NewYorker 4/10

Today's class exercise with the dictionaries was by far the best class yet. Not only did it get individuals involved, but it really got me thinking. When Max said the word "cookie," i immediately constructed a definition in my head. I'm sure all of us did, and I'm sure all of our definitions were different, even though we all know what it is and what it means. However, when we heard aloud what the dictionary had to say, it totally blew my mind. "A semi flat piece of sweet dough" was roughly the definition I remember - and one that was not at all similar to my definition of the word. And then towards the end, you brought up a point about how it could've been the other cookie - the type that has to do with computers, but not one dictionary acknowledged that definition. Further, even defining some of the words that defined Cookie was interesting - finding out that dough is made of flour/flower? which is made up of a "meal" of "embryos!?" We all started laughing at how absured this exercise made the English language seem. If only we could incorporate the French term "differance" - Microsoft Word won't even let me type that into my computer - that word is on auto fix! But I definitely give you credit for such great and impressive improv skills - to know which word in a definition to highlight, and look that up, then further look up another word, etc, until we found that the farther we got from the origin (or Ur) the more we lost the original meaning, and erasure occured. I definitely have a firmer grasp and understanding of Derrida now because of class today. I am interested to see where the conversation will lead to next time, when you are presenting the letter "alef." As of now, I think I know what it means/ its connection, but I can't wait to hear the lecture on it.
Further, a classmate and I were talking about today's class, how we took a random, and simple word (that we all knew since we were kids) and riffed on it and its definition. We began just talking to each other in terms learned from class, and started laughing about how academic we sounded, and that only us, having taken this class, could understand what we were saying.