Derrida's Sunnyside Salad

Graphic Design - TJS Labs

Once upon a time when I was a not-so-earnest college English major some people I knew used to talk about Texts Reading Themselves. I never knew what that meant, which is part of the reason I am here typing drivel about gelatin ads and not teaching somewhere. Instead I perfected a little comedy routine wherein I had an exam write itself while I took a nap. Quality entertainment it wasn't. Which brings me to this slightly addled and confusing post, which I'm just going to put Out There and see what happens. Please don't try to deconstruct it, though. That would not work out at all.

Derrida would love some Jell-O

 

I'm pretty sure that the whole Self Reading Text thing was related to literary criticism (don't get me started) and probably to Derrida (really, I mean it, don't). Actually, it probably didn't have anything to do with Derrida. The connection? My hopeless, foggy sense that I really just wanted to read and analyze Victorian novels in a historical context.

Jacques Derrida says that there is nothing outside the text. So that must apply to ads, too, right? I see some text right over there. So there is nothing but gelatin salad. Gelatin salad is a whole world unto itself. And it is the perfect dessert for pineapple lovers and philosophers alike. In case you happen to have some of each over for a riveting dinner party.

Anyway, I have never claimed to be able to cajole texts into reading themselves, or into doing anything else (too bad they can't write a few posts for me). Nor was I ever able to deconstruct anything more significant than a stale non-Sunnyside Jell-O cube, which bounces if you put it in a glass of Sprite.*

But now I can offer the critically adept a delicious meta-dessert: the Sunnyside Salad, which almost makes itself. Almost? Not good enough. It needs to take a few more seminars, I guess.

*I don't think you can do this with Sunnyside Salad, though.