Memory

after Bernadette Mayer

A partial account

In her words, first: "In July 1971, Mayer began experimenting with her memory. She shot a roll of 35mm film each day, and kept a rigorous daily journal. The project resulted in a staggering total of 1,100 photographs and nearly six hours of recorded poetry." In homage and upon the Siglio release of the project compiled into a book, I mimicked Mayer's exhaustive process according to some rules of my own: each day (for me, it was February), I read aloud + recorded the day's entry; marked my favorite spots with yellow tape and then typed them up; took photos of the photos in the book, moving more and more "in situ," remnants of my own life framing Mayer's. I recorded some fragments of my day in a grid reserved for this purpose. A few times I took 20 photos a day of my own, though on my smart phone.

July 1

Sometimes memory is just noise (22)

i love you you are deer we dont hear images from you

anymore what else can you remember nothing something else

parents, come to the hurricane, it’s on the first floor (23)

July 2

took a shower we exchange identities again (29)

frances on the street, I knew we would meet here converging

irresistible, I’m on my way home no we are (29)

in front of lights turns green & tracks all around in the middle

of the forest we light the interiors with generators we light

the forest with generators, and to set it straight if everybody thinks life is shit but me then isn’t this writing shit & old (33)

In front of the city where the silver moon always shines & someone’s always up, like the late show replaced by stars coming in thru your window (34)

July 3

a place with an old reputation every day or at least every saturday or at least every july 3 & after that we came home

& I went up on the roof to take some pictures. It was still a

clear day. (39)

smoothly into focus comes foods notes sounds taken in the

car taken while every one & every thing goes on moving in

some experiment with isolation (39)

new york post & put it down in case we die tomatoes from

italy are good. I have no way of remembering a day. (40)

a movie is only the result of two to three months exploration

of something, i tried to find a picture of karl marx when he

was young but i found it only afterwards (43)

nice little place you got here, i’ve got a great idea, let’s you

& i be honest with each other this isnt a nice little place &

you know it, well it is kinda, yeah it is (44)

July 4

country, drinking three cups of coffee to talk about anarchy, to write a letter to anne about an old worn out subject, the destruction of the tapes, feel the breeze the generation gap,

think about about watching another person, then creating one

for people to watch, understanding the desire to watch other people to understand them or just to watch them, to finding

any place to set things down then save this for later

& wait. (48)

I washed at least 3 blue shirts to take to massachusetts & overexposed them on the fire escape. (52)

& I thought it would be easier to write a letter to no on, a

letter to you in particular, but to wake up on a hot morning, have nothing really to do but everything & no money & no

very little sleep & very scared in the morning & to start doing things, you better start doing thing, like, the diary as a book--“the lowest form.” Everything’s high or low (55)

it’s sort of near the lower west village you know/great looking street/unbelievable i couldn’t believe it (59)

July 5

so you forget to see blue was morning was light on

whatever was light was new but you return (60)

get to see the trees moving like listening to them: what was

that, I can hear it in my head as you begin to repeat...let’s go back to that tree, that one, cross the divider, turn around, is

that the one? Is that the one that moved to listen? & what are

you listening to is it the line of the highway rising you hear it mark X on the sun (60)

If we continue fixating, this patch will vanish, then return

only to vanish once more (67)

July 6

You see what did you have for breakfast? French toast &

coffee & today pears colors of the pears colors of the

coffee (68)

Different brilliant colors. It’s one o’clock & susan strassberg

is walkin gaily down the street after a refreshing cup of

brilliant ochre coffee & a bun with rose madder jelly made of fruit orange juice peach juice & a dim pear. (68)

blue blue shirts in the cadillac top down drove to town but we

stop off christ-like at the dump. Born in a small space edging

to large remember: I won’t take them, not even for breakfast: (68)

I spend half my life, the other half, the driver’s door is open

& I am describing it. (75)

pretending to be children playing with a sailboat--son

in stream brother in river (75)

