For Seminar on Rice's chapter "Appropriation": What the . . .?

Something in me says that this is way over theorizing. I am about 2/3 the way through the article. I have taken one nap and I have been reading for nearly two hours. Yes, I am a slow reader, but this is a really slowly written article, full of words like "foregrounding" (what the hell does foregrounding mean?) and "recontextualizing," and "reinscription" and "topos." I find what Rice has to say interesting, but at some point, the point he is making is just taking too much work to get there. My whole aescetic sensibility (ah, now I sound like Rice--or perhaps more like that old foggie Wayne Booth) when it comes to writing and communication in general is, does it work? And frankly, much of what he is talking about, Burrough's "cut-up" does not work and will not work as much as we want it to work in writing.

I love Burroughs. I have a t-shirt with his picture on it. I should cut it up. But I've never really read much of Burroughs' work because it is too hard, too cut up, doesn't make a lot of narrative sense to me. The cut-up method may work great for movies, for painting, for music--but for writing? I'm not sure. Yes, it will, as experimentation, for sure, and great works will employ its method. But I just don't get the paranoia around making coherent sense?

I do understand that as writers experiment with narrative and cohesion, those that are really good at it will help shape the structure of thinking in the end. But, here's something I'm not too sure about: "As a writing strategy, its purpose is to undemine the dominant ideology of a given text, to reduce 'control symbols pounded to word and image dust; crumpled cloth boides of the vast control machine" (63).

I'm not naive. I understand that rhetorical structures are part of a power structure and appropriation of the cool can be a power play by the powers that be to deceptively include the marginalized (and the cool) while actually maintaining power by siphoning off the cool for themselves. On the other hand, what happens if there really is a revolution? What happens if there really is drastic, radical change of social order and an action that strips away the corporate greed and insidious tyranny of the corporate capitalistic beast? Will the leaders of this revolution lead the masses with rallies of cut-up rhetoric? Will the inspirational text of the revolution be split into four parts so that the actual order and cohesion of the message is deliberately decodified so that no one can understand what the ?+%* is going on?

I feel I am being cynnical and perhaps being old foggie (how do you spell that word?)here, but I just wonder what would have happened to the speaches of Dr. King if he had employed cut-up?

Now, with paintings, music, even plays, I can see it. I get it. Picasso did it. MTV did it. Becket did it. But they don't lose the story when they do. My fear is, what happens to the story? What happens to science? What happens to history? (okay--history could use some cut up--needs a jolt.) I'm just a little put off by all the theorizing when an artist, a writer, basically has a point to make and the point will be made by whatever means possible, but it should not be made at the expense of the enjoyment or the message itself--otherwise, what is the point? Are we supposed to be outraged by advertising appropriating cool? By white society appropriating black cool? Can Dick Cheney be cool? Would we be pissed off if he actually were?

Enough said. I'll contradict myself on the issue tomorrow. Maybe I should finish the article first.