In an attempt to explode the text (EXPLODE SUBJECTIVITY Stacey Margolis Addiction and the Ends of Desire)—break it a part to expand the gaps (ISER) and color them in/write them in/examine them/hear them/see them—we will explore the phenomenon of the parenthetical clause.
What is in the parenthetical clause? Information that is both subject to and absent from the text at hand. Q: Can an author fill in his own gaps? Does this not violate in some small way the ideal of plurality and multiple voices that Barthes espouses? Who told him he could fill in his own gaps?! They physically separate text from text. They stretch it; keep it open.
<- StReTcHiNg* ->
See how the image distorts? Parenthetical clauses distort the meaning. They refer to other texts; they elongate it. They are a side note. Q: Do side notes imply a central text? Yes, they do. But there is no central structure to writing: only play. PLAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY
PLAY
Silly Puddy IS play! Stretching it is play.
You cannot side note a text; this implies a stable all-powerful writing that dominates all other writing. NO! No writing is more important than any other; no writing dominates all others. http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtbloom.html Fuck you, Bloom. No Canon of literature, but thanks.
The parenthetical clause is a device through which we offer an alternative to the linear text. Q: What does it mean to represent text in silence? Represent presence in absence? Is this not reading in itself? We read sounds but do not actually hear them, Read people but do not actually see them, Read emotions but do not actually feel them. ¡*INTERJECTION! THOSE WHO FAIL TO REREAD ARE OBLIGED TO READ THE SAME STORY EVERYWHERE If we do not reread we perpetuate numbness to text. We mime feeling; we mime seeing, we mime hearing. We become robots. REMIX: This is the essence of oppression: that other races and other genders is represented in absence, in “other” to that which is present. (I’m thinking Heart of Darkness anyone?! Conrad. Also McKenzie Wark The Weird Global Media Event and the Tactical Intellectual when the reader discovers the discussions of “Wedom” vs. “Theydom.”) Q: Is the parenthetical clause a symbol of oppression? A tool of the oppressor? The author as enslaving his/her reader? Language as a prison? (Chun lecture)
*http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_can_an_upside_down_exclamation_point_be_created_using_the_keyboardI had to navigate to this site to figure out how to produce the upside down exclamation point. ** Isn’t that weird that I had to use the internet to tell me how to produce my own text? I had to type in text to get text. (Recursive structure, Vannevarr Bush, As We May Think: repetition, recursive structures, knowledge disseminated.) Are we just reproducing our own culture over and over again? Perhaps not, since I was able to find a different language via my own through the internet. The internet connects different languages, different cultures. Does this make the world smaller? Boundaries are blurring. Good thing we still have the parenthetical clause to divide text up! It is rather ironic that as I exclaim that we are becoming robots, I use one to figure out how to communicate that very statement. Q: Hypocritical? Hypocritical implies that meaning is always fixed, but it changes. I change. What I believe and what I think changes. What I know changes. Do not hold my person responsible for my writing. Author is divorced from writing. (Roland Barthes ((well, would ya look at that?! Barthes within Barthes! More recursivity)) The Death of the Author) You cannot make an assumption about me based on my writing. I am as fluid as that which I write. REMIX: I thus removed the “About me” section in my blog. The text runs through me, creates me. ¡INTERJECTION! Text as fluid, as constantly mobile.But parenthetical clauses implicate that text has a definitive space. It has to break text apart. OR maybe parenthetical clauses are a Godly intervention—like Moses parting the seas:
That even looks like a parenthetical clause! Was God just utilizing his own form of parenthetical clause when he let the Jews escape Egypt? (The Bible as a literary text that we interpret: David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, translated by George Eliot.) ¡Interjection! Back then, before the Internet, scholars brought different languages and cultures together through reading and translation. Does the human translate differently than the robot? Q: Does the robot read differently than we do? Yes, of course, right? Because we interpret via associative thought? That is our privilege? (Vannevar Bush again, As We May Think)
** I like the upside down exclamation point because it signifies an immediate interjection or emphasis instead of prolonging that signification til the end of the statement or sentence.Why do we have to wait til the end to understand the whole? “THIS HAPPENS BEFOREOR AFTER”
REMIX: We want to make sure that reading is not just silent passivity—like meaning represented in absence as we discussed earlier. Text is action ¡INTERJECTION! Remember in all those movies and cheesy books how people would differentiate between words and action?They would prioritize action over words, behavior over speech. Showing “I love you,” was better than saying “I love you.” Well, what happens now that text has become action? You can facebook message; you can even literally TEXT someone! This is an action now. This goes beyond the basic speech act; it is an act in itself. When I text a boy, “Hey what are you up to tonight?” I am exhibiting a behavior. I am performing a booty call. Digital media has transformed words into action.