July 7

So lost so you’re lost how lost can you be when everywhere

you turn it’s morning & a flag’s going up over a map: 2 bean sprouts resting on a snow pea pod & then, it snows, it snows

for the first time it snows buckets it snows mainly. (77)

also some house with a title like swann’s way or windy haven, everyone here is dead serious dont go as far as the turn in

the road where you pass a white fence on the right & a

winding uphill road to a black & white house & dont go as

far as the next valley where the view is for miles & definitely dont go as far as the strange house (78)

we made a map which is sun which is shade & how many are accidents we almost hit a car there one day. And so, we pass jacques & kathleen’s house on our way home again 3 white chairs in front reflect light (78)

describe gold describe golf get married sink in the deep with

no regrets no one looking after him just drown, he could get married he could think, no one would taunt him about it & if marriage had an open end he could think it could become

misty in the light could drink light itself, add up the mileage conveniently open find out what’s inside he could work

live without light, he could candle & flashlight it, he could

ride in a convertible without seeing he could create a shortcut write about prayer he could set up lights take them down take pictures he could photograph lights he could be forced to, he could let the light in he could begin a day without a proper

bed he could freeze sentences in air, he could eat out, he

could drift in & out of a blue room he never woke up in he

could imagine a yellow one small, he could notice windows, how you see them (78)

“you’re in the wrong doorway!” You’re in the wrong home you’re sitting in the wrong sun writing in the wrong car

smelling the wrong burning hair all is wrong over is wrong someone said & someone said “functional & ornamental” &

the pictures are like all pictures are lie (81)

Do you give up? The ghost as well? Oceans right & left, since we’re always aware of it (81)

Between the thumb & forefinger of my right hand, between those a splinter zooms in quick (81)

That’s how it goes, both mother & father resemble police cars

& in the dark: a picture of a stone a picture of a mother superimposed on a father, a picture, a prize-winning picture,

of bird on tree. We never saw that one, we never looked at it,

we didn’t come from there, we grew up in the city, we grew

up in the shadow of the housatonic riverboat (82)

we put out fires after they begin, they burn for a while you call clouds passing all the while passing quickly in front of the moon, when are they coming when will they be ready. (82)

meanwhile we’re watching these certain clouds go by by the moon & I’ll hold a candle to your face if you’ll hold one to mine, the fireflies in no mood exposure to the moon will…(82)

it must’ve been the bed in the middle of the room caught fire in the, no, it was the matches left out in the moon. Light matches & perhaps you can see fireflies ed with a candle on his face, the big moon behind not long enough I’m lit candles in my hair my hair in braids but not tied (82)

bought sugar & evaporated milk, had coffee in real cups with water from the pipes left there, boil it, new tv, notes candles nectarines & many matches ed got a new kind of match today a permanent match eternal one. (85)

the firemen are back to help put out a row of candles sleeping, fifty or a hundred of them shapes like the body of a man or a crown, we light them all drink a cup of hot coffee & sleep in flames. Leaping around the notes we make about moon, sleep, middle of room, wake up clear & alter. It’s annabel lee or something: sharp knives cut fingers & hands, splinters get in they burn we swim at least we like to swim (85)

July 8

& geranium geranium hum spell that: cicada, ambient & transient. It’s over before it’s begun that’s a day & note, something’s biting me, the sun replaced the moon so we act

like people we woke up feel good get water from the pipes:

the house through the window shaped like a tree shaped like a house, luckily you work in time. (89)

he stopped himself, dried in the sun: you see it i see it, shoes

off, close to was where the paint brush through the trees dots.

I thought that brush was my memory closer from behind, in

the woods a gulf (89)

the people who have no interests are ahead (90)

kathleen’s braids are in a jar (90)

let’s just use the rain making something out of anything (91)

you whisper, blast explosion a soft ticket a boat a ground like

fur, a bed of leaves, nothing new, nothing that is really new, completely new you are in it, you are out (91)

that’s a thought: we’re in here, tree, listen to this: I die sigh resign I like you which of you is nearest, which is here, a

bath, a bath of trees a sea of trees, you think a fall of trees,

that’s there when I’m there, to make a tree fall, why not,

think tree does that make sense? Think tree does this ring

true? Think again tree can I talk to you? & further tree which

one are you? (92)

separately is your crisp tossed green salad with insects with

the steak joint’s own seagull-flavored dressing. (95)

We honor all major credit cards. Goodnight, meat (95)

July 9

Place: 2 bean sprouts resting on a snow pea pod & props (96)

