "), with the chorus of birds and animals singing the question over and over again. I came into the cartoon a couple of minutes late, but I loved it immediately, and looked forward to seeing the whole thing. I never have.

posted by william 10:42 PM
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