weather sunny

After weeks of misery and rain, we get warm weather. The woodpigeons coo. A bird flies past from left to right; it is a silhouette-shaped flash of brown. The sky is a pale blue hue, with wispy streaks of cloud superimposed like the tail ends of fairy floss.

barthes, s/z

In 1830, the French writer Honoré de Balzac published a short story called 'Sarrasine' about a cross-dressing singer.

In 1970, the French semiotician, cultural critic and homosexual Roland Barthes published a structuralist study of Balzac's short story called S/Z. Here is Barthes, explaining the use of the solidus, or slash, in his title.

Barthes on slash (hoho)
The slash has a panic function. 'It is the slash of censure, the surface of the mirror, the wall of hallucination, the verge of antithesis, the abstraction of limit, the obliquity of the signifier, the index of the paradigm, hence of meaning.'

*paradigasms*

God, I now want to issue a challenge of ever single one of these. 'Write a fic about the slash of censure.' 'Write a fic about the verge of antithesis.' 'Write a fic that explores the abstraction of limit.'

*spontaneously combusts*

What I love is the irreverent combination of high theory with boys fucking. The obliquity of the signifier! The narrative possibilities!!

I might, just might, actually try my hand at one of these. And probably kill myself in the process. Each one of these could be fic titles: The Wall of Hallucination, McKay/Wraith, NC-17; The Slash of Censure, Sheppard/Caldwell, angst.; The Abstraction of Limit, Ronon/Zelenka, R.