Or reject it altogether leaving nothing to be ordered & everything lax in a mess in chaos in a muddle out of place cluttered in a maze in a labyrinth in a wilderness in a jungle

in tangled skeins & loose fixes (98)

I must have no respect for nothingness to photograph these scenes with sand or snow (98)

& we spent a long time discussing the color of that reflection

& it didnt come out the color it was & the question is do you think the reflection would have its own color & the answer

was it did & the question was no bit in the picture you

thought it would it would have its own color & the answer

was well it did (100)

& she said no july no july always seems to be about two

years ago almost as if you had been there & I said except

that I have a thousand ways to track it down & she said how

are you going to name the book july & i said maybe july &

she said if the light looks the same to you then but it never

does (100)

I mean that’s what’s so funny about looking you’ve seen

it (100)

& she said is that a window & I said yeah & she said that’s a door & I said no we’re inside & that’s a reflection & she said oh & I said this is all at night & she said it looked wonderful & I said yes a house where right out that window in the daytime you can see a tree just the trunk of it shaped like a house & that’s another part of the house & she said everything thinks it’s the same but there are changes in the texture & the color & I laughed (105)

July 10

I see a tree in triangles (110)

those green hills are reeds in the current, down. The camera

went with it back of me & someone says back of me that’s

the extent of memory, I caught it, I caught up with it (115)

you say there’ve never been any people in any of these

pictures from the country before & I just realized that there

were people in the town but you cant take a picture of just anybody stranger than the people you are with I mean the

ones you know well (116)

& I plan to braid my hair & eat breakfast this morning I remember taking a deep breath once I wish I could write backwards cause film doesn’t seem worth the trouble (116)

I make a design writing this & later I make something this time out of remembering (119)

July 11

You can see that the question I started out from has been

almost completely left out by now: I go to a place where

you cannot reach me or you go to a place where I cannot

reach you (121)

“We exit by the door & crash whim a square table reflected in

a window becomes round old ladies chewing slow & I hope

the table’s set (124)

it’s cold I wear k’s fringed jacket & we run into monday

through moon & clouds all over & clouds all night we shoot

the typewriter with jokes crazy moths (124)

I sleep & dream of k’s father burying food all over texas so

he could vacation wherever he wanted & dig it up dig it

down, there’d be food for him wherever he roamed (124)

July 12

& it’s one hour earlier than you think so the day goes slow as you sleep slow over the day as the parking lot, no, as the front yard blends into a parking lot (128)

pie & cheese 50 pudding 30 & in the middle prunes 25 &

pastry 35 & a picture of some fruit & grapefruit 45 pies 35

juices 25 cantaloupe 35 cantaloupe the great outdoors on ice induced a sneeze the place was air-conditioned but a woman

is not a seal or even a walrus (128)

radio where am I: get me water, water! The tall more toll

more sneeze it’s morning is it, we change lanes neatly (132)

my house was & you have to look around that sentence (132)

10 to 5am of the continuing days all the highways clear as a picture & me looking for dreams, searching out certain people

in half-sleep, they wont move their voices move (135)

July 13

The royal sky’s way before autumn it’s a phony drop. Woke

up wondered where ed was found a better pen & it’s a new day (136)

I have coffee & last night’s lemon pie the thruway pie. (136)

& shadows haze out the bathroom windows we went together

we eat our old window late afternoon shadows (137)

the sun is pure white, a little lemon in it, I was holding them

on, by hand, like this: yellow gleams yellow tawny, the color

of gold butter or ripe lemons, changed to a yellowish color

(142)

It may happen that the order set up for the original experience works for the new experience that we have that we now have

& the parts that are added can again be seen as just instances

of the order we set up as a result or something of the original experience & if that happens we have no reason to change our order our design. (142)

I was holding them on, those games, jokes all the time, nothing to do with time, what can a diary be not a reconstruction, something put in, use the time, pass it, stain it, pass it, it’s stained, it’s magnified, it sticks, it sticks in my mind & my

hand always hurts (142-143)

Everyday, I’m saying there are no days, of, we’ve made too much of days and, thinking & write another way, it’s changed, special, special social tea, special milk, special tea, open the

teas & make too much of them, grass, what is that leaves of

grass growing? (143)

large white-flowered shrub in a mate tea cup (143)

