Savvy,Tmesis, 1.22.09

Tmesis, the gap. Every time we read text and we read onto the next word, in our brain we are in the process of rewriting what we are actually reading. By this point, Dr. Casey was referring to the gap. During this process we are allowing for our own thoughts to intemperate the text. I suppose that this is why there can be so many interpretations people can take from text. We are connecting the text and interpreting it because of our own experiences we have had in our lives. This is why I liked Dr. Casey's point that the author can never really know how the audience is going to interperate the meaning of his words. Barthes states, "The author cannot predict tmesis" (109). The author cannot know how what he says will be interpreted by the audience.
This idea could really be seen with the "Short Story" exercise that we did in the beginning of class. It was very interesting to listen to my peers to see how they interpreted the words differently from what I did. I found it really interesting when we kept adding on to the words "short story" and with the addition of those words the meaning changed. In this way we are injecting ourselves into the text like Dr.Casey said.
Another idea that we touched upon in class that I thought was important was the idea of what entices us in texts. Barthes quote on page 108, "Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment grapes?" The images of Marilyn Monroe and Richard Geere were very good examples of Barthes idea. I agree with Barthes in the sense that it is the "peep show", the mystery that entices us. A naked picture of Marilyn Monroe and Richard Geere would not be as seductive.
We cannot help the way that we intemperate text. "The pleasure of the text is that moment when my body pursues its own ideas for my body does not have the same ideas I do"(111). Barthes is referring to how often, the body is saying one thing and the mind is telling us another. It is about the tension and excitement in the text.