The Pleasure Of The Text

The other afternoon, I was discussing French theorist Roland Barthes' spectacular The Pleasure Of The Text with a friend. This short book is probably my favorite work of literary theory. It combines semiotics with a grand discussion of texts and their intermittent nature. As with most of Barthes' work, it is also about numerous other things. In this case, it is romance and sexuality which seems to come up occasionally. Barthes, rumored to be asexual himself, discusses romance and sexuality in the same terms that he discusses texts. Both are a jangled web of connections and intermittent ideas, never showing too much but always indicating there is something more hidden beneath.

Anyhow, one quote from near the beginning of the book has stayed with me since I finished my reading. This quote sums up how I feel about a few different things:

Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes? In perversion (which is the realm of textual pleasure) there are no “erogenous zones” (a foolish expression, besides); it is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has so rightly stated, which is erotic: the intermittence of skin flashing between two articles of clothing (trousers and sweater), between two edges (the open-necked shirt, the glove and the sleeve); it is this flash itself which seduces, or rather: the staging of an appearance-as-disappearance. (10)

Weekly Reader

  1. According to her monthly Web Site column, Jeanette Winterson is creating a children’s show for the BBC.

  2. Veronica Esposito on the role of research in Infinite Jest. Also see the comment section for some discussion from myself and others on the difference between the sort of notes Wallace and Borges created for their imaginary works.

  3. Jacket Copy on John Barth’s The Floating Opera

  4. Henry Jenkins on the role of fan fiction as critical commentary on texts.

  5. The new issue of Open Letters is, as always, worth your time.

June Running

June brought terrible weather (we had record amounts of rain) and a few pretty adventurous runs.  One took me through a few inches of rapidly moving water on Nautilus Ave. and some interesting hops through puddles on other days.  I’ve enjoyed the warmer weather in the last week or two because the sun feels nice in the early evening and warmer conditions push me to run harder and faster.

For the month I averaged about 7.5 minutes per mile.  My two best times were somewhere in the middle of the month.  Afterwards, I actually went up a lot for two consecutive runs and then back down.  I ended the month with my best mile time of the year.

Since school has gotten out, I seem to keep running past students of mine who are walking somewhere or another.  I’ve had my name screamed out of moving cars three times since the beginning of June.

 

#dh09 & #thatcamp

For the past week or so, I have followed the tweets from two conferences: Digital Humanities 09 and That Camp (An “unconference”  Here is a good explanation of what that means).  Due to some monetary constraints, I was unable to attend but could follow what was happening in real time due to the massive amount of posts on Twitter by attendees via the hash tags #dh09 and #thatcamp.  I was able to interact with them, comment on what was happening along side, and meet new friends and Twitter followers.

Twitter has really changed conferences.  For years I have always kicked myself when I miss an interesting conference.  Live blogging has made this less painful, but real time coverage on Twitter really changes how people not even at the conference can interact with presenters and attendees.  I was definitely not the only non-attendee commenting and asking questions to people in attendance.

Soon, I will have a number of posts commenting on topics I read about on the #dh09 and #thatcamp tags.  For now, the notes Digilib posted for various panels is a good place to start.  After this week’s discourse, I am more proud of the Digital Humanities than I have ever been before; clearly this was the right direction for me to take and I hope to begin a career in it soon.

 

Weekly Reader

  • The Guardian on interactive fiction, partnerships between authors and game developers, and a little bit of Douglas Adams.
  • Laurie Halse Anderson is interviewed for her new novel Wintergirls.
  • Open Letters reviews a recently Broadway performance of Waiting For Godot.
  • Kathleen Fitzpatrick on the recent collaboration between HASTAG and MLA on new tenure guidelines.

    • Add Firefox To Jaunty Notifications In 9.04

    I like the new visual notifications in Ubuntu 9.04’s panel.  However, this only works for selected processes and programs.  An Ubuntu user has created an extension to add Firefox notifications to Jaunty’s panel.  This is very useful and will hopefully lead to other programs adapting similar extensions.

    (Or do they already?  Is there an easier way to get my programs to use Jaunty’s notifications in the panel?)

     

    May Running

    Since I started running more seriously, and consistently, about two years ago I’ve meant to start blogging about my experience.  I’ll try to do this each month when I am clearing my monthly Google Doc spreadsheet to begin a new one.

    In May I made great strides towards lowering my mile time.  I am running 1.5 miles, four or five days a week, depending on some factors, and feel great doing it.  Last summer I moved up to two miles per run, but had slowed down a bit during the winter.  At the beginning of May, I was averaging a bit over eight minutes per mile.  By the time the end of the month, I was down to a little over seven and a half minutes, which included my best mile time ever.

    I’ll post an update each month or more often if readers have ideas for posts.  I don’t really follow running culture too much, so I am not that clued into what bloggers typically write about in regards to running.