July 14

when anne & jonathan were visiting we walked around with justine who ran out of shoes & later I ran out of shoes & we found the same solution, shoes for 29cents (144)

the sky is colorless where pictures make double exposures

(145)

I’m lost so lost hot lost can you be when everywhere you go

it’s morning & the sun’s coming up over a map (145)

everybody got a new door, gp had to get one too even though

we had one of the most beautiful doors in the world, but marauders marauders might break through the fine heavy

glass, part of the front door was glass & so it had to go (146)

& she acts like life if shit is at least cute (146)

a clear blue sky towards evening puffy white clouds thick in

the middle with streamers, the day doesnt always deserve its

sky (146)

the candle not lit now that lit baton rouge & it was & still is mounted on a ricotta can from alleva which is mounted on the phone book so’s to reach baton rouge by fire when it’s lit & it must’ve been still (149)

a gratuitous fire the veins of my hands are bulging, there’s a brown paper bag on the table & a potato a tomato an apple coffee cup rope two candles mounted on jars, one an old blue brioschi jar hannibal with the label taken off (149)

no limits but light or darkness is all myself under the blue

lamp it’s more I mean less than an ellipse a gibbous moon

above my head making light,my face old my hair orange my arms tan in an army green shirt, I hadnt seen myself that day (149)

Ed smiles in the yellow pose, one of him there & now he’s above himselves (150)

I am the imp of the perverse I have nothing to lose, this is addressed to you rose of the sea, marie & rose-marie our secrets yellow on a black field on a field (150)

Do you want to know what the dress is like? I’ll describe it later. (154)

July 15

find a faster way to get to the line that goes in all directions flame no continuing space a space to live in flame (161)

& I’m much more at home here black with blue notebook,

store it up, than in the country passive in the city sit back &

be in pain (162)

& we come in laughing & we file in laughing & we seem

much younger than psychology & I write the end of a note

to michael says I cant believe that anything in the outside

world is that important I surely didnt do anything vicious love

& I’m still awake at dawn for the fields to watch me & the

field watches me, ed’s back the field (167)

July 16

some very very ordinary weeds I’m down the hill red berries

& who cares they got a laugh I was roaming around from just inside the forest wall (175)

ed plays the cello I put blue notebook down on a big white

car at the theater next to someone’s shadow & a red bag

floating (175)

July 17

I tried to make everything yellow & still catch purple. I tried

to make yellow keep its yellow against the sky. (176)

The sun set. I put something on the stove. I scrambled eggs. I looked at the tape deck. I put something more on the stove:

this is what really happened reading backwards. Dinners I’m supposed to go to dinner I already went I go again & again in long addresses in long dresses, to, we take acid before a dinner & then lose track, or, take acid before a dinner then lose track (176)

sneaking around sounds to which you listen with both ears, listen, they’re nesting under the roof out front we saw their

ears & ed’s doing the dishes listen it’s orange water gun in

alford close to the state line, I get the blue toothbrush ed gets

the elegant tan colorless one (179)

& the answer is me in spite of myself: women reading backwards. Where the fuck are the men when you need them?

I hate x here & I’m glad I dont take very good care of a good notebook put to good use these days & I’d hate a lot of other men too if I knew them (179)

& havent paid the rent yet well have you ever & keeping track

of the moon’s wounds helps remind you to pay the rent soon (179)

I take colorless pictures cause green is not a color & lose more style in my right arm than in left (179)

& well jealousy is all you own jealousy & some jalousie windows & I’ve brought in the dictionary as I’m into it & is

it easy how easy questions run into each other into how questions run each other into great walls (180)

2. This fly on my page like orange & this orange comes off

on your fingers (180)

my golden foot is a bit ouch: pink garage the fly’s on me now I’m the fly 2 flies love me (183)

sauce & coffee lemon lemonade whirrs, tree noise tree tone (183)

when we were waiting for breakfast in the bathtub & so depressed about being here that there were pictures I couldnt take & that was the night we stayed up all night willow trees waving doors slamming them some days are longer than others & someone says it might take a while it might have some value we have to have everything together or half each including a tree a chance to do something an involving yourself in something, let’s go. (184).

Peggy drinks courvoisier, the pen got caught in my hair (187).