Cultural mise-en-abyme

Getting lost in Kristevan abjection and thinking a lot of my own limits of the abject, I ended up with a melancholic feeling about US. Last night I had a long conversation in a Thai-Hungarian restaurant about facing other cultures and what is going on in the process. My argument was that the most difficult shocks are those when you are not foreign to the culture but you have a sort of mise-en-abyme by confronting your own lack of cultural limits. It was exactly what I felt in US: on one hand I was so familiar with everything that I saw and touched but on the other hand it was so strange and uncanny. I wasn't sure of my own subjectivity and its abject limits. Being in and out of a culture that you think you know hugely disturbs. My dear friend, Jeanne, writes here a very interesting entry on her return to Memphis. No wonder that today I had an earlier post on Burroughs' vision of America.

Jeanne is back

Jeanne is in Germany now and she has a blog. Check it out here. I always liked her style of writing and now she is here with some fresh and captivating stuff. I hope she won't get bored too quick...

There is also a post about Jehanne Complex, a post that is full of memories for me. It was really amazing to work on this performance, to construct it step by step, to talk a lot, rehearse and drink coffees together for hours and hours. And I really miss that type of chemistry. The post goes like this:

"Retrospective Thoughts on Jehanne Complex
2 November 2008
The repeated rehearsing of something does not lead to lack of catharsis with each performance. This I learned clearly. The throwing of everything up and down again. Giving. Self-obsession or self–entrenchment again and again. But, it is also investment FOR people, as well as a self-congratulations. (Initial inspiration and motives, in the end, are perhaps not so important.)
First scene: “My name is Jeanne, and I’ve just eaten a hamburger.” Black men’s suit, tie, shoes and skull cap with white button-down shirt. I carry a Burger King meal bag containing a whopper, French fries, a coke and a Heinz ketchup bottle. I walk around the stage, staring at the audience suspiciously, after closing the white curtains making up the stage’s backdrop. Meditative, Middle-Eastern-sounding music comes on and I remove my shoes and meditate. After I can relax and control my breathing, I emerge from my meditation and begin to unpack the meal bag. I spread a lot of ketchup over the whopper, set out the French fries and coke, and begin to eat. I always ate three big bites of the burger (it affected my digestion).
Second scene: Microphone “Close to the town where I was born, there is a tree known as the ladies’ tree. It’s a great beech tree, centuries old. In the shade of its branches, there is a spring. In the month of Mary, children decorate the branches of the ladies’ tree with garlands. They sit beside the spring and eat together. I did that with my friends, but I never saw or heard tell of dwarfs or any other creatures of the devil… God’s voices haunt me. They never do leave me in peace. They are constantly encouragin’ and pushin’ me.” The microphone has ghosts that trick me. I speak into one and the other one produces sound. My voice is manipulated and distorted…a sort of comedy.
Third scene: Shaving The legs, like a girl, then the face, like a boy. Jehanne was sexually ambiguous with no period bleeding and breasts, and a mission from “God”. I contemplatively shave one calf in silence…getting some shaving cream on my chin, I begin to rub it along my jaw. Gospel song of “Run on for a long, long time…” I felt like a hero preparing for battle. Like Jehanne before leading an army. But then, my tormentors arrive…"