Furthermore, if text is action, so too should reading. Reading is an action; you are creating a dialog, a text of your own. Thus, rereading is not mere repetition; it an action by which we negotiate our own texts, our own actions.
Let’s examine some parenthetical clauses!
In order of MY importance as reader in my own right:
(children, old people, and professors) OUCH! Sorry, professors, that our society so greatly undervalues you. Two opposite walks of life and then professors somewhere sandwiched in between there.
(“devoured”)—learning as consumption? Not according to Professor Chun. We are actually consumed by learning. http://brown.mochacourses.com/mocha/main.jsp Shopping period is a misguided term then. It really is “Sampling period.” But these two terms denote the same action! Yet by speaking them differently, by reading them differently we make them different.
Also, “devoured” is at the heart of desire, it is at the heart of my thesis. MY thesis. That’s right.On vampires. I would direct you there via hyperlink but to do so would be to sacrifice my privileges as both reader and author.
REMIX ¡Interjection! The internet as destroying writing privileges? Blurring the line between author and reader. Both author and reader as anonymous? More blurring of boundaries, ok.
(“this happens before or after that”) Chronology implies the linear, which is what this blog and what Barthes seeks to decentralize à (that play which is the return of the different). Q: Why didn’t Barthes cite Derrida here? The notion of play and decentralizing is not his own!Everything is play, and thus the chain between signified and signifier is disrupted, disheveled,
JUMBLED
THEREFORE
(that of recommencement, of different). Difference is how we decipher language. It is through difference between signified and signifier that language and culture mediates. We can PLAAAAYYYY with difference. Difference is associative thought at its best. We desire difference, conflict, difference, uniqueness, difference. We desire that which is not cliché, that which is not represented. The parenthetical clause is desirable. It’s different from the text.Difference is our ideology.
AND LASTLY, MOST IMPORTANTLY, WHAT I LOVED MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS PIECE…
Q: Is this not eternal damnation for the scholar?
*I just forced you to reread. Does this detract from your rereading experience? Did you resist me? Did you skip over it being that you saw the same visual representation three times and that signaled to your brain to move along without rereading? Are we so averse to rereading?
We create change and difference through rereading. We construct different texts, we find different themes, we explore different metaphors. We desire change. This tenet of consumer culture is at odds with Barthes’s declaration that rereading is antithetical to our society.Perhaps we need to advertise rereading differently. Maybe it’s not rereading at all. Maybe this is understanding.
WHY DID HE PUT THIS STATEMENT IN PARENTHESIS?! Does not Barthes see that this is the most important part of his text? Do we live the same story over and over again if we do not reread? Are we doomed to construct the same narrative over and over again?
¡INTERJECTION! And Q: Are we more apt to watch movies over again than reread text? I think so. Are we rereading movies or shutting off our brains and plugging into a matrix? Is this a personal choice?
(those who fail to reread are obliged to read the same story everywhere)
REMIX: Ironic that by a process of repetition we save ourselves from repetition.
REMIX: “Everywhere” is the internet. “Nowhere” is the internet. Both of these do not occupy definitive space. ¡INTERJECTION! Virtual space.
I do not want to read the same story everywhere. Your parenthetical clause is my death sentence.
