Houston Open Sky #1

 

     Since mid June we had agreed to realize the end of Cartel meeting about Semblant on the 2nd of July 2010, but that day a storm hit the city of Houston. Hurricane Alex produced an emergency in Houston and made the cartelizands, as a whole, decide to reschedule for the 5th of July; it would be held at the same place and time.

Finally, that day we held our open sky meeting and, yes, actually the sky was open and clear. Afterwards, we had a nice and clear day in Houston, with much light. We feel sensitive for those affected by the devastation caused by the hurricane.

Here we present some comments and notes about the meeting; listening to the exposition of works was a wonderful experience.

Carmen Navarro opened the meeting making a pleasant introduction, mentioning the meeting was being realized under the Houston Freudian Field Library-FIBOL Member- egis and its registration in NEL Miami. C. Navarro communicated greetings received through email from Mrs. Judith Miller; also, she presented an issue of the “Hurly Burly, April 2010”, text well known by some of the presents for it was introduced by her during a recent HFFL reunion. Next she explained what the motive of the reunion was and what a cartel must be like such as it was conceived by J. Lacan. A Cartel’s work is a very particular experience which opens new possibilities for every cartelizand.

Following exposition corresponded to the “plus one” Mercedes Negron, who made an interesting explanation of what the plus one function is, she made some remarks about the “Symptom Partenaire”, then allowing every cartelizand to expose their works in alphabetical order and finally chaired the meeting and the debates arising from every exposition.

Marianela Bermudez-Cuns presented a well structured work related to “Semblant and Religion”, her cartel subject, which helped us reinforce the importance of religion to a subject. Initially, she talked about her difficulties to analyze her cartel’s subject and provided concepts about what is understood as religion. An interesting debate arose which clarified that subjects find refuge in diverse religions in an attempt to cover for the lack at being. She made comments about the analyst’s position in relation to religion as a symptom. She made questions related to the relation with religion after analysis as a cartel’s effect. Through debate it became evident that possibly sometimes religion makes symptom in some subjects. Guilt associated to religion was also discussed.

Edgar Marin To initiate elaborations on his cartel’s subjects “Semblant, Partenaire and Masculine Position” E. Marin posed the following questions: 1. what is semblant, is it the face? 2. Can a man in a masculine position be partner to a woman in the same position?  And he made an enunciation: “You have a good semblant, maybe your unconscious is at its minimum”. To answer these questions, he presented a metaphorical condensation of his research, which he synthesized in a poem that caused exclamations of surprise and admiration, it even caused a categorical disagreement with one of the poem’s phrases in one of the persons present, who, in her legitimate right to disagree, expressed: Why to surrender my soul?. The feelings calmed down when it was explained to her that a poem isn’t an edict, it is not a mandate, it is an expression similar to an art work, which is not subject to interpretation, and a poem is an interpretation itself. Somebody suggested changing the poem, to which the exponent, in surprise, said it wasn’t possible and admitted the poem was even longer but after some thought he decided to present only this part.

Carmen Navarro-Nino animated us to transit the journey to understanding with her work about “Being Semblant”. She made a personal elaboration and expressed it on a diagram, in which she explained, in three parts, how a subject can gain access to the “Being there open to the world” through analysis, but not without a Semblant. In questioning about “Being”, she went through various Greek philosophers citations previous to the first century B.C. and Martin Heidegger from the 20th century. In an end of analysis, the desire to know propitiates the lack at being and the making Semblant of “Being there open to the world”, also being knotted to the school and to the work in cartels. Debate was propitiated in the question “is it true there is a change of Semblant as an effect of analysis?” a J. Lacan’s citation from the J. Cazote’s text “The devil in love” showed how an individual at the beginning of analysis can present himself in such a way that the Cazote’s expression “How can you present yourself in such an horrendous form, you senseless?” “You called me”, that is the in love devil’s answer. Carmen Navarro expressed how different ages previous to the 20th century were when Internet didn’t exist, we heard someone say, “Please give the bibliography, and I want to read Lacan”.

Luis F Nino explained brilliantly the theme “Semblant, Formation and Knowledge”, which produced a debate about the difficulties professors, in the USA, have to propitiate work transference, where majority of them don’t take into account the particularities of students. He showed how there is an ethical impossibility of a personal social bond between students and professors. It is convenient to facilitate the social bond of the student to the educational institution and to knowledge, in linkage to the particular talents of students. It was debated that sometimes the Semblant of a teacher as a master of knowledge demanded from professors is not the most convenient, because this doesn’t propitiate the advance of the individual talents of students.

Several attendants expressed their desire to conform new cartels at the end of the meeting. Every cartelizand gave a copy of the works to the plus one for publication.