Monday, September 21, 2009

"I do not suppose there can be much difference for Nadja between the inside of a sanitarium and the outside"

Update:
Upon finishing "Nadja" i have been curiously wondering... "what ever happened to Nadja after she was commited into the insane asylum?"... and "why was Breton so nonchalant upon hearing that she had been incarcerated... she was his muse... his obsession... why was he ok with this?!... why did he not do anything?"
I wonder why so many (horrible) things can happen... and we can just be ok with it...


I find parallels in themes of misogyny running concurrent with "Malleus Maleficarum"...

THE SIXTH METHOD. PRONOUNCING SENTENCE ON A WOMAN WHO IS UNDER GRAVE SUSPICION.

"First on top of the clothes you are wearing, you are to put on a blue-dyed garment shaped like a monk's scapular without a hood at the front or back. It is to have crosses [made] from bits of yellow cloth, three palms long and two wide. You must wear this garment on top of all your other clothes for ____" (a period of one year or two years should be stipulated, the longer or shorter time depending on what the offender's guilt requires). "In addition to this, you must stand, wearing the said garment and crosses, in the doorway of ____ (church), at ____(time), for ____(period)"; or "on the four principal feasts of the glorious Virgin"; or, "in ____(cities), in the doorways of _ ____ (church or churches). We also condemn you by this judicial sentence to ____(prison) in perpetuity", or "for ____(time)".

I have also been thinking about/looking into the (forced) self immolation of women
This is touched on in the seminal piece "Can the Subaltern Speak?" written by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

the photo below is Afghan women of Herat, victims of self immolation - their attempted suicides through this means was to escape a life of hopelessness under gender apartheid



resources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/08/world/for-more-afghan-women-immolation-is-escape.html?sec=health&spon=&pagewanted=1
http://monetslilies.typepad.com/the_blackbird_whistling_o/womens_issues/


Dreams:
"a chance encounter between a sewing machine and an umbrella"

I (remember) dreams in fragments...
as i crossed an unfamiliar threshold with an unfamiliar figure in a flash of light my neck was severed cutting my head from the rest of body, however as i carefully concentrated and continued to walk as though I was unafflicted it remained still attached though a clear delineation was present and slowing producing thin ribbons of crimson...
i climbed a series of stairs which progressively became unstable so much so that I was dangling high above the local Shop Rite where thousands of police officers (including my father) stood below just staring at my frightened body dangling from a rope...
i squeezed my eyes shut and profusely thought in my mind, willing my scalp to regrow my (old long) hair, after several times of repeating this process, my hair grew back down to its normal length only much thinner, frail, brittle and deep red...
I dream in fragments...
I create in fragments...

Visual Memory:
"One small step for stĂșlkan; one giant leap towards the Motherland"

this is an image of my first glance at a place where I finally felt accepted and a part of something....

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